For all of you who have reached out about the NVMe options. Well, I did a video on that right here friends: bit.ly/NVMeM1Mac So just to clarify, invest in what you can afford. I'm often asked about future proofing your investment whether with phones, computers, or any other tech. It's a fast moving target, but bumping up your RAM (in my opinion and workflow) will give you the most longevity out of your M1 Mac. The more I push this device with multiple tasks, the more I'm seeing how "pressured" the RAM gets. Will the base models be sufficient for most tasks? Sure. This has been tested by many creators here. I'm just sharing my use case and workflow, and the extra RAM is helpful. Go do the things, and you know where to find me.
Upgrading your ram is honestly very important for a device like this, the mac uses something called swap memory which is basically constantly writing and deleting to your SSD which honestly kills the lifespan of your drive which btw is on the cpu with the ram etc as its all on the chip. So getting something like this not only allows you to invest in more ram but i also lets you get more life out of your maching if you are going to be using it for more than 2 years like quite a lot of people do ( im still using my 2013 15" )
You know my feeling on the RAM😉 I hear you. And, for anyone even thinking about using LogicProX, especially using Rosetta, it will use as much RAM as it can. I found this out pretty quickly. It works well on the chip, but it’s also hungry for RAM.
You just saved me a lot of money! I’ve never had a problem fitting my program files on 256 GB, but I was wanting more storage for games and media with my new drone. For the cost of 512 GB internal, I can have 256 + 1 TB external SSD. Makes a lot of sense to me since I’ll only need the SSD when I’m docked and wanting to play games or do creative work. Patiently waiting for my 256/16 GB M1 MBP
Hey, saving people money and saving lives...sometimes at the same time ;) Really glad that this help out friend. I think you will find that these external SSDs are so versatile. Even with 1TB of internal, I still use these SSDs every day. They're awesome. Best of luck on your set up. That little MBP is going to scream.
Glad I upgraded to 16 GB RAM and kept my M1 Mac Mini. This was a really great informative video and will check out more of these videos on external drives. Looking forward to more tech content.
Hey Matt, glad to have you here and awesome that I was able to help. And yes, that 16GB of RAM (I think) is a worthwhile investment. Look forward to seeing you around.
Hey man, just discovered your video and really like your presentation. It feels like you’re talking to a friend! I seldom subscribe based on just one video but I did it for your channel 😉
Bro, i'm in the middle of changing my room and remodeling and coming up with ideas and ended up deciding on a mac. I haven't bought it yet but you explained everything I needed to know clearly.
Hi. It’s very informative. I am in a confusion now. Shall I buy Mac m1 air or pro? And any issues with both? Shall I wait for some time? Plz suggest me. Normal usage, photo editing and video editing, safari, google and RUclips.
I am new to the world of Apple. Just ordered the Mac Mini M1, 16gb ram. But what I actually want to say is the way you interact to your fanbase is just awesome. You talk in a clear and understanding way, and just help so much with your videos. Definitely subbed
That’s awesome you’ve got a mini on the way, and also awesome to have you here. Really appreciate you taking the time to comment. Look forward to seeing you around. 🤙👍
I’ve definitely got videos on this and recommendations in the description. Depends on whether you want a prebuilt solution or a DIY thunderbolt enclosure.
You are on point! I always wondered what the rendering time between internal ssd vs external. Crazy it was that much of a difference. Sandisk extreme are great drives. Built well and dependable. I ordered 16gb/256 MacBook Pro. I am excited for this. Looking forward to more of your videos.
Hey there, great video thank you! So should I prefer choosing the Mac with 512 SSD plus an external SSD over the inbuilt 1Tb SSD? Is it faster as well although the SSD is external? Thank you very much!
The internal will be faster, however even though I have 1TB, I still edit on an external for just about every video. I’d say get as much as you can afford. It’s nice to have the internal space when you need it, but for video editing, it’s nice to have that scratch disk and a place to keep your project, and then when done, move it over to a back up. The internal should last for years, but with video editing there’s just a constant read/write happening that pushes those drives a little harder.
Hi Kevin, thank you for making an awesome video! I'm a Law student and interested to buy MacBook for long-term. But I'm confused between MacBook Air Intel Core 5 2020 vs MacBook Air M1. Which one should I choose? If I buy the intel version I could get 512gb but If I choose M1, I only get 256gb. Pls lemme know ur opinion! :)
Honestly you’re going to get more longevity out of that M1. The Core i5 is just underpowered. I would also consider Apple’s refurbished store to save some money as well.
Hey Kevin i just subscribed and turned my notifications on to your channel i reallllly like the way you explain things i really hope i get to learn a lot of things from you in the future...i need your opinion on something if you wont mind answering ...im interesting in getting into videography and editing FYI i dont know anything about it i have 0 experience however i really wanna learn and major in it also im a new multimedia student... im planing on getting (MBP m1 16gb 256g )and 1T external SSD and i really hope the laptop will live with me in good condition at least for 5-7 years, so would you advise me to get the 512gb ssd MBP instead or shoud I stick to getting the 256gb and maybe get a 2T ssd instead or 1T ssd ? one last thing, can i save videos on the external ssd and work on it while its connected , or is it better to only video edit using it and save the videos on hdd? Im sorry if my question sound silly im a beginner here
Not silly at all. Great to have you here. So I did a video recently on this. You can certainly store that footage on the SSD, however it will start to fill up quickly the more footage and the more you edit. I’d recommend a HDD for longer term archiving, which is much cheaper. I have a network attached storage device, but in my recent video I showcased a Western Digital 14TB desktop HDD that I got on sale for around $200USD, which is quite a lot of storage space for many folks. I’d definitely recommend the 16GBs of RAM and although I do edit on my external SSDs all the time, I do like having the extra space on my internal on the M1 mini (1TB), but the MacBook Air is. 256GB model and I’ve been fine with that as well. But you want this to be with you for several years, so get what you can afford, however also invest now so that you’re not regretting being limited later on the internal drive. Sometimes it’s nice to have a little extra space in case you’re moving files off of an external drive and onto the computer for whatever reason that might be. I personally have several 1TB external SSDs, but honestly it’s sometimes better to have larger externals if you can because it’s just less to keep up with. I mostly have multiple drives because I do a lot of testing and have many (a lot) of different projects going at once on multiple machines.
According to a review on Anandtech, the t7 consumes about 4 times less power compared to the Sandisk Extreme Pro and is almost as fast. This is important if you are also going to use an SSD with a tablet or phone.
Yes, love Anandtech as a resource. I may have to test this out as well since my T5 has always been my go to for the iPad and phones. Appreciate you dropping that nugget of info here.
Thanks my man, brilliant vid, really appreciate it. Just deciding if the new Mac Mini is my next computer. People like you, making all these great videos which must take you ages to do - it's brilliant, thanks a lot, really appreciate all the work you do :)
I'm building a M1 Mac Mini 16 gig system with a Samsung 500 gig T5 and 500 gig T7 ssd. I don't shoot or process any video but work with large RAW files in my photography. I'm using two hubs, an Elecife and AGPTEK hub. That gives me 1.25 TB of storage.
Excited for you! Seriously. I personally hadn’t been this excited about a piece of tech in a long time. I decided to order the MBA as well, but the RAM bump pushed it out closer to Christmas. Let me know what you think when you get it. Stoked for you.
Thank you for this video. I am now more confident about buying an M1 Mac Mini with base storage and 16GB RAM. I currently have a base model 2015 MacBook Pro 13 and I edit off 2 Pioneer External SSDs that I set on raid through MacOS's Disk Utility. Each disk transfers just over 400MB/s, and in raid they nearly reach 900MB/s. They are on a USB hub connected to the USB-A port on my MBP. My footage is 1080p but I export in 4K. Render times are not a concern to me, but I do need to be able to edit smoothly, which is what my current MBP struggles with.
