External storage options for Mac Studio

[clay_9]

Hello all.
I am waiting on the arrival of a new Mac Studio, Max 10-core, 32-core gpu, 64GB ram, 1TB internal. I work in video production primarily as a sole operator setup and im coming from a maxed out 2010 MacPro 5,1.

I have a few questions about storage for video. The internal 1 TB will be big enough to store some of my ongoing projects, but as I'm finding out that the internal drives are not user swappable, how do these drives and the management in the OS fare with ware on the SSDs long term? I don't have personal experience with SSDs failing over time, but if I use the internal as a main data drive, regularly storing, deleting and replacing large batches of video files, will I be shortening its lifespan?

I am not currently working with huge files day to day, they are .mxf files from an FS5, not huge prores raw or anything like that. In my current setup, internal spinning discs have been totally fine for my workflow. I have a USB3 external drive and a USB3 sata dock, which also fair perfectly fine for reading video clips contained within a larger project.

So options... I can't currently afford further external SSD options, and would need to go spinning disk. I'm looking at the SanDisk G-drive 6TB usb-c / thunderbolt 3 7200rpm. And a newer usb-c docking station for sata drives. I've only ever had a machine with usb3 up to this point.

So considering my needs and that even spinning disk via usb-3 have done the job thus far as secondary drives. Would this usb-c drive and dock be enough to see the drives being utilised as a main video access drive? Should I not be concerned with the life of the internal ssd and use that? Or is there a better alternative?

Thanks folks.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

The internal drive's lifespan will be cut short a bit if you are constantly moving around large files from it. To that end, it might make more sense to use your internal drive for the OS, applications and long living files and use external media for everything else.

If you've been able to manage to do well off with spinning media before, that should still work for you and alleviate the concern about read/write cycles. As long as you have a good backup strategy for your external drives, you're covered with any spinning disk failure scenarios.

 

[pigoo3]

Sounds to me like the large (6TB) external "spinner" drive setup should do you fine.

Congrats on the awesome Mac Studio. Going to be a great upgrade from the 2010 Mac Pro!

Nick

 

[ferrarr]

Just don't forget a backup solution for all your critical data, both personal and work related.

 

[clay_9]

The internal drive's lifespan will be cut short a bit if you are constantly moving around large files from it. To that end, it might make more sense to use your internal drive for the OS, applications and long living files and use external media for everything else.

If you've been able to manage to do well off with spinning media before, that should still work for you and alleviate the concern about read/write cycles. As long as you have a good backup strategy for your external drives, you're covered with any spinning disk failure scenarios.

Gotcha, I wasn't sure if it was going to be a potential problem or not. Keeping it to OS, application and personal files I think will be the way to go.

I've got a number of sata drives I use to duplicate all of my video projects. So the G-drive enclosure would be the main work drive, with everything backed up using the docking station & sata drives when needed.

 

[lclev]

I use an M1max 10/32/16 MBP 14" 64GB/1TB with two 27" 4k monitors for video work. Most of my work is with 1080 HD some 4K and all are around an hour in length. I use the internal SSD for holding the OS, apps and some files. I use two 1TB SSD for external drives to hold the video, program and cache files. When a video is done I move the final file and anything else I no longer need to one of the two Synology NAS for storage.

I have found the external SSD's give me the speed I want for creating any special effects, scrubbing speeds and when encoding it is much faster compared to using a spinner drive. But that is just my experience.

Lisa

 

[clay_9]

I use an M1max 10/32/16 MBP 14" 64GB/1TB with two 27" 4k monitors for video work. Most of my work is with 1080 HD some 4K and all are around an hour in length. I use the internal SSD for holding the OS, apps and some files. I use two 1TB SSD for external drives to hold the video, program and cache files. When a video is done I move the final file and anything else I no longer need to one of the two Synology NAS for storage.

I have found the external SSD's give me the speed I want for creating any special effects, scrubbing speeds and when encoding it is much faster compared to using a spinner drive. But that is just my experience.

Lisa

I was looking into a couple of external SSD's, maybe the Samsung T7 2TB. It running hot was a concern for some reviewers, any issues with that when working with video from your drives?

 

[pigoo3]

I was looking into a couple of external SSD's, maybe the Samsung T7 2TB. It running hot was a concern for some reviewers, any issues with that when working with video from your drives?

If you're only using these external SSD's occasionally...as storage/data storage only (relocating final video projects to the external drive/drives to reclaim internal SSD storage). They won't get hot...especially if you unplug them (assuming heat is an issue with any drive purchased).

I was going to suggest external SSD's earlier...but when you mentioned wanting/getting 6TB external hard drive storage...I figured 6TB of external SSD could get expensive (even if separate drives).

Nick

 

[clay_9]

......I was going to suggest external SSD's earlier...but when you mentioned wanting/getting 6TB external hard drive storage...I figured 6TB of external SSD could get expensive (even if separate drives).

Nick

Yea im not 100% set either way. I've got enough spinning disc HDD space currently, in the old MacPro to last me a while for backup storage if I went with SSDs. But just like the idea of a nice new 6TB G-drive, but which comes with uncertainty of if it'll be fast enough to use as a main data drive.

I've got a 2-3 year old G-drive that is quite full at the moment, I think I'll wait until the new Mac Studio arrives, do some shuffling of files and just see if it'll be suitable, and consider faster media from that point.

 

[MacInWin]

I have a few questions about storage for video. The internal 1 TB will be big enough to store some of my ongoing projects, but as I'm finding out that the internal drives are not user swappable, how do these drives and the management in the OS fare with ware on the SSDs long term? I don't have personal experience with SSDs failing over time, but if I use the internal as a main data drive, regularly storing, deleting and replacing large batches of video files, will I be shortening its lifespan?

