M1/M2 Mac Observations. (1 Viewer)

[JohnRice]

USB 3.0 external drives I’ve bought most recently (a couple of years ago) have a weird connect on the drive itself. Are there high-speed USB 3.1 cables with that connector? It’s not USB-A nor USB-C. Something I only see on standalone hard drives.

Is that on the drive, or the enclosure?

I haven't encountered that, but I always buy drives and enclosures separately. Lately, they've all had USB-C connections.

Do you have a photo of the connection? I'm not aware of any odd connectors.

 

[JohnRice]

Maybe it's a Micro USB3 Connector.

 

[DaveF]

Yes, that’s it.

 

[DaveF]

I’ll buy one of those and see if it makes a difference.

 

[JohnRice]

I’ll buy one of those and see if it makes a difference.

I think I've only ever had a couple drives with that connector and have never had a problem. It really is USB-C, though nothing is wrong with that connection. It's just that a lot of cable with it are designed just for charging. The new cables I've gotten are all fine.

 

[dpippel]

I’ll buy one of those and see if it makes a difference.

If your device isn't USB 3.1 the cable won't matter.

 

[JohnRice]

That connection is 3.0, not 3.1. Still, it is capable of at least 400MB/s real world data rates.

 

[DaveF]

I buy this type external drive for home use. They always claim to be usb3. I’ve wondered if I should get something different for an m1 iMac.

https://www.westerndigital.com/products/external-drives/wd-my-book-usb-3-0-hdd

 

[JohnRice]

I buy this type external drive for home use. They always claim to be usb3. I’ve wondered if I should get something different for an m1 iMac.

https://www.westerndigital.com/products/external-drives/wd-my-book-usb-3-0-hdd

They’re still platter drives, so they’re limited to about 150MB/s. probably less. For comparison, the internal drive in my Studio reads and writes at about 6,500MB/s. The NVMe drive I use for Photoshop is about 1,500MB/s.

I only have ONE platter drive, a 14TB for video media. Everything else is solid state, on all four computers at home and work.

 

[DaveF]

They’re still platter drives, so they’re limited to about 150MB/s. probably less. For comparison, the internal drive in my Studio reads and writes at about 6,500MB/s. The NVMe drive I use for Photoshop is about 1,500MB/s.

I only have ONE platter drive, a 14TB for video media. Everything else is solid state, on all four computers at home and work.

SSD is lately affordable for a straight (SuperDuper) backup. But still not affordable for TimeMachine use (for us).

My TimeMachine drive died last month. Trying to decide if I’m going to replace it. Or just continue decreasing my backup strategy.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

They’re still platter drives, so they’re limited to about 150MB/s. probably less. For comparison, the internal drive in my Studio reads and writes at about 6,500MB/s. The NVMe drive I use for Photoshop is about 1,500MB/s.

I only have ONE platter drive, a 14TB for video media. Everything else is solid state, on all four computers at home and work.

I have two of these drives. One is for SuperDuper backup on my Macbook Pro (I don't use Time Machine on that computer) and the other is for the Mac Studio (where I do use for Time Machine)


See on Amazon

 

[DaveF]

I have two of these drives. One is for SuperDuper backup on my Macbook Pro (I don't use Time Machine on that computer) and the other is for the Mac Studio (where I do use for Time Machine)


See on Amazon

You might look into backing up those backups. Sanisk Extreme has a serious flaw right now.

SanDisk Extreme SSDs keep abruptly failing—firmware fix for only some promised

Ars saw two 2TB units become unreadable, but SanDisk only confirms 4TB troubles.

arstechnica.com

 

[Ronald Epstein]

You might look into backing up that backup. Sanisk Extreme has a serious flaw right now.

SanDisk Extreme SSDs keep abruptly failing—firmware fix for only some promised

Ars saw two 2TB units become unreadable, but SanDisk only confirms 4TB troubles.

arstechnica.com

I have had both drives for four years, used on multiple computers with no issues.

I have no fear of them failing me at this point outside of age.

However, for someone new looking for a backup drive, I would look elsewhere based on that report.

 

[Clinton McClure]

I’ve always relied on Seagate and Western Digital for external HDDs and now external SSDs as well. In the past 16 years, I haven’t experienced a failure.

 

[DaveF]

I’ve always relied on Seagate and Western Digital for external HDDs and now external SSDs as well. In the past 16 years, I haven’t experienced a failure.

I’ve had multiple failures. External drives tend to die after two or three years.

 

[JohnRice]

@Ronald Epstein , I just came across THIS TB4 hub. I've long wanted a basic, Thunderbolt HUB, rather than a dock designed for a notebook computer, that has a lot of stuff I don't want. This is exactly what I've hoped for. Four TB4 ports (including one for the computer) and four USB 3.2 ports. No ethernet. No dedicated display ports, since Thunderbolt can be used for displays anyway. And currently 20% off, which makes it less than half the CalDigit TB4 Dock.

My only complaint is I wish it was configured more like a dock for cable management. That's a fairly minor gripe though.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

@Ronald Epstein , I just came across THIS TB4 hub. I've long wanted a basic, Thunderbolt HUB, rather than a dock designed for a notebook computer, that has a lot of stuff I don't want. This is exactly what I've hoped for. Four TB4 ports (including one for the computer) and four USB 3.2 ports. No ethernet. No dedicated display ports, since Thunderbolt can be used for displays anyway. And currently 20% off, which makes it less than half the CalDigit TB4 Dock.

My only complaint is I wish it was configured more like a dock for cable management. That's a fairly minor gripe though.

Hi, John!

Looks like you found the perfect hub based on your needs.

And, I love CalDigit hubs. They are a great company. I have two of their hubs, one of which is still running strong after (at least) 6 years.

And I see what you mean about the layout. It's kind of all over the place, though the display and power connections are in the rear with USB in the front (If I am looking at it correctly)

 

[JohnRice]

Hi, John!

Looks like you found the perfect hub based on your needs.

And, I love CalDigit hubs. They are a great company. I have two of their hubs, one of which is still running strong after (at least) 6 years.

And I see what you mean about the layout. It's kind of all over the place, though the display and power connections are in the rear with USB in the front (If I am looking at it correctly)

I have the same CalDigit TB3 Dock you have, on my work office computer. It just has a bunch of stuff I don't need, since it's not connected to a notebook computer. I got this for home, which gives me only what I want, in TB4, at a much lower cost than a dock.

 

[JohnRice]

I’ve had multiple failures. External drives tend to die after two or three years.

You must really be slamming those drives. I've never had that failure rate, except for the one I store music on at work, which plays constantly whenever someone is there. I switched that to SSD years ago (which is ideal for this type of WORM use) which completely solved it.

 

[Clinton McClure]

I agree.

At home I only use external drives for Time Machine and SuperDuper! backups. The Time Machine drive gets replaced every 5 years and the SuperDuper! drive was replaced this year after making monthly backups of my Mac for the past 5 years as well. As I stated, I’ve yet to experience a failure with external drives at home. I’ve had internal failures, but not an external to date.

I use an external drive for Acronis images at work and recently switched from my ~5 year old HDD to a new SSD so I’m good there for quite a long while.