Yeah, I’m going to be doing another video where I talk about the edit itself. Export isn’t usually an issue, but scrubbing through and playing the timeline with edits can certainly slow things down. Glad to help.
Hey Kevin, as someone that keeps nothing but barebones apps but will be recording 4k Vids around 10-15 minutes for youtube, would you recommend 256SSD or 512SSD for internal then get a external SSD in either case? Will that 256 vs 512 affect longevity? Thanks!
The one thing I like about the extra internal is just to have the option to be able to temporarily move files from an external to the internal if needed, but that’s usually something that may happen occasionally. Sometimes I have multiple projects going at once and although I have about 4 or 5 SSDs I still like having another option. As far as longevity, you’ll be fine with 256, but the question I always have is can you afford the extra now and how upset would you be if you didn’t have it later?
@@KevinRossRN Thanks so much Kevin, I went with the 512GB just to be sure, if I want to use it for light gaming or something down the line I won't feel limited and for editing it's great so I can edit on the drive then transfer. I figure a couple hundred dollars for 5+ years of peace is definitely worth it.
I think that’s a great choice my friend, especially if you do want to play some games on there, which some of them can be run on an external, but often times it just helps having that extra space. 😉
Excellent! Sooo hard to pick about accessories and peripherals so any help saves so much research time! I am still new to editing so forgive me if my questions are dumb. It should always be the plan to render to your internal storage right? I think that is what I understood from your video. I ask because you said upgrade RAM first, but if it’s a time saver should you get the upgraded internal storage first if you are editing? I will only be using 4K timelines and will never be a 8K professional kind of guy so I want to verify that a 1TB internal is the minimal starting point for editors? Sorry, I need baby talk here. So is this right, min 16 gig RAM, 1 TB internal, and external SSD to manage storage of footage and finished work?
No worries. So I actually linked up a video that I did here: ruclips.net/video/IH_iTtiABho/видео.html which explains that process. But to clarify, the RAM upgrade would be my recommendation to occur first. As far as the external SSD, this can hold all of your raw video footage, and the library and editing bundle from final cut pro (or whatever editor). So everything is happening on that external drive. The only thing that remains on your internal drive is Final Cut Pro itself, and any small sized back up files that Final Cut Pro creates. So, the bulk of the editing and files is on the external, while the FCP application just lives on the internal. The examples I mentioned in this video are that I move the entirety of the files from the internal drive to the external, and then deleted them off the internal. Everything occurred on these SSDs. Hope that helps, but just let me know.
outstanding vid! BUT I'm still on the fence, since ill be mainly using the ssd for video editing as well and don't care much abt file transfer rates, should I just get the T5 over the T7 then? theyd probably have the same render performance right? I like the Sandisk better but didnt know it gets almost twice the operating temp of the Samsung! which would u recommend among the four? T5, T7, Extreme Pro v1, v2 (1gbps)
Thanks! Are you working off of an M1? The only reason I ask is that Read and write drop to about 300-400 on the T5, which I think you’d be fine. I did an updated video last week??? I think it was last week. But I shared info on the SanDisk and compared it to some DIY enclosures for video.
@@KevinRossRN yes off the m1 imac. ill check that video out then! you mentioned in this video that performance drops to about 120 (?) when video editing - curious if thatd be different among the 4 ssds
Yeah, so the T5 would be able to handle that just fine, but one of the things I need to cover in an upcoming video is not just export times, but also working through the timeline and playing back smoothly, which again, these externals will do just fine. However I’d be interested to see what you think of a DIY option.
@@KevinRossRN awesome. those are actually the only things im curious about - the timeline & playback performance, and operation temp of the drives. will wait for your video on them before i purchase! if you could do the T5, T7, ExtremePro v1, v2 drives, that would be really great Kev! cheers
I really enjoyed this vid, thank you! I’ve ordered my M1 MacBook Pro with the 16gb RAM.. but I have a Sabrent 1TB rocket ($100) and an external TB3 case ($100) that acts as a heat sync. I’m able to get read and write speeds of around 2500Mb/s even through the TB3 cable This has saved me hundreds of dollars with amazing performance So much better value for the cost compared the ready made external SSDs and upgrading the internals with Apple
I was just looking at the Sabrent yesterday. I agree that these cases and buying your own NVMe is a huge plus. Working on a setup from OWC to review. Let me know what Read/Write you’re getting when you’re able to test your MBP.
That is impressive. And I hope this translates to real world performance, getting you as close to those internal speeds as possible. Really appreciate you keep us all updated. Makes research a little easier 😉
@@KevinRossRN I am in the market for upgrading and would be interested in what your investigations would reveal in terms of pros and cons. Thanks for asking!
Kevin I have learned SO much about SSDs in the last few days thx to your channel. Thank you so much for the detailed tech information along with real world examples. I’m currently trying to decide which size internal SSD I need for the MacBook Pro I’ll be ordering. The 3-5 vids I’ve watched of yours have helped immensely.
Just stumbled onto your channel because I myself just bought a base model M1 Mac Mini and love hearing the opinions on the machine. Very informative and very well shot. You should have more subs.
@@KevinRossRN just wanted to do a follow up Kevin. I got the Dell S2721Q and mounted the Mac Mini to the back. So sick and really clean setup. Loving the Mac Mini’s power so far.
Yes! I love that you circled back around. That’s so great to hear my friend. And, so stealth behind that monitor 🥷I hope it continues to work out for you.
I only use time machine on one of my machines that I use for my business outside of creating because most of my creative is on a server. That being said, I did do a video recently on backups. You could start with a HDD on a budget. In the video I did I had a 14TB drive that cost around $200US
If buying the m1air just for normal use like surfing, email, YT, FB, Instagram, light gaming and watching movies would it be better to buy one with 512gb memory to hedge for future needs or to buy the cheaper 256gb and save photos, etc to an external drive or iCloud?
If you can afford the extra storage internally, it’s not a bad idea, however for general use, and really heavy use, you can use an external SSD for quite a few workflows.
Great video! Just what I needed to hear as I’m going to buy the m1 Mac mini 16gb ram 256gb ssd. I’m not sure if you use Logic Pro x but I’m planning on using an external ssd to store Logic Pro’s sound library on and other 3rd party virtual instrument libraries. Would you recommend the Sandisk extreme for this sort of stuff or do you think the T5 would be sufficient? Thanks for the great advice! Peace ✌🏼
I do use Logic and storing the library on the T5 would be fine. The SanDisk has about twice the read and write, but that’s really just theoretical and you should be fine.
@@KevinRossRN thanks so much just what i needed to hear and can’t wait to start using this new mac. Still rocking a late 2013 so should notice a big difference haha!
Nice video brother!.I am confused between MBA 16gb 512gb and MBA 16gb 1tb. I can afford the 1tb if i stretch my budget a bit but is it worth the extra 200$?. Which storage variant will you consider as more value for money?.
I will be coding,developing apps just like any other programmer. There will be slight gaming . Also i will be editing vids,pictures(not a hardcore editor but i do work on it). I will get a hdd for sure. Just thinking should i get a ssd or not cuz apple ssd speeds are crazy , only nvme gen 4 can compete with it(correct me if i am wrong) who's price is par with apple's.
Well and the NVMe enclosures I’ve tested aren’t going to run at those internal speeds. The TB retimers/controllers are underpowered, however in my latest research I’m finding the more you max them out the better they perform. I personally like having the 1TB, but I’ll easy have 1 project that could be 400-500GBs.
