looking for recommendations for an External drive for Mac Mini

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Level 1

9 points

looking for recommendations for an External drive for Mac Mini

Hi All,

I have recently purchased a Mac mini with 1 TB drive. I intend to add unto 2 TB external SDDs to store my data.

My experience with external drives has not been that good. I have connected a few to my old iMac and they all keep losing connection from time to time, resulting in alerts saying drive was not ejected properly. This sometimes happens when I am adjusting the screen for example, causing a pull on the cable to SSD, but very often, the connection to the drive is lost without any apparent reason.

So I am looking for a solution where accidental bumps to the Mac Mini or drive enclosure would not cause the drive to drop connection.

I have come across drive bays like SanDisk Pro Blade station, but these are far too expensive for my use.

Are there any similar solutions that are more affordable and equally robust ?

I have seen Satechi hub for Mac Mini also, but that apparently heats up fast and also does not support the latest NVMe SSDs.

Appreciate any guidance on above.

Thanks in advance

Posted on Aug 5, 2023 6:28 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

den.thed

Level 9

77,656 points

Aug 5, 2023 7:24 PM in response to vrmac

What year model is the Mac mini?

Identify your Mac mini model - Apple Support

Not sure what external drives you had before? But any and all drives will loose the connection if it has a loose connection or if you continually fiddly with and shift things around.

Plus you really do not need a really fast NVMe SSDs or an ultra expensive enclosure to use for your overflow data and/or a backup.

Personally for durability and reliability, I recommend looking at and getting one or two of the 2.0TB OWC Mercury Elite Pro mini's. see > https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MEPMTCP20/

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Answer 2

m_l_v

Level 1

10 points

Jan 8, 2024 11:58 AM in response to hcsitas

I have that setup, but the drives are not fast enough for Adobe Lightroom. Beyond that, it works great.

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Answer 3

vrmac Author

Level 1

9 points

Aug 5, 2023 8:45 PM in response to den.thed

I have a 2023 Mac Mini M2 ; 24 GB memory ; 1 TB hard drive ; running Ventura 13.4

I have been using external HDD & SSD from various vendors, recent ones being from Sandisk.

Thanks for the OWC recommendation. But if I need to add more drives, then I will also need a hub.

While checking out the Elite Pro Mini, I came across the OWC ministack STX. While more expensive, it will allow me to expand as and when I can afford and I can still use my old drives with it.

Or do you know of a better solution in that price range ?

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Answer 4

Aug 5, 2023 11:57 PM in response to vrmac

I have been happy with OWC dual SATA drive dock. It has been very robust with bare 3.5" and 2.5" HDDs and SSDs, boots Mac mini 2018 to Ventura.

https://www.owc.com/solutions/drive-dock

About a year ago I asked for a similar U.2/NVMe M.2 dual drive dock and now there is one. But I have no experience from that.

https://www.owc.com/solutions/drive-dock-u.2

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Answer 5

Aug 6, 2023 7:42 AM in response to vrmac

I exclusively use Crucial X8 1T and 2T drives for either Time Machine backups or storing my guest operating systems used by Parallel's Desktop. No failures in two+ years or spurious disconnects from Big Sur through the current Ventura 13.5.

These are USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 rated drives (1050MB/s) and Crucial recently introduced the X9 and X10 Pro drives (1050MB/s and 2000MB/s) respectively in 1T, 2T, and 4T capacities.

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Answer 6

Jan 8, 2024 4:12 PM in response to hcsitas

hcsitas wrote:

+1 to @den.thed.

External SSDs are fake SSDs, all of them. They’re only good for bragging, little else.

All external SSDs are fake SSDs?

There's a big difference between telling someone that they can use mechanical external hard drives for a lot of their data, and telling them that all external SSDs are fake SSDs.

The former statement is often accurate. The latter statement is nonsense.

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