New External SSD for FCPX libraries -- APFS performance issues
I finally upgraded my 2015 MBP (Intel) to an M2 Pro MBP, mainly to support my video hobby. As soon as I did that, I started to occasionally see the beachball during editing. I suspect that the new horsepower was waiting on my old HDD, so I bought a WD_Black SN770 1TB drive and an M.2 NMVe SSD enclosure from Orico. I know the drive would be faster with a better/more expensive enclosure, but this was inexpensive and would help to prove out my beachball theory.
When formatted with APFS, Disk Speed Test shows me very slow write times (10 MB/s), but expected read times (895 MB/s). These write times are much slower than my old HDD. If I format to either ExFat or Mac OS Extended, is see write times of 890 MB/s, and 895 MB/s for reads.
I've spent a lot of time with the Western Digital support folks, but ended up with a recommendation to only use their SSD as an internal drive (!).
I'd appreciate any suggestions on how to improve my APFS write speeds. If there are none, any input on using Mac OS Extended format for FCPX? I know APFS is preferred, but does FCPX really care, as long as it's not waiting too long on the drive?
Thanks.
MacBook Pro (M2 Pro, 2023)