No, the video I did about running apps on an external drive goes into this a bit more. You can keep the app on the internal, however many of the libraries can be kept on an external.
Macbook air 8core GPU 512gb 16gb ram vs macbook pro 256gb 16gbram same price what will you prefer?Is 256gb extra worth of losing touch bar,fan, better battery life and better display?
Gotcha. So, I’ve got the MBA with 16GBs and 256 of internal as well. For video editing, I heavily rely on the external SSD, but even on my 1TB mini, I’m still using the external drives. If I were more mobile, which even in 2021 isn’t promising (at the moment) I’d definitely be thinking about that extra internal drive space. For me, the touch bar doesn’t add any advantages, but that’s my use case and maybe not yours. The battery life on the MBA is a wow factor. I’ve only plugged it in once over the last week. If you’re doing any kind of heavy 4K editing with Raw files or more complicated codecs, then you’d want better thermal management, so a fan would be a must, although I never hear my fan in the mini...like ever. As far as any programming or coding, I can’t personally speak to it, but going with that 16GBs of RAM (regardless) is the way to go. When we talk about display, I also think this is relative to your own use case. I believe it to be negligible, but others may disagree. For serious work I’d be connecting to an external display, but again, my use case and maybe not yours. But let’s talk about the MBP in terms of footprint. When the updated 16 inch is released, I may decide to review it, however I’m more intrigued by the smaller footprint. And so, I’m more looking forward to the 13 inch based on lugging around other gear and having that smaller form factor that’s still powerful is very appealing. So that being said, I think that although the MBA is incredibly capable and likely to be my every day carry because I know that I’d also have another capable machine to switch to for more intense editing. However, if it were my only machine then I’d lean toward the MBP. However do keep in mind that with the M1 chipset, the performance in all of these machines are very close. I believe more differentiation will be seen in upcoming models, but these right now are so close. What I will say however is that we’ve all been down that road of wanting more storage, and if you’re good with external drives, then it shouldn’t be an issue.
Some comments i read on the sandisk one was it was failing on people and they were losing files. What are your thoughts? I plan to get the m1x mbp about to launch so I want a decent portable drive that won’t break the bank.
Let’s just say that any SSD can certainly fail and backing up your files regularly is recommended, however I will also say that I use the SanDisk SSD all the time. You even used it today on a project and so far it’s been great. Western Digital makes the drives inside of those enclosures. I also use several DIY NVMe thunderbolt 3 and thunderbolt 4 enclosures.
Thx for all your effort you put into making these useful videos! One question: what does your workflow look like when using the external ssd‘s? Plugging in the SD card and copying it onto the mac and then to the external SSD or copying the content of the SD card directly to the external SSD?
So using a hub, just plugging in the SD card to the computer (via the hub), then moving files from the SD to the SSD...I really need to do a video on this. I get asked this all the time, so I better answer the community with a step by step 😀
I was wondering the EXACT same thing! LoL. I’m coming across this vid nearly a year later so if you’re made a vid answering this PLEASE drop a link. Also wondering if an SSD would work as seamlessly if editing on an m1 iPad Pro? 🤔🤔🤔
I saw your other video first, then this one. Great videos and great concept. For me, it’s less about the performance and savings and way more about pushing the organization of my files as far forward into my workflow as possible. I tend to “accumulate” data and that accumulates on my primary HD. It becomes a pain to cull later. If I am working off an external SSD, the accumulation still happens, but it happens on an external drive. When I run out of space, I buy a new one. This would leave my primary HD free of the junk I can’t seem to get rid of. I am not a pro. Just an amateur. I have decades of photos and videos from family and personal work and am looking at starting a pretty specific YT channel so I expect to gather more files in the coming months and years.
I hear you. I have about 60 TBs of data/footage. I move everything over to my NAS once I’m done with a project. File management is really boring, but oh so necessary. Appreciate you stopping by.
For my Macmini I went with just the 8gigs of ram as I'm mostly just running Figma and occasionally Affinity photo and affinity designer. It all runs incredibly smoothly. But totally understandable for someone doing video editing to need more RAM. I also buy an external drive when I need more space it but so far I just store files in the cloud.
If I invest in an external 1TB hard drive so I can do some video editing (more of a hobby/random projects than as a career), how much internal hard drive space do you suggest I have? I'm trying to figure out if I should settle for the base 256 GB storage or splurge for 512 GB of storage.
You can get all of that done on the external and I would recommend taking advantage of it, however I would look at the internal as an investment that I almost guarantee you won’t regret. Can you get away with the base internal? Sure.
I only got the the 256gb 13’ MacBook Pro M1 this year (was on a budget leave me be) but should I get the external drive for it? I make content for RUclips (on iMovie cuz I can’t afford final cut yet either) 🤔
I think I can speak confidently that you’ll always find a use for an external SSD. I have several and use them all. Also, as a side not, if you’re interested in Davinci Resolve, they have a free version and it’s really awesome on Apple Silicon.
I'm a mechanical engineering student who wants to use design software like AutoCAD, MATLAB etc . Is air M1 256gb ok for me as 512gb variant is out of my budget
I actually never thought about opening the files on the external drive possibly slowing down productivity. Possibly with photoshop work it doesn’t make as much of a difference vs video. But you have me rethinking it. I always used an external hd to save my files for two reasons. 1. My macbook pro only had a dreadful 128. 2. If the drive fails or I get a new computer all my files are saved on the external. So I always just opened files from external and edited. I wonder if I should be dragging them to the hd to edit and then dragging them back. I am working with psds, pngs, and vectors. I actually realized I don’t even have an ssd just a regular samsung external hd. So I will purchase one through your link. Thanks again, I love your videos.
Yeah the 128GB is a dreadful thing, and I'm glad to see that being eliminated from the lineup. Even for someone who doesn't edit, I still think it's not enough unless you literally have most everything in the cloud. As far as the bottleneck, you may experience some of that. I've edited on these drives for years (as I mentioned), and it was mostly because I'm working with very large files, but I can also keep several projects on these drives, and move between them very easily. I also like the fact that these video editors allow for editing (entirely) on these drives. During cutting, correcting and render, that FCP bundle can get as big as 300-400GB's for some of the projects I'm working on, and these aren't that intricate either. Moving your files back and forth is certainly an option. One thing I do as well however is that I make sure to take the files on the SSD and put them on my server when everything is done...as my actual back up solution, but I do always have old files lingering on these SSDs that I refer back to. Which year is your MBP?
@@KevinRossRN 2014, and was working for my needs all the way up till a couple mths ago. It started to get sluggish. I don’t know if the hard drive is failing or what. But I kept just waiting for the m1s to come out. Now it is extremely frustrating to get any work done. I finally got my tracking number for my mac mini. Coming from China, delivery date dec 9. It’s going to be a dramatic change in performance for sure.
Oh yes!! Keep in mind, everything that I use it for (the apps/software) seems to all work really well, even the ones that need Rosetta. They’re tough machines, but I know there’s going to be quite a few updates pushed out to make them better. It’ll definitely blow that MBP out of the water as far as performance, but with patience I think you’ll find the little “experiments” with certain apps are getting worked out. Adobe being one of them. 😀 I’m running Photoshop and Lightroom just fine though.
Very informative Kevin. I’m intending to purchase a M1 in a few months and yet I buy my house. I want to start backing up old files from PC. If I back it all up now from PC , will it need to be reformatted when I move to Mac ?
If you use the exFAT file format, then it'll "communicate" with both Windows and Mac. I would say though that SSDs are nice, very fast, but for a longer term back up solution, you could also consider a hard disk drive system. Much cheaper, however for a working external drive SSDs are the way to go.
