M1 MacBook- external storage and back up
Discussion
Looking for some tech advice for.my daughter, who writes songs and makes videos on her M1 MacBook Air.
The files are big and she often runs out of space on the SSD. What's the best way to store them somewhere else - USB hard drive? In the cloud somewhere? And is there some clever Apple product that make it quick and easy to do? She is not much of a one for admin...
Yes, I know the pistonheads answer would be either a) she should have got an MBP with more space, tightwad or b) you need an enterprise level remote back up in a secure facility with 9 9s availability, but looking for more of a teenagers bedroom level solution;)
The files are big and she often runs out of space on the SSD. What's the best way to store them somewhere else - USB hard drive? In the cloud somewhere? And is there some clever Apple product that make it quick and easy to do? She is not much of a one for admin...
Yes, I know the pistonheads answer would be either a) she should have got an MBP with more space, tightwad or b) you need an enterprise level remote back up in a secure facility with 9 9s availability, but looking for more of a teenagers bedroom level solution;)
What about an iCloud account? The higher tiers have decent storage. Accessible from anywhere with internet and pretty safe storage. I’d compliment that with an external usb drive dit working files and as a local backup. You could always get a small 2 drive NAS to do the same but that’s starting to get complicated.
Was thinking iCloud or Google drive, is there much difference? I use Google myself but am a PC guy really so no experience of iCloud.
It's easy to end up thinking that a NAS is the way to do it properly but that is a) pricey and b) more tech faff than I CBA with. Computers are a tool not a hobby for me so I always look for the cheapest and easiest option;)
It's easy to end up thinking that a NAS is the way to do it properly but that is a) pricey and b) more tech faff than I CBA with. Computers are a tool not a hobby for me so I always look for the cheapest and easiest option;)
Buy her another SSD so she can work on it locally.
Something like this.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-MU-PA1T0B-Portabl...
Something like this.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-MU-PA1T0B-Portabl...
If you want external storage that's fast enough to work on, you could use a thunderbolt (rather than USB) external NVMEe drive. I have a couple of these, using one as a Time Machine backup drive.
The OWC Envoy Express enclosure holds an NVMe high-speed SSD drive which is plenty fast enough to do work like video editing directly on the external drive. It also has a holder that fits to the lid of the MacBook, so you don't need to be tethered and can use it around the house or out and about
It's clearly not as fast as the internal M1 SSD, but the upside is that you can buy a cheaper-end NVMe drive, as long as it will hit around 1,700 MB/s
Internal M1 SSD speed:
External thunderbolt NVMe SSD speed:
And so that you can compare external thunderbolt speeds with USB-C/USB 3.1
External USB-C NVMe SSD speed:
External USB 3 SATA SSD speed:
|https://thumbsnap.com/CAjVKZQk[/url]
External USB-C LaCie hard disk drive speed:
(edited to add USB 3 external SATA SSD)
The OWC Envoy Express enclosure holds an NVMe high-speed SSD drive which is plenty fast enough to do work like video editing directly on the external drive. It also has a holder that fits to the lid of the MacBook, so you don't need to be tethered and can use it around the house or out and about
It's clearly not as fast as the internal M1 SSD, but the upside is that you can buy a cheaper-end NVMe drive, as long as it will hit around 1,700 MB/s
Internal M1 SSD speed:
External thunderbolt NVMe SSD speed:
And so that you can compare external thunderbolt speeds with USB-C/USB 3.1
External USB-C NVMe SSD speed:
External USB 3 SATA SSD speed:
|https://thumbsnap.com/CAjVKZQk[/url]External USB-C LaCie hard disk drive speed:
(edited to add USB 3 external SATA SSD)
Edited by mikef on Sunday 14th March 16:14
mikef said:
If she’s like my daughter, she may prefer to use her laptop sitting cross-legged on her bed, not at a desk so she never plugs her backup disk in. You probably also don’t want to be uploading gigabytes of raw footage to the cloud
Just so. Seems there is no perfect teenager-proof solution;)dontlookdown said:
So regular external usb ssd would be noticeably slower
I dug out a USB-3 external drive and added to the list above (it's only 250GB so I tend not to use it). Interesting that the External USB-C NVMe looks slow at random access. I've reformatted it and get the same result. On Windows 10, the same external drive shows a random 4k read speed of 158.4 MB/sHere are the drives I used for measurements:
Edited by mikef on Sunday 14th March 17:03
After a little research I bought one of these for back ups, and also to store footage from my GoPro which needs decent transfer speeds to stream etc. It works really well and for me, was a reasonable price for 5gb. Plus it feels and looks nice if you’re gonna have it on a desk next to your shiny new Mac.
trickysummer said:
After a little research I bought one of these for back ups, and also to store footage from my GoPro which needs decent transfer speeds to stream etc. It works really well and for me, was a reasonable price for 5gb. Plus it feels and looks nice if you’re gonna have it on a desk next to your shiny new Mac.
One of what? You're teasing me;)mikef said:
I dug out a USB-3 external drive and added to the list above (it's only 250GB so I tend not to use it). Interesting that the External USB-C NVMe looks slow at random access. I've reformatted it and get the same result. On Windows 10, the same external drive shows a random 4k read speed of 158.4 MB/s
Here are the drives I used for measurements:
Tks again Mikef, confirms my thoughts. Seems daft to use a slow external drive to work on when the whole appeal of the M1 Macs is speed. Here are the drives I used for measurements:
Edited by mikef on Sunday 14th March 17:03
Video and music data files can be / will be huge.
I would use a NVME drive for current projects, something like the Samsung T5 or T7, around 1TB looks to be the price / size sweet spot for these.
Then I would have a magnetic HDD for backup / storage as they are available in much bigger capacities and are significantly cheaper but they are much slower.
Using a good NVME drive on a MacBook M1 is not a huge amount slower than using the internal drive, some even edit their videos on the external drive rather than import / export.
I would use a NVME drive for current projects, something like the Samsung T5 or T7, around 1TB looks to be the price / size sweet spot for these.
Then I would have a magnetic HDD for backup / storage as they are available in much bigger capacities and are significantly cheaper but they are much slower.
Using a good NVME drive on a MacBook M1 is not a huge amount slower than using the internal drive, some even edit their videos on the external drive rather than import / export.
dontlookdown said:
One of what? You're teasing me;)
Sorry! Just noticed I didn’t include the info!!!LaCie Mobile Drive, 5 TB , External Hard Drive HDD – Moon Silver, USB-C USB 3.0, With Rescue Services (STHG5000400
https://www.amazon.co.uk/LaCie-Mobile-Drive-Portab...
trickysummer said:
dontlookdown said:
One of what? You're teasing me;)
Sorry! Just noticed I didn’t include the info!!!LaCie Mobile Drive, 5 TB , External Hard Drive HDD – Moon Silver, USB-C USB 3.0, With Rescue Services (STHG5000400
https://www.amazon.co.uk/LaCie-Mobile-Drive-Portab...
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