Recommended External SSD for a 2019 iMac? Storage of Audio files.

[Minimalist_81]

Good Morning Everyone,

Hope you’re all safe and well and keeping yourselves occupied as best as possible during the current lockdown.

I’m new to the forum and this is only my second post around here since joining last week.

For those of you that didn’t see my first post on Ableton and the Push 2 in the ‘Gear & Techniques’ section, i’ll just briefly touch on that here.

Complete beginner to Music Production. Setting up a little home studio to start making some electronic / house music.

I’ve recently purchased a 2019 iMac 21.5”, 3.0 GHz, 6 core with the 1TB fusion drive.

I’d like some recommendations on a good external SSD to store all my audio files and samples. I will be using Ableton with the Push 2, so nothing complex at the moment as I want to keep things relatively simple whilst I learn and master the basics ... which may take some time!

What do you guys use, and what is your current setup?

As a guideline, I have a budget of £100 - £150.

Any suggestions and advice is greatly welcomed and appreciated.

Cheers!

[IAA]

Hi, and welcome

I use a couple of these for my studio Mac, https://www.samsung.com/uk/memory-storage/portable-ssd-t5/MU-PA1T0BEU/

They’re very portable so I have my bigger sample libraries on in case I am on the move. Remember to format for macOS extended rather than mess about with the Samsung utilities.

[Minimalist_81]

Hi, and welcome

I use a couple of these for my studio Mac, https://www.samsung.com/uk/memory-storage/portable-ssd-t5/MU-PA1T0BEU/

They’re very portable so I have my bigger sample libraries on in case I am on the move. Remember to format for macOS extended rather than mess about with the Samsung utilities.

Good Morning mate,

Thanks for posting.

I have an old Glyph GT050Q for all my music, but I want something completely separate to store all my audio samples and for anything music production related.

The Glyph drive is excellent, but their SSD range can be super expensive.

Is it advisable and efficient to run all the software from the 1TB fusion drive?

I will certainly check out the Samsung drives and read through the reviews.

Cheers!

[James Perrett]

I know Pete Kaine from Scan has said good things about the Samsung Evo 860 internal SSD's (I bought one on the strength of his recommendation) so hopefully the external ones are as good.

[Minimalist_81]

I know Pete Kaine from Scan has said good things about the Samsung Evo 860 internal SSD's (I bought one on the strength of his recommendation) so hopefully the external ones are as good.

Morning James,

I’ve been looking at the Samsung Drives and having a read through some of the reviews online.

I’m just trying to find out what most people are using in their setup. I’ll probably pick up a 1TB external in the next couple of weeks once I’ve done a bit more research.

Would be great to get a bit more advice regarding what to look for in a good drive? Specs etc.

Cheers!

[IAA]

Read times is what you need to check, the faster the better.

[ConcertinaChap]

I know Pete Kaine from Scan has said good things about the Samsung Evo 860 internal SSD's (I bought one on the strength of his recommendation) so hopefully the external ones are as good.

You don't have to buy external drives. You can get an internal drive and mount it in an enclosure. Performance is as good and price likely to be cheaper.

I've got a pair of 860's, 1TB and 2TB, and they are excellent. They need a good drive enclosure to get the best from them and I've got them both mounted in one of these. USB 3.1 Gen 2 is impressively fast.

CC

[Minimalist_81]

Read times is what you need to check, the faster the better.

I know Pete Kaine from Scan has said good things about the Samsung Evo 860 internal SSD's (I bought one on the strength of his recommendation) so hopefully the external ones are as good.

You don't have to buy external drives. You can get an internal drive and mount it in an enclosure. Performance is as good and price likely to be cheaper.

I've got a pair of 860's, 1TB and 2TB, and they are excellent. They need a good drive enclosure to get the best from them and I've got them both mounted in one of these. USB 3.1 Gen 2 is impressively fast.

CC

Thanks a lot, guys!

Looks like I have plenty of reading to do!

Can you elaborate please, CC? Is this just more cost effective?

[ConcertinaChap]

Partly yes. If you buy an internal drive like the 860 EVO in the 2.5" form factor it is very easy to find suitable enclosures to fit them into and the actual fitting is trivial. Overall you can definitely save a chunk of cash this way. But you can also have an impact on performance. The iMac has two Thunderbolt ports which double up as USB C Gen 2 ports and a drive fitted in a Gen 2 capable enclosure will be pretty damn fast. It won't be as fast as a Thunderbolt 3 drive but it'll be an awful lot cheaper and you'd never, I believe, notice the difference in real life. Most ready made external drives I've seen are USB 3 only.