Awesome. And I’d just go straight to erasing/formatting that drive. It has this security app on it and if you install it, it can then make it harder to format. You just want the drive to work and I assume you may not need any extra security protocols.
Subscribed.... Always find your videos informative. More importantly I agree 100% with your rationales. You really are a pleasure to listen too. Thanks Ross.....Stay Cool..... I'm Canadian living in South Korea.
Hey, so glad to have you here my friend. Fantastic that the content helps you with your buying decision. Sending my best to you. Look forward to seeing you again.
Hi, Kevin. It is a great content. I find your video is really tech savvy and smart. I really want to watch all of it, as compare to other videos I watched this is more detailed and professional. Also, a bit of personal preferences, if the video can have separate segments to divide your content to different talking points, it will be much easier to get your valuable points quicker. This is a great work. Just want to offer a little suggestion for people who may not that good at tech.
Thanks. I’ve added more time stamps in more recent videos, usually those that are over 10 minutes long or those that have a clear delineation. Appreciate the feedback and glad you’re here.
thanks for the scoop bro. i ordered the sandisk pro and 16gb mini .. do you think editing off the sandisk pro will be faster and more fluid than using the internal ssd?
TEM! My man! Hey, I understand the dad hat thing. That's why I prefer the flat bill. Even if it's a little off, it still looks straight 😉 So as far as editing on the Sandisk, yeah, you should be fine. Like I said in the video I was getting about 1-2 minutes slower on the render times with the external. Which, I'd expect that. There's a natural bottleneck happening anyway, so the advertised Read/Write won't be achieved. However, before the M1 I was mostly getting the bottleneck with the CPU (and sometimes GPU), but I'm not seeing that now. The thermal management is just incredible and even if there was some throttling to occur you'd really have to be pushing this thing. I did an overnight render of that 8K Raw on the external SSD without one single issue. The CPU and GPU were chugging about 11 hours to transcode/render that thing to the SSD. But if you're working with 8K Raw all the time, you'd be transcoding and optimizing anyway. I took Josh Yeo's A7siii footage (from Make Art Now) and chewed through it like nothing, and that too just added a couple more minutes to the render on the external. I've also got a guy in Norway sending me R5 Raw footage as well, and he's already sent me Raw photos, which Photoshop on the M1 handled beautifully, even though it's not optimized. Anyway, the short of it is, the internal is going to provide the best performance, but I think the gains you'll get from the M1 chipset for editing will more than make up from a couple of minutes lost with the external SSDs during your render. I do plan on building a NVMe setup to test the speed of those cases from OWC paired up with those drives, but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't perform astoundingly better than these Sandisk or Samsung's because of that bottleneck. We'll see.
Will do brother. And you as well 👊 I’ll keep my eye out on the channel to see what’s happening when you get the mini. You’ll definitely want to talk about it 😉😀
You are so right about the 8 gb of ram verses 16. I have a Macbook pro 2013 (upgraded to 16g of ram 512) and it is kicking my iMac 2015 tail (8g Ran 1TB).. thank you for the knowledge.
Hiii I’m thinking about getting the MacBook Pro with the 16GB memory/ram and I can’t decide between 512GB or 1 TB of storage. For example, 512GB w/ hard drive or just 1TB. I’m planning to use this for school and video editing. I would like to hear your opinion/recommendation! Thank you.
Okay. So as far as video editing, you can definitely do that on an external SSD, but are you trying to avoid an external option? Personally I’ve found the upgrade to 1TB nice to have for creative work when you don’t want to be tethered. Not sure where you live, but I know that in the states the price of that M1 with the upgraded internal drive starts pushing the price closer to the M1 Pro. However I will say that I’m editing a video right now and I’m using an external drive. I use them all the time and I really like keeping the majority of the work files off of the internal when I can. I do have an older MBP with 512GBs of storage and there have been rare occasions I’ve had to free up some space, but only a couple of times.
Awesome Video! Super informative and answered most questions I had about external drives. I do need a suggestion from you if you don’t mind. Im thinking of purchasing M1MBP with 16gb and 1TB just because I had budgeted for the 16” i9 MBP, but im wondering if it’s overkill for the work I’ll be doing, which is Photo-Editing, Video-Editing and just casual business work; emails, conference calls, etc... Would 8gb RAM and 512gb SSD manage? In just starting my business so I don’t know how much work I’ll have because of the clientele.
Not sure what apps you’re using for photo editing, but what I can say is that photoshop and Lightroom are definitely hungry for that RAM. How long do you plan to keep the machine?
@@KevinRossRN currently I am using photoshop and Lightroom heavily. I plan on upgrading to Final Cut Pro for video Editing from my current software. And honestly probably till it dies on me, this is gonna be my 1st Mac so we’ll see how well it does. I’ve been using a super slow desktop for everything so far, but I want something faster and more portable because I am always on the go to different shoots.
Totally Agree! So happy with the M1 Mini with 16 GB of RAM, thanks to you. Coupled with 500GM HD. Thought I'd share for your new viewers. Kevin finally laid down the 129 for the SanDisk EXTreme SSD 1 TB! Funny story, I bought the SanDisk for my son for Xmas. After talking to him before the holiday, He told me he has A SD SSD Extreme. So I kept it and bought him a weather vane monitor system for his house. It was a Win Win! Happy New Year my friend!
Ha! That is funny, and glad to hear that it all worked out. And that’s a great price on that SanDisk. Really hard to beat for the price, honestly. Great to see you again. Happy New Year to you as well.
Bro I'm in heavy confusion, I've got two options, Macbook air 512GB OR Macbook Pro 256 GB. Will the external SSD (Samsung T5) work smoothly with the 256GB macbook pro if I go for the pro 256GB? I'm a student, want this for casual purpose, Netflix and chill and all. Kindly reply!
Casual user...heck even a slightly heavy user, go for the Air. Best bang for the buck. You can still add in an external SSD that’ll work just fine. I have the M1 Air as well as the M1 mini and they are both awesome.
Looking to buy a Mac Mini M1 to replace my 2013 iMac. Would you say it's a good idea to get a 16gb ram, 256gb model with a 1TB external SSD? Or should I upgrade the internal storage of the Mac Mini to 1TB? Thank you
I got my son an iMac M1 8 gigs. He down loaded photo shop, premier pro and adobe illustrator and now he has no memory to actually run it. What do you recommend as an external drive ? He’s a greasy man and I sign him up for 1 week class … let me know
You mean an external drive other than what I recommended in the video? And when you say he doesn’t have memory, is it RAM you’re talking about or storage space?
@@KevinRossRN I meant external drive. I saw another video of yours to familiar myself with memory / ram. I ended up getting ssd scan drive 1 tb, lt was on sale for $109 at Best Buy. I’m not computer savvy , but your videos are very helpful.
The m1 chip mother board is a lot smaller, the heat sink , fans etc are a lot smaller. So there’s loads of UNUSED SPACE inside the Mac mini m1 case compared to the Mac mini intel. Leaves plenty of options for someone with the know how to MODIFY UP ONE OF THESE inside the case. Like adding this thunderbolt hub inside the case some how with a modified slot in the case. JUST A THOUGHT 💭
I watched a video saying SSD internal for apps and HHD external for video editing/gaming is a good setup for a Macbook Pro 2012 upgrade... since you mentioned SSD external setup, would you also recommend for an older Mac?
So the external setup for video editing is something I’ve done for years, but you have to keep in mind the throughput of the computer. So thunderbolt 3 is definitely efficient. USB 3.0 is much slower, 3.1 and 3.1 Gen 2 could be manageable, but still much slower than the internal drive. I definitely knew creators editing on an external on a 2011 MacBook Air via usb 3.0.
