How to use my Thunderbolt 2 drive for Final Cut on a new M1 Mac

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How to use my Thunderbolt 2 drive for Final Cut on a new M1 Mac

Moving from my old iMac to an M1 Mac mini and wondering about my legacy external hard drives and how to attach them for maximum performance.

I have a 6TB RAID 0 Thunderbolt drive who's speed is about 180 mb/s, so waaaaaay slower than the internal SSD of an M1 Mac (my M1 Air reads about 2400 mb/s). A single HDD plugged into the Air via USB C gets about the same read write speed as the RAID at 180 mb/s. So is RAID essentially pointless at this time given that USB C seems to deliver the same read write speed? I got a Thunderbolt 2 to 3 converter, so I could use the Thunderbolt RAID drive, but confused about if RAID makes any sense now.

Further, USB C can theoretically have speeds up to 10 GB/s, but what's the use of that when an HDD doesn't even run at more than about 180mb by USB C? I've seen USB C hubs which say they run at 5 GB/s, not 10, but it seems that's still way faster than the HDD can run, so for that 10 GB/s is no advantage over 5.

My question is, am I understanding this correctly? Also, is RAID essentially a pointless option when USB C is about as fast with a single HDD?

Mac mini 2018 or later

Posted on Mar 20, 2022 1:48 PM

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Answer 1

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Tom Wolsky

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151,825 points

Mar 20, 2022 2:10 PM in response to Cartoonguy

If you RAID speed is correct, then you're quite right, the drive is pretty pointless with the speed of the M1 and its ports. But if that's what you're media's on, that's what you have to work with, unless you willing to get a new SSD and copy what you need onto it.

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Answer 2

Cartoonguy Author

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Mar 20, 2022 2:25 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

6 TB of SSD would be cost prohibitive, so really, I am just thinking about how to use my existing HDD most effectively on a new Mac. Is there any good reason to keep them formatted as RAID, or rather, any downside? Should I just use the RAID with the TB convertor?

Am I right in assuming that there is no benefit to a 10 GB/s port over a 5 GB/s port when an HDD can't ever achieve those speeds anyway?

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Answer 3

Cartoonguy Author

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Mar 20, 2022 2:38 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

Yes, RAID 0 was, at the time, to achieve speed, not redundancy, so now speed is no advantage here, so I guess I just use it as RAID 0 anyway. Is RAID 0 inherently any more or less reliable for data storage than a straight HDD using USB C?

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Answer 4

Cartoonguy Author

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Mar 20, 2022 2:56 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

That's what I thought, perhaps because the media is jumping around two physical drives there is more risk of corruption. I could put the two drives in a new enclosure with USB C, or use the TB 2 to 3 dongle set up as two single drives. In any case, the 10 GB/s throughput of USB C is really meaningless for an HDD.

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Answer 5

Cartoonguy Author

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Mar 20, 2022 4:29 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

Oh, one more question! 🙂 If I want to use my RAID as more of a storage drive and use a new drive for faster media access in Final Cut, it seems that an external SSD with USB C interface, while not as fast as the internal one, is way faster than any HDD, so is that the way to go for best performance, apart from the far more expensive Thunderbolt 3 or 4 options?

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Answer 6

Tom Wolsky

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151,825 points

Mar 20, 2022 3:00 PM in response to Cartoonguy

I think that’s the best solution. Use it as two separate disks and get as much space as you can.

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Answer 7

Tom Wolsky

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151,825 points

Mar 20, 2022 2:29 PM in response to Cartoonguy

If the drive is RAID 5 it has the benefit of redundancy. RAID 0 is pointless. You're right, there is no difference in the port you use if the drive is so slow.

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