Yes, using a drive will shorten the lifespan. True of SSDs, RDHDs, Internal and external. But not something I would personally worry about a lot. The only difference, practically, is that if the internal SSD fails, the Mac is dead, will not boot from an external drive and will need the logic board replaced. But the likelihood is still pretty small, given your workflow, IMHO. Just try to keep overall use of the internal SSD to about 50-70% as much as you can, a good target for any SSD.

I think your approach of keeping the work files on external RDHDs will be just fine. The bottleneck will be the interface speed, so if you do decide to get a new external, look more for the interface speed than anything else. TB4 is really a quick interface, if you can find (and afford) a drive with that.

 

[clay_9]

Thanks for the input everyone.

 

[lclev]

I have a Crucial X8 1TB SSD and a Sabrent Rocket Nano 1TB SSD both are externals. The Sabrent gets very warm if I am using it a lot. The Crucial does not get near as warm. I use the Crucial to do the heavy lifting and the Sabrent to hold media materials.

Spinners work great for storage but depending on how complex your videos get they can slow down the workflow. I have actually had special effects that would not show on my timelines as the spinner disk could not feed the file fast enough. That does not happen with the SSD's. If you are doing simple small projects then a 7200 rpm spinner will work fine.

Lisa

 

[pigoo3]

@OP. Your 2010 Mac Pro has USB-A 2.0 ports. The Mac Studio has USB-C ports...and 2 USB-A 3.0 ports. All of these ports will be faster than your Mac Pro.

I have a 2010 Mac Pro...I installed a USB-A 3.0 PCI card...and the USB-A 3.0 card was much faster than the USB-A 2.0 ports on the Mac Pro itself.

Thus with the Mac Studio you're going to see a nice file transfer speed increase even if you just used the Mac Studio's USB-A 3.0 ports. If you use the Mac Studio USB-C ports (with a USB-A adapter)...this might be even faster...assuming the adapter is not a bottleneck.

- Nick

 

[MacInWin]

@nick, one detail. The ports are USB-C format, but Thunderbolt 4 protocol as well. Yes, they support USB-C, but the TB4 is faster. From the Wikipedia article on Thunderbolt:

The maximum bandwidth remains at 40 Gbit/s, the same as Thunderbolt 3 and four times faster than USB 3.2 Gen2x1.

It's a nitpick, but...

 

[pigoo3]

The ports are USB-C format, but Thunderbolt 4 protocol as well. Yes, they support USB-C, but the TB4 is faster. From the Wikipedia article on Thunderbolt:


It's a nitpick, but...

No problamo. I was assuming OP might have existing/older hard drives that might be USB only...thus the bottleneck could be the external hard drive housing interface.

If OP had external Thunderbolt drives...then as you said...Thunderbolt definitely faster.

Nick

 

[MacInWin]

If OP had external Thunderbolt drives...then as you said...Thunderbolt definitely faster.

That is why I mentioned it in post #10.

 

[pigoo3]

That is why I mentioned it in post #10.

The main emphasis in post #13 was how USB 3.0 with the Mac Studio would be a good deal faster than USB 2.0 with OP's 2010 Mac Pro (if the OP decided to use existing USB based external HD's).

Nick

 

[clay_9]

The main emphasis in post #13 was how USB 3.0 with the Mac Studio would be a good deal faster than USB 2.0 with OP's 2010 Mac Pro (if the OP decided to use existing USB based external HD's).

Nick

Sorry I should have clarified this point, I do also make use of a pci-e usb3 card slot. My current external drive and dock for sata drives all run on that. But I still don't have hands on experience with the difference between usb3 and usb-c.

 

[pigoo3]

Sorry I should have clarified this point, I do also make use of a pci-e usb3 card slot. My current external drive and dock for sata drives all run on that. But I still don't have hands on experience with the difference between usb3 and usb-c.

No problamo. Nice you had a USB 3 pci-e card in your Mac Pro. Definitely makes transferring/moving of large files much faster.

Possible the USB 3 ports on the Mac Studio could still be a bit faster (due to much newer technology)...maybe USB 3 card in the Mac Pro wasn't maxed out speed-wise due to older tech design.

This could mean focusing more on the Thunderbolt/USB-c ports for the external drives for a bigger bump in speed (if needed/wanted).

* Maybe existing drives will get the job done fast-enough without any additional investment.
* Maybe replace existing drives with SSD drive/drives if existing drives not as fast as you would like.
* The fastest you can probably get would be a Thunderbolt SSD drive (most cost/TB as well).

Nick

 

[pigoo3]

OWC (macsales.com)...has a 1TB external Thunderbolt SSD for $299:

OWC 1.0TB Envoy Pro SX Thunderbolt Portable NVMe SSD at MacSales.com

TB3ENVPSX01 1.0TB OWC Envoy Pro SX Thunderbolt Portable NVMe SSD. Super-fast Xtremely portable Thunderbolt/USB4 SSD for daily storage and backup to production-level audio, design, and photography.

eshop.macsales.com

If you go the DIY route (buy external SSD Thunderbolt case & 2TB SSD separately)...you can probably put together a 2TB external Thunderbolt SSD for about the same price (but 2x the capacity of the OWC drive):

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1577064-REG/owc_owctb3envxp00_envoy_express_thunderbolt_3.html/?ap=y&ap=y&smp=y&smp=y&lsft=BI%3A514&gclid=CjwKCAjwyaWZBhBGEiwACslQo9u9WidmaB6ttQ5D685saOnYLu9RH4IcZI9BitWnO9l50Idg386vbhoCgDsQAvD_BwE

And get 2TB blade SSD on eBay (various sellers).

Nick