Thanks for your helping✌🏼 I decided to go on Macbook Air M1 base model 999$ 8GB Ram with external ssd drive. I’m ableton or logic pro x user and making video’s with Premier and Davinci. Do you think the base model would handle these? Or i should upgrade it to 16GB Ram Notice this that i’m going to change my mac to 16 inch pro next year when M1X Or M2 comes out! What’s your thoughts ?🙏🏼thanks
If you’re going to upgrade next year, and you just want to get into this chip, then I’d say that’s fine with a couple of caveats. Davinci should run pretty well on the M1 now, Premiere not so much. Adobe is still working on this for Premiere, but Lightroom and Photoshop through Rosetta works pretty well. I’m not sure about Ableton, and LogicPro native is fine, but if you use third party apps for Logic, you’ll likely need to operate with Rosetta, and the demands on the RAM will increase. As an example, I was working in Logic and granted, I was working with a lot of tracks, but it wanted to use 15GBs of RAM. Everything worked fine and I didn’t have any hang ups, not to mention the memory swap was occurring on the SSD, but just wanted to share that experience.
Thank you for this video, Can you recommend any monitors for around the $300-$400 price range to go with the M1 Mac Mini 16GB or will i be wasting my money? I will be using this computer for editing videos for You tube. Thank you in advance Jim new subscriber
Hey there! Great to have you around. Have you researched any of the monitors from BenQ? I'd say a monitor investment is important for sure, BUT, knowing how to use those scopes in your video editor is even more important. You can have the most beautiful monitor, and yes, it's awesome to have a beautiful monitor. However, getting comfortable with looking at those scopes will help tremendously because I can tell you that my videos look completely different on my current monitor, because most smartphones and televisions that people are watching on are not calibrated the same. Hopefully that makes sense. Do you have a particular size of monitor you're interested in?
@@KevinRossRN Well not sure I am trying to replace a 13" 2013 mac book pro. So I think I would be happy with something bigger than that. Thank you very much for getting back to me.
So this is at the higher end of your budget: amzn.to/3naLK79 But BenQ makes some pretty decent monitors for creators. The Q line of their monitors is geared toward creating. This of course is just one option, but I will say that BenQ was also on my list when I was looking for monitors for my workflow. The particular one I linked up is USB-C and should be able to easily connect to the M1. This is just a start though.
Should I upgrade my old macbook pro 2014 to a currently available faster SSD-RAM or buy a new macbook air m1. Just for everyday use, would the performance difference be negligible?
The performance difference between the M1 and your 2014 (even with the upgrades) wouldn’t be negligible. The M1 is pretty darn efficient. However, I certainly am not in the business of persuading folks to get something they don’t necessarily need. For general use I would assume your 2014 (upgraded) would be great, however what would be some things you’re most interested in with M1? I assume you’ve done a little more research, so are there aspects of the M1 that really appeal to you?
@@KevinRossRN mostly, Nothing much of the new air M1 I am clinging to, just need my pro 2014 to run as fast as the latest just for every day non-editing use. As you mentioned I would then rather stick to my old pro 2014 for quite a while. Thanks for your suggestion.
Yeah, no point and spending a ton for every day use if you don’t need to. With some RAM and SSD upgrades your machine will definitely get some more speed.
I bought the based mode to use it for a while then reseller as my country is 6 to 1 USD. I'll buy the 16gb model next year. My first Mac so I'm hyped for it to arrive. I'm gonna be learning video editing to get into it as I already do film Photography
Hi Kevin, thank you for your work. I'll cut to the chase, I'm not tech savvy at all. I'm a composer and I recently bought the M1 MacBook Pro (with the larger RAM) to boost my digital composing software performance. To save money, I planned to store all my digital sample libraries (from Spitfire Audio) on a 2TB external SSD drive. I was about to buy the SanDisk 2TB Extreme Pro Portable SSD when I saw several reviews claiming it underutilizes the speed of the M1. Do you know anything about this? I don't want waste money an external SSD that renders substantial benefits of the M1 ineffective and it's too late for me to purchase the 2TB internal storage (which was outside my budget anyway). Not being tech savvy, perhaps I'm totally misunderstanding the situation, but I'd like to get an external SSD that matches my M1 instead of wasting its potential. Am I making sense? Thank you!
Thank you…and yes, you are making sense. So when I made this video I was in the beginning stages of testing the M1, which at this point I’ve done quite a few tests. There is in fact something happening with the Thunderbolt controllers on the M1. This is across all of the devices, even the newly released iMac and iPad Pro. In the follow up videos I have talked about the issue and this even occurs on really fast SSDs. As a video editor the difference in render has been negligible on the SanDisk vs. these other drives that I’ve assembled and that are rated at 3-4 times the speed. If you’ve researched SSDs then maybe you’ve come across these DIY NVMe SSDs in a Thunderbolt enclosure. Ive tested a few. But to pivot back to your workflow, have you edited from or used an external drive for your libraries in the past? What I can say is that there is a hardware problem that seems to cause a communication slow down in these thunderbolt ports. However the CPU and GPU are really awesome at performing quite a few heavy tasks, which brings me to the bigger question in what the real impact would be on the actual workflow because regardless of how fast the SSD is, it also comes down to how fast the program can actually read and write the data (simply put). I’m sure that the internal drive will be the most efficient, however if we put this up against the SanDisk that’s supposed to get 1050MB/s (the one I tested) as advertised, but really getting maybe 750-80MB/s read and write, would this really matter in the workflow? I can’t say for sure because I’m not familiar with your particular software, but this may not be an issue 🤷♂️ Again, just making an educated guess based on all of the testing I’ve done.
Love and appreciate your content my dude.. just picked up an M1 Mac mini to help cut down some time editing in Adobe Premiere Pro. Was wondering how iCloud can still update across all my devices if I'm using the PRO portable external SSD as my main hard drive? Hopefully that makes sense lol. Thanks again homie.
@@KevinRossRN Appreciate the response man.. so I mainly want to run all my video editing on the SSD which I believe I know how from one of your videos. But I'm running into a problem with my iCloud Drive.. since I have the lowest storage space on the M1 all my content that's on iCloud won't sync to the M1 and if I just use the SSD to store everything then I won't be able to access the new content I create on the M1 across my other devices unless I just keep airdropping. Yikes that's a lot.. basically wanted to know if there was a way I can use the SSD you recommended as a means to keep my iCloud updating across all my devices. sorry that's so jumbled lol. Once again, appreciate the help brother.
Well, to simply a little, because all of that footage is going to pile up quickly, have you thought about a back up drive, like an easy store or something similar? The SSD is great to edit off of and have a few active projects, but that space will get eaten up quickly. I’d advise a cheaper solution like a hard disk drive for archiving. It’ll give you so much more space at a reasonable price. You can often find those drives on sale pretty regularly, especially at Best Buy.
waiting on delivery of the 16gb mac mini , already got the sandisk 1 tb ssd, so lets hope it all works, ps been a pc user for 25 years, time for a change
Wow! I know, it's been fun to watch what this little thing can do. And, that there are quite a few folks coming over from Windows. Not a ton, but they're trickling over. In my opinion I think it's a great price point to give MacOS a try.
Final cut is ( in my opinion) the easiest to learn...besides iMovie. Not to mention, it’s optimized for the Mac and works really well. Davinci Resolve also works well and has a free trial... just in case you ever want to experiment.
Sure, here is a detailed walkthrough: ruclips.net/video/QhjQjBCHWQ8/видео.html I have a pinned comment in this video which states to make sure you keep original media on the external rather than copying it to the internal as I had in this video. I typically keep all original media on the external.