CC

[Minimalist_81]

Partly yes. If you buy an internal drive like the 860 EVO in the 2.5" form factor it is very easy to find suitable enclosures to fit them into and the actual fitting is trivial. Overall you can definitely save a chunk of cash this way. But you can also have an impact on performance. The iMac has two Thunderbolt ports which double up as USB C Gen 2 ports and a drive fitted in a Gen 2 capable enclosure will be pretty damn fast. It won't be as fast as a Thunderbolt 3 drive but it'll be an awful lot cheaper and you'd never, I believe, notice the difference in real life. Most ready made external drives I've seen are USB 3 only.

CC

Thanks for clarification, mate!

I’ll definitely look into this a little further. Apologies for my lack of knowledge on the subject.

[Sam Spoons]

I've done the same thing and can vouch for the saving in cost.

[Nomadiqa]

I bought a Sabrent NVMe and enclosure. Incredible price but didn't work. Then tried a WD Black in the Sabrent enclosure and it also failed. At this stage I was beginning to worry that my aging 2014 MacBook Pro wasn't up to the NVMe drives. I had one final go with an IcyBox enclosure and that worked perfectly.

In summary, the winning combination was a WD Black and IcyBox enclosure. I transferred over pretty much all my sample libraries. Big benefit in that - having recently upgraded to a Mac Mini 2020 - I just plugged in the external drive via the Thunderbolt 3 cable. Everything just flies!

This was a 2TB which came in at a total cost of about 450€. I'm sure you could find reduced capacity in your budget.

Here is my exact spec:

• ICY BOX M.2 NVMe Enclosure for M.2 Pcie NVMe SSD, USB 3.1 (Gen 2, 10 Gpbs), USB-C & USB-A Cable, Cooling System
  
  Western Digital_Black SN750 2 TB NVMe Internal Gaming SSD - Generation 3 PCIe, M.2 2280, 3D NAND

[Minimalist_81]

I've done the same thing and can vouch for the saving in cost.

I bought a Sabrent NVMe and enclosure. Incredible price but didn't work. Then tried a WD Black in the Sabrent enclosure and it also failed. At this stage I was beginning to worry that my aging 2014 MacBook Pro wasn't up to the NVMe drives. I had one final go with an IcyBox enclosure and that worked perfectly.

In summary, the winning combination was a WD Black and IcyBox enclosure. I transferred over pretty much all my sample libraries. Big benefit in that - having recently upgraded to a Mac Mini 2020 - I just plugged in the external drive via the Thunderbolt 3 cable. Everything just flies!

This was a 2TB which came in at a total cost of about 450€. I'm sure you could find reduced capacity in your budget.

Here is my exact spec:

• ICY BOX M.2 NVMe Enclosure for M.2 Pcie NVMe SSD, USB 3.1 (Gen 2, 10 Gpbs), USB-C & USB-A Cable, Cooling System
  
  Western Digital_Black SN750 2 TB NVMe Internal Gaming SSD - Generation 3 PCIe, M.2 2280, 3D NAND

Thanks for posting, guys!

The Icy Box setup looks interesting. I’ll take a closer look at that and see what it will cost.

[ConcertinaChap]

Everything just flies!

I imagine it would!

Note for Minimalist. The 860 EVO drives use SATA for their interface (i.e. within the enclosure; both the enclosure and the drive must use the same interface standard). NVMe is a more recent standard and as such can provide improved performance but at slightly increased cost.

CC

[Minimalist_81]

Everything just flies!

I imagine it would!

Note for Minimalist. The 860 EVO drives use SATA for their interface (i.e. within the enclosure; both the enclosure and the drive must use the same interface standard). NVMe is a more recent standard and as such can provide improved performance but at slightly increased cost.

CC

Thanks for the info, CC!

I’ll weigh up my options and see what falls within my budget.

[James Perrett]

My reason for going for the 860 was Pete Kaine's mention of their reliability in an older thread in the PC section on here. Since Scan probably sell thousands of SSD's his experience of them is useful.

[Nazard]

My reason for going for the 860 was Pete Kaine's mention of their reliability

+1 for the Samsung 860 EVO (incidentally the 860 QVO is very different and I wouldn't recommend it from a speed point of view).

I have a couple of 860 EVOs, but as secondary drives in an NUC and PC, both with 970 EVO plus as the boot NVME drive.

The T5 is also a great portable drive, although Apple say that it may not work well if you're trying to use it as a secondary boot drive, although you aren't proposing too.

I am unsure whether using an NVME in an enclosure is likely to be any faster than either a T5 or an EVO in an enclosure. The bottlenecks are probably not in read/write speed of the drive, but further down the chain.

[ConcertinaChap]

My gut feeling is that if you're using USB 3.1 Gen 2 or TB3 to connect then you would see an improvement from using NVMe over using SATA but I've not seen any figures on that so you might well be right.

CC