External SSD

[paulbaggott]

Finally run out of space on my internal drive on my 2109 Mac Pro. I need an SSD such as a 'Samsung T7 Shield Portable SSD 1 TB' to house Kontakt 14 Ultimate (800+ GB). Looking for a consensus of opinion about this SSD drive - cables compatibility, speed, reliability, etc. Many thanks.

[muzines]

Just got a couple, a 1TB Shield and a regular 2TB, they're great.

The cables they come with are documented on wherever you're buying them from. Superfast, but it will depending on the connection you are using, make sure you're using USB 3.2 gen something-or-other ports (can't remember whether it's 1 or 2, the USB naming/numbering scheme is one of the most confusing, non-sensical things in tech), not just regular USB3, for the full speed...

Can't speak for long term reliability of course, but I'm sure Google will turn up as much feedback as you can digest on that...

[sonics]

Do you need the added ruggedness? The T7 and SanDisk Extreme drives are very good, but the SanDisk Extreme Pro is even faster when using the correct ports.

[Luke W]

I've got a T7 that served as my main audio session drive for a year or two and has now been placed on portable drive duty, no complaints from me over that time.

And as mentioned above, you'll need a USB 3.1 Gen 2 port to make sure it runs at its full speed. Gen 1 = 5Gb/s, Gen 2 = 10 Gb/s. The numbering scheme is indeed less than logical.

[Nazard]

I've used a T5 and T7 with no problem on a Mac for library storage.

Given that you have 800+GB to store and a 1Tb drive capacity is about 930Gb, I would go for 2Tb as SSDs don't like being too full, as both their read and write times suffer.

[ManFromGlass]

Don’t forget to buy 2 SSDs so you always have an emergency backup. I try to remember to clone my master one every few months so mine are identical.
I just had 2 non-SSD drives go down. I hadn’t cloned in awhile. I lost a day bringing the one I called the master back to where it should be.

[sonics]

I clone or copy my drives to a large HDD RAID so it's all in one secure box.
Saves dealing with multiple smaller drives.

[ajay_m]

An nvme drive in an external usb3 enclosure will give you better performance potentially than most of the external usb ssds which use usb to SATA gateways

[ajay_m]

I should clarify pcie nvme not SATA nvme drives it's a bit confusing as they look very similar but a pcie nvme usb adaptor can provide extremely high performance

[Guido3]

I use a Samsung T5 (1TB) and Samsung T7 (1TB) for my sample libraries. I just have Spitfire Audio BBC Symphony Orchestra Professional on the T7 and it works a treat.

[paulbaggott]

Thanks everyone. It's appreciated. I've questioned N.I. about this and am awaiting a reply - not sure how helpful that can be though, regarding another product. But I think I will get one. I have E/W Opus on a Lacie spinner (recommended by Apple). It's a bit slow to load but it runs pretty well with no glitches once loaded. I'm sure the SSD drive will be faster and just as reliable. I wanted to reply to each of you but I don't see how to do that without including the whole quote every time.

[sonics]

I'm sure the SSD drive will be faster and just as reliable.

Much faster, and much more reliable...
You'll enjoy your quicker loading times, I know.

I wanted to reply to each of you but I don't see how to do that without including the whole quote every time.

Just edit the quote as you need.