Appreciate this video! I am on several (lol) waitlist for a Sony A7s3 and looking to purchase the M1 16g/512 MBP. I wanted to be able to edit completely from an external SSD so I appreciate your REAL LIFE test 💪🏾🙌🏾
Great Videos! I have enjoyed the series, I am still looking for external storage for my Mac Studio. Have you looked at the Trebleet - Super Thunderbolt 3 Dock for Mac Studio&Mac Mini, Dock Station with NVMe/SATA Slot? Its 299, but could be a good deal for what I need. Company seems legit and has replied to my questions and hasn't tried to hide the poor external speed issue on the M1 system. I need this to serve my mac and new iPad Pro.
Thanks! I don’t have direct experience with the Trebleet, but do know about the company. I’ve been meaning to review some of their hardware. Are you looking more as an archiving solution or would like to primarily work off of the SSD?
@@KevinRossRN I'm looking for a lot, and trying to invest wisely for future proofing. Mostly I need a work drive, but also need a hub for various legacy items like drives, an audio interface, piano. The CFexpress card reader would come in handy eventually as well as the extra SDXC card slot would come in handy, I have a 250GB card I already use on my 2013 MacBook Pro. Trebleet would give me the ability to add 2TB of SSD and a SATA Drive. While I already have a few 4TB external hard drives, which I have had issues with due to a cheap usb hub. I want to use the Trebleet SSD for a work Drive and use the SATA for Time Machine. I am hesitant due to the price, but its not that bad of a deal for all its offering.
Gotcha. Well as far as the price, it’s pretty much in line with most Thunderbolt docks I’ve used or my colleagues have invested in. A good hub/dock should return in the investment of time and of course the ability to scale up, which you’d be able to do with your current/future peripherals. I’d have to look into the actual specs of this Trebleet dock as I assume that you might be giving up a TB port or two if it’s giving you the option of housing a SSD or SATA drive.
@@KevinRossRN wanted to say I got that trebleet dock and it’s rocking it in speed. Already getting a bigger SSD stick for it, I made the mistake of saving a hundred bucks and only getting 1tb. That would suit me for a work drive at this time but I ended up really needing an SSD for my Apple Photos(cloud works but drives me insane on loading videos). The dock does a great job of tying together all my little external drives. I bought an Akasis enclosure for the 1tb stick. Using Samsung 980 pro, recommended by trebleet. I paid more than I wanted but consider it a better purchase due to the ability to upgrade easily. I mean I’m already switching out sticks and it’s not even been a month. I posted a response on one of your latest videos but felt it would be more relevant to comment back on this discussion. Thanks again for the great videos they helped me in the right direction. I was a pro audio guy, but video is another animal.
I currently using my iPad Air 4 for editing videos, and using my iPhone to record. What should I use for photos and videos? Just so I can have more space on my phone and ipad
So I’d say the SanDisk that’s 1050MB/s read and write would be a decent choice for moving files pretty quickly. I always recommend 1TB at a minimum, but totally up to your budget.
You shouldn't tell people to pay for 16GB RAM, I haven't seen any clear evidence of performance difference between the 8GB and the 16GB M1 devices, only difference may be in terms of emulation through Rosetta or perhaps when multi tasking (browsing on a bunch of websites) while rendering a video. There is a new Sandisk SSD Extreme Pro New Generation that is 2000MB/s and I saw a video someone shows it rendering even faster on that than with the internal SSD upgrade. Really, it is my understanding, that people should just choose the entry level 8/256GB and choose the Air not the Pro.
Appreciate you weighing in here, and I appreciate your perspective. Now, I believe I've said to get what you can afford, and to put any bump in spec toward the RAM, which I did state that this is where folks should put that investment first. As far as workflow this doesn't come down to a benchmark app, but rather as you state a real world use case. When rendering a video I would expect that a creator will also have Photoshop or Lightroom open working on their thumbnail for RUclips while the render is occurring, while also have some browser tabs open for research or typing out notes in Google Docs, and doing keyword research (if they are indeed posting on RUclips), and likely a few other tasks that may need that RAM. I remember having to shut everything down but my NLE during render so that I could give it as much RAM, CPU, and GPU runway so that I could just get these projects to render. That's definitely no fun. Yes, these chips are extremely optimized and even Rosetta has been a lifesaver for most of the apps that aren't optimized. The concept of the architecture isn't new, but it is having us think differently about CPU, GPU and utilization of RAM vs the x86 architecture. The base models are very capable and I have quite a few creator friends that are doing just fine. I also have creators I'm in touch with that are benchmarking these against their i9's and dedicated graphics cards. Some on YT, some aren't. But, there are some scenarios we're seeing where the RAM is being utilized whether for development, video editing, or audio...and there are multiple programs/tasks running as you would expect on any machine anyone would be using. But again, I agree that the base model is just fine and will perform quite well, but as this architecture evolves so will the programs that we run on it. Efficiency will be a priority, I'm certain, but we will start seeing more demands on these chips being places...as we ask more of them to do for us. This certainly is about making folks feel bad about a base model investment. If it's what you can afford and gets the job done for you then I'm all for the tool that gets you to where you need to be. For creators that are looking at these machines and comparing them to their iMacs, Mac Pro, or their 16" MBP I certainly don't recommend leaving those behind, but those tests they're running have been a bit more surprising with 8GB vs 16GB. I'm not saying we're going to be able to future proof these things for the next 5+ years necessarily and I understand the law of diminishing returns, but the evolution of the architecture and those demands will likely put some folks in the camp of wishing for more RAM. As far as the next gen external drive, I plan on building (assembling) one and popping in an NVMe setup in it for my own testing to see where, if any, bottleneck exists. Appreciate you weighing in here. I always welcome differing opinions. What do you currently use if I may I ask?
@@KevinRossRN I currently use my Intel Xeon + Nvidia GTX1080 in the Shadow.tech cloud (at $15/month) for all my 4K60 video editing, over the past 18 months or so. Before that I would edit 4K30 on wevideo in the cloud for about 18 months, and before that I did all my 1080p video editing directly on RUclips Editor (which has since been discontinued). Sure I am not to be considered pro video editor, but I have published about 3000+ videos in 4K on my RUclips channel, most videos I actually don't need to edit, I mostly just film all in one shot. But there are 20% of my videos or so which I do need to edit, quick trim, join some clips on a basic timeline mostly, sometimes recently I also multi camera edit 2 videos at 4K60 onto a 4K60 timeline, so I need auto clip sync and easy pushing 1 or 2 on the keyboard to select camera angle in the edit. Render out quickly is useful too. I actually think the entry level M1 Mini or M1 Air outperforms my $2000-equivalent Xeon+GTX1080 setup in the cloud. But I still only pay $15/month so I cannot justify investing $700-1000 for an M1 Mac. Though I really really want it, and doing that also get onto using something like Davinci Resolve and try if I can upgrade my content to 4K 10bit 4:2:2, publish HLG content, but my Panasonic G9 would only be able to do that in 4K30 so I would only do that if I somehow upgrade to another camera, the A7Siii is way too expensive and has worse IBIS than my G9, but maybe Panasonic comes with a G10/GH6 shortly. Here in Europe the prices are also about 35% higher than in the USA (thanks a lot Apple!) I have been talking about Arm powered laptops for over 10 years on my RUclips, I filmed hundreds of them. And my website is called armdevices, so in my understanding of how those Arm platforms are done, is that they have nothing to do with x86. The RAM can be used totally differently. By Arm chips on Android and iOS and their OS have been totally designed differently the way multi tasking works, the bottleneck I think can only really happen if you use 2 or more apps simultaneously that absolutely need RAM and can't manage with SSD Swap. If currently you put the video render as a background task while you open your web browser or edit the thumbnail, it's possible that Big Sur slows down your rendering session because it downgrades the importance of that video render using RAM, but I think that is likely a little mistake they can easily optimize in the months to come. Stuff like video rendering, even when places as a "background app" should always have prioritized access to the fast RAM. Anything other you might do, would probably perform just fine on second grade Swap memory to SSD, even if you are web browsing complicated websites, it needs much less imperative RAM access, so I think in the months to come, for sure, the optimizations will only mean that less RAM will only work even better. The only risk for the RAM is for Apple to be truely evil and somehow they might decide to "down throttle low RAM or old devices" over time, just as there has been admitted evidence of Apple doing with iPhones over the past decade, they justified it being to save on battery usage as the unreplaceable batteries get worse. Apple might purposefully slow down 8GB RAM devices in like 6 months, then prioritizing the experience for 16GB RAM users, but I actually kind of doubt they would do that. What I think is more likely to happen is that Apple will release more entry level devices still, I think a 8GB/128GB entry level laptop and Mini is possible at about further $200 lower price or so. The hardware of a Macbook Air costs more or less the same as an iPad, not much more actually. So if Apple can sell iPads at $499 they can offer some cheaper Laptop too. They might not make the cheaper one as "metallic" as the Air/Pro, it might be something a bit smaller and thinner. So when they do that, they can't be making those more mass market devices slow down overtime. I think surely as more and more apps get M1 native optimized, the performance with 8GB RAM is only going to keep getting better. Even Apple's first party apps Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Garageband, etc will only get even better, maybe 20-30% better with further M1 optimizations over the months to come. I also think Adobe, Google Chrome, Microsoft Office and others will keep optimizing so the experience on 8GB RAM I think will only keep getting better.
