I've got a basic 256GB M4 Mini on order, and intend to get an external SSD to meet the c.500GB of stuff I have - that's mainly apps, documents, and photos. I'll be transferring data from my current iMac. I'll not be using Migration Assistant this time - I've used it every time since about 2010 and I'd like to start fresh.

Anyway, 2 questions:

Any recommendation for a suitable drive? I was hoping to spend not much more than £100 on 500GB. But equally I'd like to preserve as much of the Mini's speed potential as possible - so willing to spend a bit more, bearing in mind I'm not chucking huge video files about but would like decent performance.

What to put on the drive? I was thinking just photos, other media, and documents, and leave the OS and apps (c100GB) on the internal drive. From a quick search, it seems some people put the whole lot on the external drive. I don't think I need to be quite that hardcore but opinions welcome.

TIA

--
Cheers, Rob, Sheffield UK

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On 20/01/2025 13:33, RJH wrote:

I've got a basic 256GB M4 Mini on order, and intend to get an external SSD to meet the c.500GB of stuff I have - that's mainly apps, documents, and photos. I'll be transferring data from my current iMac. I'll not be using Migration Assistant this time - I've used it every time since about 2010 and I'd like to
start fresh.

Anyway, 2 questions:

Any recommendation for a suitable drive? I was hoping to spend not much more than £100 on 500GB. But equally I'd like to preserve as much of the Mini's speed potential as possible - so willing to spend a bit more, bearing in mind I'm not chucking huge video files about but would like decent performance.

I use a Crucial X9 Pro. Smallest is 1TB and there is a 2TB for not much
more than your budget. Speed is 20Gbps which is the reason I chose it -
no point having Thunderbolt ports and then crippling them with old, slow storage.

It comes with a short USB-C to USB-C cable which is just long enough to
let it sit next to or on top of the Mini. Has been bullet-proof so far.

What to put on the drive? I was thinking just photos, other media, and documents, and leave the OS and apps (c100GB) on the internal drive. From a quick search, it seems some people put the whole lot on the external drive. I don't think I need to be quite that hardcore but opinions welcome.

Sequoia now allows large apps (those > 1GB) to be installed onto the
external drive which might be useful to keep the internal drive as free
as possible. But as you say you only have c.100GB I mention it more for information really.

Otherwise, photos, music, video - the usual suspects - are all good
candidates to go on.

A nice touch is that there is an LED hidden in the inside of the "loop"
on the corner, which is handy to let you know that it has unmounted
correctly should you want to unplug it.

--
Bruce Horrocks
Hampshire, England

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On 20. Jan 2025 at 14:33:00 CET, "RJH" <[email protected]> wrote:

Any recommendation for a suitable drive?

I´m using Samsungs T-Drives (T3,T5,T7).
Small and solid.
I have one of each (bought over the years) and did not have any problems
with them.

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Bernd Froehlich <[email protected]> writes:

On 20. Jan 2025 at 14:33:00 CET, "RJH" <[email protected]> wrote:

Any recommendation for a suitable drive?

I´m using Samsungs T-Drives (T3,T5,T7).
Small and solid.
I have one of each (bought over the years) and did not have any problems
with them.

I've found Samsung portable SSDs to be very reliable. I've seen
reports of problems with SanDisk large capacity drives, although
I've had no problems with my collection of lower capacity SanDisks
(250 & 500 GB).

--
Cheers, Alan

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RJH <[email protected]> wrote:

I've got a basic 256GB M4 Mini on order, and intend to get an external SSD to meet the c.500GB of stuff I have - that's mainly apps, documents, and photos. I'll be transferring data from my current iMac. I'll not be using Migration Assistant this time - I've used it every time since about 2010 and I'd like to
start fresh.

Anyway, 2 questions:

Any recommendation for a suitable drive? I was hoping to spend not much more than £100 on 500GB. But equally I'd like to preserve as much of the Mini's speed potential as possible - so willing to spend a bit more, bearing in mind I'm not chucking huge video files about but would like decent performance.

