External Hard Drive

phly

phly

Expert Member
Joined
Mar 13, 2013
Messages
2,097
Reaction score
606
Good day and Happy New Year.

I'm curious on what options I have in terms of getting an external SSD or NVME drive as an external hard drive. Purpose is as a fast (hopefully portable and compact) storage for media and perhaps games. The device I use mainly is a silicon macbook. But I may need to use it with a Mi box and play the media from on it a bigger screen.

Any suggestions/recommendations on what to look at? What would be a good enclosure and NVME drive to look at (new to all this).
Had contemplated the Sandisk Extreme Portables but recall reading they had some failure issues last year.

Also - how is this particular one - https://www.takealot.com/rogueware-...ype-c-external-solid-state-drive/PLID93448914
 
phly said:
Good day and Happy New Year.

I'm curious on what options I have in terms of getting an external SSD or NVME drive as an external hard drive. Purpose is as a fast (hopefully portable and compact) storage for media and perhaps games. The device I use mainly is a silicon macbook. But I may need to use it with a Mi box and play the media from on it a bigger screen.

Any suggestions/recommendations on what to look at? What would be a good enclosure and NVME drive to look at (new to all this).
Had contemplated the Sandisk Extreme Portables but recall reading they had some failure issues last year.

Also - how is this particular one - https://www.takealot.com/rogueware-...ype-c-external-solid-state-drive/PLID93448914
Click to expand...
What is a silicone MacBook? Last I looked they were mostly aluminium.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: JoE
Plugging a hard drive into a streaming box?
giphy.gif

Move on over to Stremio with torrentio and All / Real Debrid.
 
I bought a Samsung 4Tb SSD and fitted it in a USB3.2 external case. It has 3.4Tb of music on it, 97000 tracks in FLAC and DSD

Its small in size and is powered by the Streamer/DDC it is attached to

The one TaL sell is far too small, capacity-wise
 
A few points to make, Mac doesnt like NTFS and some large games have files over 4GB which isnt possible on FAT32. Obviously your Mibox cant read APFS.

I would get a cheap Orico USB 3.0 Caddy and a Samsung 870 Evo 2.5" SSD.
 
@Speedster haha just meant the new M1 macbooks. Apple silicon as they are lovingly called.
@backstreetboy So I do have stremio and infact love its integration with the calendar in terms of new series and upcoming seasons but i never had much luck with streaming from the application. Granted I havent tried out Real Debrid.
@Rickster Yea Mac doesnt play nice with NTFS but exFAT is a decent alternative and happy medium right? Especially if the same drive will be used on a windows VM as well.
 
phly said:
@Speedster haha just meant the new M1 macbooks. Apple silicon as they are lovingly called.
@backstreetboy So I do have stremio and infact love its integration with the calendar in terms of new series and upcoming seasons but i never had much luck with streaming from the application. Granted I havent tried out Real Debrid.
@Rickster Yea Mac doesnt play nice with NTFS but exFAT is a decent alternative and happy medium right? Especially if the same drive will be used on a windows VM as well.
Click to expand...
Yes, apple silicon as opposed to Intel silicon. Just never heard someone refer to then as silicon MacBooks before.
 
phly said:
@Speedster haha just meant the new M1 macbooks. Apple silicon as they are lovingly called.
@backstreetboy So I do have stremio and infact love its integration with the calendar in terms of new series and upcoming seasons but i never had much luck with streaming from the application. Granted I havent tried out Real Debrid.
@Rickster Yea Mac doesnt play nice with NTFS but exFAT is a decent alternative and happy medium right? Especially if the same drive will be used on a windows VM as well.
Click to expand...

Not sure actually sure how things will be on exFAT, Ive only used it a handful of times on a 64GB flash drive. It may be poorly optimised and not aure how many gigabytes you will lose when using exFAT. I think the bigger the drive the worse it gets.

You could always create multiple partitions for your use cases. NTFS, APFS, exFAT.
 
phly said:
@Speedster haha just meant the new M1 macbooks. Apple silicon as they are lovingly called.
@backstreetboy So I do have stremio and infact love its integration with the calendar in terms of new series and upcoming seasons but i never had much luck with streaming from the application. Granted I havent tried out Real Debrid.
@Rickster Yea Mac doesnt play nice with NTFS but exFAT is a decent alternative and happy medium right? Especially if the same drive will be used on a windows VM as well.
Click to expand...

The new MBPs don't do USB 3.2 Gen2 2x2 and max out at USB 3.2 Gen 2 speeds which is about 1050MB/sec.
I got a 2TB Samsung T7 for R2999 on TAL a couple weeks back to use with an M3 MBP. Samsung also sells a T9 model which is a bit pricier but has a 5 year warranty and offers 2x2 speeds i.e. 2100MB/sec but that only works with Windows laptops as the M1-3s are not compatible with USB 3.2 Gen2x2. For Macs you can use Thunderbolt 3 or 4 enclosures and insert your own NVME drive but these are pricier. Anyhow M1-3 MB's max out at 1050MB/s speeds so don't pay more for any enclosure over USB 3.2 Gen2. As said if you want faster, like TB4 speeds, such an enclosure will give you 5000MB/sec speeds which is close to the 6500MB/sec speed of the internal SSD.

For NTFS writing you can purchase a product like EASEUS NTFS for Mac (lifetime) which I found on BundleHunt for $6. I think these go on special often, there are alternative products too from Paragon Software and others.

BundleHunt has some software people may enjoy using:
bundlehunt.com

BundleHunt...Curated Software Deals at unbeatable discounts!

Curated Software Deals at unbeatable discounts ... Over 95% Off...macOS Software...
bundlehunt.com bundlehunt.com
 
Rickster said:
Not sure actually sure how things will be on exFAT, Ive only used it a handful of times on a 64GB flash drive. It may be poorly optimised and not aure how many gigabytes you will lose when using exFAT. I think the bigger the drive the worse it gets.

You could always create multiple partitions for your use cases. NTFS, APFS, exFAT.
Click to expand...

That's not a bad idea at all. Thank you.

@backstreetboy thanks for that - will give it a try and just stream wirelessly.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X