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jdc,
Case is relevant for 2.5" SSDs, not due to speed, though. It's for what it included in the box. Many of the cases for 2.5" SSDs that are USB 3.1 Gen 2 have a USB-C cable. Some include a USB-C to USB-A adapter. Some of them don't include it and you have to buy an adapter to use the box without a USB-C port (in the case of a Mac, Thunderbolt 3). Not an issue in this situation.
Robert
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Robert M wrote:
jdc, Case is relevant for 2.5" SSDs, not due to speed, though. It's for what it included in the box. Many of the cases for 2.5" SSDs that are USB 3.1 Gen 2 have a USB-C cable. Some include a USB-C to USB-A adapter. Some of them don't include it and you have to buy an adapter to use the box without a USB-C port (in the case of a Mac, Thunderbolt 3). Not an issue in this situation. Robert
Since he has a 2020 mini with both... Irrrrrrrrrrrrrrelevant.
Im gonna go out on a limb and say 99.99999999999999999% of bare cases come with the ability to connect to both.
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JDC,
The attitude is unnecessary and misplaced. I pointed out that it doesn’t matter in this situation at the end of my post. And, it’s a more common issue than you think and definitely an annoyance when it’s a factor.
Robert
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just
posted a deal on the Orico M2PG-C3 NVMe USB 3.2 case for < $25.
It's the new version with the Realtek RTL9210 chipset.
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Robert M wrote:
The attitude is unnecessary and misplaced.
I clearly didnt think so.
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jdc,
And, it wasn't helpful.
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Thank you all for the conversation.
After sleeping on it, I think this is a good plan.
Current:
4TB WD Passport HDD: cheap, slow, and dependable for daily Time Machine backups
Coming tomorrow:
2TB Sandisk Ultra SSD (on sale for $184): monthly cloning of drive with SuperDuper
Future:
2TB NVME drive w/OWC TB3 NVME case: house the Mac Mini's Photos image library.
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d4 wrote:
Thank you all for the conversation.
After sleeping on it, I think this is a good plan.
Current:
4TB WD Passport HDD: cheap, slow, and dependable for daily Time Machine backups
Coming tomorrow:
2TB Sandisk Ultra SSD (on sale for $184): monthly cloning of drive with SuperDuper
Future:
2TB NVME drive w/OWC TB3 NVME case: house the Mac Mini's Photos image library.
I think this is backwards... and overkill? -- or something.
What are you using for the boot drive? are you having issues with photos and your 500 GB archive now? what kind of drive is it on?
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OK, so my final thoughts -- maybe some of this you already know...
Your internal 1 TB flash drive is already really really fast -- i think it benchmarks at near 2500 MB/s. So if its already slow with the photos database... moving to an external SSD (500 MB/s) or even NVMe flash (1500 MB/s) drive may not help?
the 4 TB platter is perfect for hours TM backups... but you could *easily* also use it for the monthly bootable clone. Either as is, or dedicate a 1 TB partition to it. Sure, the first clone might take a while, but incremental bootable clones later should take a fraction of that. Using a SSD here seems overkill.
You dont/shouldnt need the speed of an SSD for a backup?
The NVME I guess would make the most sense for an external photos only drive, since its the fastest.
You could easily have this structured as
A) internal drive
B) NVME
Both backup to
C) platter with TM (for both internal and NVME) and part for bootable (internal only)
If you think C is too small, then id spend my $ on a bigger platter.
3 drive instead of 4, and 2 boot drive backups + backup of photos drive.