What to put on the drive? I was thinking just photos, other media, and documents, and leave the OS and apps (c100GB) on the internal drive. From a quick search, it seems some people put the whole lot on the external drive. I don't think I need to be quite that hardcore but opinions welcome.

I would probably look at a USB-C to NVMe enclosure (get one with good performance, eg 40 Gbps) plus an NVMe drive. That way you can upgrade
by just swapping the NVMe stick, and the old stick can be used in a PC, Pi
or something else.

If you go for an PCIe Gen4 NVMe drive, there isn't much price difference between
500GB and 1TB (ballpark £50): https://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/solid-state-drives/m2-pcie-40-nvme-ssds
so I'd suggest going for the 1TB. That leaves £50 in the budget for the
USB case, eg: https://www.amazon.co.uk/ORICO-Enclosure-PCIe3-0x4-Thunderbolt-C-M224-Silver/dp/B0B14SQJ8X

Theo

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On 20 Jan 2025 at 13:33:00 GMT, RJH wrote:

I've got a basic 256GB M4 Mini on order, and intend to get an external SSD to meet the c.500GB of stuff I have - that's mainly apps, documents, and photos. I'll be transferring data from my current iMac. I'll not be using Migration Assistant this time - I've used it every time since about 2010 and I'd like to
start fresh.

Anyway, 2 questions:

Any recommendation for a suitable drive? I was hoping to spend not much more than £100 on 500GB. But equally I'd like to preserve as much of the Mini's speed potential as possible - so willing to spend a bit more, bearing in mind I'm not chucking huge video files about but would like decent performance.

What to put on the drive? I was thinking just photos, other media, and documents, and leave the OS and apps (c100GB) on the internal drive. From a quick search, it seems some people put the whole lot on the external drive. I don't think I need to be quite that hardcore but opinions welcome.

TIA

Thanks everyone. I'll aim for 20Gbps and either go off the shelf (Crucial's
1TB X10 pro), or enclosure/NVME (if I can find an enclosure that's the right price and works reliably - from a quick look, tricky).
--
Cheers, Rob, Sheffield UK

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On 22/01/2025 10:09, RJH wrote:

Thanks everyone. I'll aim for 20Gbps and either go off the shelf (Crucial's 1TB X10 pro), or enclosure/NVME (if I can find an enclosure that's the right price and works reliably - from a quick look, tricky).

Acasis's NVMe/Thunderbolt enclosures are supposed to be OK.

--
Chris

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On 24 Jan 2025 at 19:53:32 GMT, Chris Ridd wrote:

On 22/01/2025 10:09, RJH wrote:

Thanks everyone. I'll aim for 20Gbps and either go off the shelf (Crucial's >> 1TB X10 pro), or enclosure/NVME (if I can find an enclosure that's the right >> price and works reliably - from a quick look, tricky).

Acasis's NVMe/Thunderbolt enclosures are supposed to be OK.

Thanks - I'll take a look.
--
Cheers, Rob, Sheffield UK

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On 26 Jan 2025 at 04:34:27 GMT, RJH wrote:

On 24 Jan 2025 at 19:53:32 GMT, Chris Ridd wrote:

On 22/01/2025 10:09, RJH wrote:

Thanks everyone. I'll aim for 20Gbps and either go off the shelf (Crucial's >>> 1TB X10 pro), or enclosure/NVME (if I can find an enclosure that's the right
price and works reliably - from a quick look, tricky).

Bought a Crucial 1TB X10 Pro - does the job, small and neat, doesn't get too warm. But - the 20Gbps is wasted on the Mini's rear ports, which are capped at 10Gbps for USB drives. Still, it's fine.

Acasis's NVMe/Thunderbolt enclosures are supposed to be OK.

Thanks - I'll take a look.

Ordered one direct from Hong Kong - about £50 including post. Nicely built and packaged, with neat sprung bearings holding the cover down, discrete light,
and solid aluminium. Benchmarks at 3.6GBps, 50GB of documents copied in a couple of minutes - so all good.

--
Cheers, Rob, Sheffield UK

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