24” imac external storage/time machine solution

+1 on the OWC external SSDs:

Envoy Pro EX with USB-C or USB 3 - best from a speed vs price standpoint

OWC Envoy Pro EX with Thunderbolt 3 - fastest if you have a Thunderbolt 3 port but more expensive

OWC Envoy Pro mini - best for laptops

 OWC Mercury Elite Pro 7200 RPM Storage - excellent choice for Time Machine use. 

NAS will not work for Time Machine (unless the mfg *SPECIFICALLY* states it will work).

NAS will not work for Photos.

Best to just buy a USB-C external drive and plug them into the USB-C ports.

I am getting Thunderbolt 3 dock from OWC so I can use my existing USB-A drives.

One question you didn't ask will you be able to have two of your 4 USB C ports always connected to the devices you mentioned above. If so any of the options suggested will work.

I've been using a tool called Carbon Copy Cloner for my backups. Nightly backups to an HDD 300GB takes 1hr 28mins, a weekly backup of 364GB takes 38mins. If you backup to a HDD with Time machine your initial backup will take awhile. After that it really won't matter if you are backing up to a SSD or a HDD.

An SSD for for music/pics/videos will only make copying files to and from the device quicker. I don't think either HDD or SSD will matter from a speed stand point except at the point of copy.

Connections via Ethernet will be the fastest. Based on your question a NAS might be overkill and you can setup a NAS to handle Time machine backups. I like the Synology brand NAS myself. Here is how I would connect things. Ethernet on new imac to a switch the switch to a wifi router's Ethernet port and then NAS to another of the wifi router's Ethernet port.

For wifi router I would look for a Wifi 6 capable router. I'm using a mesh configuration with EERO Pro 6s.

my configuration is Internet --> cable modem --> 8 port switch (connected to jacks in house walls) --> 8 port switch --> imac.

Hope this helps.

Paul

Keith, I’m not sure. The last I read from CCC is that with the new way Apple is doing things CCC doesn't recommend creating a bootable clone anymore and recommends restoring the system from recovery mode and then a CCC restore to get your system back to where it was before you wiped the drive.

I'm on a 2020 iMac 27" which is Intel so I haven't been checking too closely about Apple Silicon macs. I would check out their documentation on the CCC site for specific details.

Hope this helps.

Paul

You can purchase complete drives from OWC as suggested (or other suppliers) or you can buy a drive and install in your own enclosure. I do the latter but the choice is yours.

Can you boot an M1 from a clone with CCC? Superduper has that capability currently in Beta.

yes you can using latest CCC. I have done it many times.