You on and I are on the same page. I hear you on all fronts. I think that’s the thing we’re not certain about with Apple’s SoC and their software. With every iteration of the MacOS updates, we seemed to experience slow downs one way or another. It’s definitely evident in their handsets, but I’ve only been using iPhone since April. Maybe Apple will bring better software and hardware efficiency because it’s their chipset. For the creators on RUclips, and maybe I’ll just speak for myself, this is just one of the business endeavors I’m involved in. Testing and reviewing, giving my thoughts. When the next iteration comes out, yes, I will get it and compare the two. But for most I just want to make sure they get a little more longevity out of their setups because I know that those watching videos on the updated M1X or whatever they call it, are those that waited and are curious about finally upgrading. Whereas I also hope I can report back to those that have the M1 that they’re fine having made the investment they made today, and there’s no reason that M1 is obsolete...hopefully that makes sense. Anyway, it’s still been fun working with these machines. Feel free to keep me in the loop on what you end up deciding, if the M1 or next iteration is in your future 😉
@@KevinRossRN I hope they do M1 at 8GB/128GB at $499 for Mini or $799 for Air, then that's what I would go for. And with the 1TB or 2TB Sandisk Extreme Pro New Generation at 2000MB/s external SSD. Still waiting a bit I bet maybe Apple decides to release those after Christmas or so. So basically, just only use internal SSD for app installation data, and all rushes and output the renderings to the external SSD only, and backup rushes+edits to an external HDD and the cloud. But I would also just simply stick to my Arm powered Chromebooks and Arm Powered Windows 10 laptops as soon as Google/Microsoft and Qualcomm simply announce to support video editing apps for 4K60 video editing on those, I am sure those other Arm processors also have realtime+ hardware acceleration for 4K60 encoding/decoding in themselves, even with many codecs supported, so I expect sometime in 2021 to also see good 4K60 video editing on those cheaper Arm powered laptops and mini PC desktops too, at half the price or lower than current M1 Air. In my opinion $1000 for an Arm powered laptop is way overpriced. I understand though the M1 is a beast and it's awesome, I do not expect Apple to already bring an M1X or successor that soon, more likely I think any Mac Pro/iMac might "simply" run 2 or 4 of the M1 processors and work them in parallel to render out videos 2x to 4x faster.
Yeah, that’s a good assessment on those “higher end” Macs. The interesting thing will be how they deal with cutting into their iPad sales with the MacBook Air being so capable, and having a keyboard and really good display. I’m still using my iPad Air, but I’ve seen a lot of folks transitioning over to the MBA as a replacement. Exciting times for the consumer (creator or not).
This is great advice, and that saves lots of unnecessary expense. External Drives, and even FREE cloud storage on sites like DropBox, and Box, help people on tight budges. Great video! Thanks for such practical tips!
You should check out the Satechi hub...they’re designed specifically for the Mac Mini. Just ordered one for my new M1 Mac Mini...16g 256g SSD. I got a 500g external drive but it’s not a SSD...don’t really need to spend the extra cash on a SSD just for extra storage for music, pics and docs.
Who said I might not have picked one of those up?🤔😉 Ha! Yes, in my research I did come across that. It’s actually been in and out of stock online, but I agree. A great little setup for sure. I loved having the ability to add an SSD in my EGPU for my MBP and just edit from that if I needed to. Appreciate the recommendation, and I agree. A great little piece of tech that I hope to be testing and talking about here. 😀 Congrats on the mini! Let me know what you think when it you get some time with it.
Great vid Kevin!!! You have a new subscriber :) I'm thinking over getting M1 when it's optimised as you mentioned. Will keep on working with my Macbook Pro 2015 for now. Please advice on external SSD. How to get the max speed? Do i need to get your USB -C hub and will it work with my laptop? Or it will be the same with any USB hub? Cheers
So, I’d have to test this myself, but lack the machine. However, you may find yourself getting (roughly) the same throughput. So with a USB-C to TB2 adapter, you may actually be able to achieve closer to 10Gbps with the type c connected directly into the drive, whereas just using the USB type A you’re likely going to be closer to the 5Gbps mark. Now, I’ve definitely edited on 3.0 and 3.1 speeds, which was fine, but you’ll notice a difference once you’re able to get that full 10Gbps via USB-C. So, the hub I’ve mentioned is USBC so you’d need one that is TB3, however I feel like you’ll have a bottleneck, and it would be more efficient to plug directly into your computer if able.
I mean if you at least have the SSD, you could certainly work off of that until then, but I agree, certainly don’t go down a hole you don’t need to if you’ll invest in the updated chipset in the near future.
Hi Kevin, thank you for the review. Going to go with 512 SSD HD and 16GB of ram. My question is can I use my 2009 IMac as a monitor? Would like to use old and new mini at the same time. To transfer etc. It’s just to get me going. Obviously going to get a 4K 27” in the future.
So I have this exact iMac. You should be able to do it with target display. I just tried, but I only have mini display port to HDMI or VGA. I believe this requires mini display port to a full display port, which I have a ton of adapters, but I don’t seem to have the correct workaround. I’m trying it though. I’ll see if I come up with something that works.
@@KevinRossRN Kevin Thank you. No worries. I have a source for one display for now. The mini Mac is not coming until Jan 16th. Very backed up with the 16GB RAM. Do hopefully by then I'll have enough cake for a 4K 27. I have waited to long, but glad I did for a new CPU. The M1 is going to put my video processing to the next level. Mostly action project, Kayak fishing and Skiing. Also looking at the Caldigit TS3 plus. Santa just brought GoPro 8 Black. Happy New year. Love your vids BTW.
This will definitely level up your video editing. I think the Caldigit is a great choice. I’ll be reviewing a similar setup once it comes off preorder, but Caldigit is very capable. Hopefully that ship date will bump a little for you 😉 Appreciate you hanging out here 👊
@@KevinRossRN Let me say this, I watched several reviews on the Mini M1, however your reviews were the most impressive. Your influence pushed me over the edge! Almost like the St. Patty's day cliffs at Vail! Thank you! I'll keep you up to date. maybe on Twitter. Stay safe. 2021 is going to rock!
Just what I was looking for. I decided to buy the new Macbook Pro M1 Pro base model, which means 512 GB so I need external storage but not paying +$200. Thank you!
I did do a video on this. So you can run the entire operating system on the external, but I know that’s not for everyone. However with many of the apps, you can have the app live on the Mac and the library and contents of the app can be housed on the external.
The drives reviewed and shown are not thunderbolt but USBC. Would like to see what is available as faster thunderbolt 3/4 on market. Is OWC Envoy Express enclosures worth the money with NVME drive?
Sweet! I really appreciate you keeping us posted. I’ve got the Samsung Evo plus on order to try. So are you getting close to advertised speeds on the WD?
Interesting video as I'm planning on buying the Mac Mini M1 with the bigger memory but want to save on the storage. I'm not doing video editing really just my own iPhone videos and photo editing but I do have a lot of photos and I have all my own CD's ripped to my current Mac Mini 2014 machine. Would love to see a similar video showing how you can store music, photos and everyday usage geared for a normal consumer and not a RUclips creator using an external hard drive and so saving money on the Mac Mini. Thanks
Not booting from, but running programs, gaming, editing, etc. it depends on the SSD, but Gen 2 performs similarly to a NVMe. Have a couple of videos on that, and my latest video (today) is on a thunderbolt 4 dock that when fully saturating the ports, boosts the performance.
For all of you who have reached out about the NVMe options. Well, I did a video on that right here friends: bit.ly/NVMeM1Mac
So just to clarify, invest in what you can afford. I'm often asked about future proofing your investment whether with phones, computers, or any other tech. It's a fast moving target, but bumping up your RAM (in my opinion and workflow) will give you the most longevity out of your M1 Mac. The more I push this device with multiple tasks, the more I'm seeing how "pressured" the RAM gets. Will the base models be sufficient for most tasks? Sure. This has been tested by many creators here. I'm just sharing my use case and workflow, and the extra RAM is helpful. Go do the things, and you know where to find me.
Upgrading your ram is honestly very important for a device like this, the mac uses something called swap memory which is basically constantly writing and deleting to your SSD which honestly kills the lifespan of your drive which btw is on the cpu with the ram etc as its all on the chip. So getting something like this not only allows you to invest in more ram but i also lets you get more life out of your maching if you are going to be using it for more than 2 years like quite a lot of people do ( im still using my 2013 15" )
You know my feeling on the RAM😉
I hear you.
And, for anyone even thinking about using LogicProX, especially using Rosetta, it will use as much RAM as it can. I found this out pretty quickly. It works well on the chip, but it’s also hungry for RAM.
How much storage did you get w/the Mac mini M1 Ik you got 16 gb of ram but what was the main storage on the device?
I ended up getting 1TB…if you’re asking about my configuration.
Can I scrub easily through 6k timeline on M2 air with t5..??
Very professional. Very clean. Very informative. You remind me of Mark Wahlberg and John Cena. Best wishes to you brother! ✊🏼
Thanks a hundred times over! Appreciate you very much. Sending my best to you as well.
i can't see john cena. do you?
I’ve got my eyes out 👀
@@KevinRossRN I am editor so I can edit 300gb movie is in external so I can edit in 256 gb ssd m1 air
You can edit as much footage as the external has available space for and that internal can just host the app itself.
You just saved me a lot of money! I’ve never had a problem fitting my program files on 256 GB, but I was wanting more storage for games and media with my new drone. For the cost of 512 GB internal, I can have 256 + 1 TB external SSD. Makes a lot of sense to me since I’ll only need the SSD when I’m docked and wanting to play games or do creative work. Patiently waiting for my 256/16 GB M1 MBP
Hey, saving people money and saving lives...sometimes at the same time ;)
Really glad that this help out friend. I think you will find that these external SSDs are so versatile. Even with 1TB of internal, I still use these SSDs every day. They're awesome.
Best of luck on your set up. That little MBP is going to scream.
Glad I upgraded to 16 GB RAM and kept my M1 Mac Mini. This was a really great informative video and will check out more of these videos on external drives. Looking forward to more tech content.
Hey Matt, glad to have you here and awesome that I was able to help. And yes, that 16GB of RAM (I think) is a worthwhile investment.
Look forward to seeing you around.
I bought the Sandisk 500gb for like $80 bucks, and I love it
These things are great. Love hearing that others are getting use out of them. Appreciate the comment friend.
Hey man, just discovered your video and really like your presentation. It feels like you’re talking to a friend! I seldom subscribe based on just one video but I did it for your channel 😉
Well alright! 👊 That’s what it’s like around here. I want everyone to feel welcome. Look forward to seeing you around the channel.
Bro, i'm in the middle of changing my room and remodeling and coming up with ideas and ended up deciding on a mac. I haven't bought it yet but you explained everything I needed to know clearly.
That’s awesome! Very glad to help. And best of luck and getting everything dialed in. 👊
why are you so soothing to hear
Hey, as long as I’m not putting you to sleep 😴 😄
Hi. It’s very informative. I am in a confusion now. Shall I buy Mac m1 air or pro? And any issues with both? Shall I wait for some time? Plz suggest me. Normal usage, photo editing and video editing, safari, google and RUclips.
Do you need the computer right now? Meaning, do you have something right now that is capable? What editing programs would you mostly be using?
Just bought the sandisk, great video, love the presentation, underrated channel
Congrats on the SanDisk. Hope it works out for you. And many thanks for the comment. 👊
I am new to the world of Apple. Just ordered the Mac Mini M1, 16gb ram. But what I actually want to say is the way you interact to your fanbase is just awesome. You talk in a clear and understanding way, and just help so much with your videos. Definitely subbed
That’s awesome you’ve got a mini on the way, and also awesome to have you here. Really appreciate you taking the time to comment. Look forward to seeing you around. 🤙👍
I like how your m1 reviews have been peaking. Good content and excellent delivery
Much appreciate you my friend. It’s been fun over here. As you know (as a creator), I enjoy hanging out chatting it up with everyone.
Good vid. Just bought macbook pro 13 with ssd512 16gb ram and I’m doing research for external drives for editing. For which one to go?
I’ve definitely got videos on this and recommendations in the description. Depends on whether you want a prebuilt solution or a DIY thunderbolt enclosure.
First time viewer. That was helpful. Thanks.
Well I'm super glad I was able to help. Thanks!
You are on point!
I always wondered what the rendering time between internal ssd vs external. Crazy it was that much of a difference.
Sandisk extreme are great drives. Built well and dependable.
I ordered 16gb/256 MacBook Pro. I am excited for this.
Looking forward to more of your videos.
Hey, just trying to research and help where I can 👊 Much appreciated friend. Keep us posted when that MBP comes in. See you around the channel.
Hey there, great video thank you! So should I prefer choosing the Mac with 512 SSD plus an external SSD over the inbuilt 1Tb SSD? Is it faster as well although the SSD is external? Thank you very much!
The internal will be faster, however even though I have 1TB, I still edit on an external for just about every video. I’d say get as much as you can afford. It’s nice to have the internal space when you need it, but for video editing, it’s nice to have that scratch disk and a place to keep your project, and then when done, move it over to a back up.
The internal should last for years, but with video editing there’s just a constant read/write happening that pushes those drives a little harder.
@@KevinRossRN ah ok thank you very much for the quick response
You bet 👊🤙
Thanks man! Was hesitated first, but bought M1-256 + T7 and UBS hub from your links.
Thanks! The external SSD should serve you well my friend.
Hi Kevin, thank you for making an awesome video! I'm a Law student and interested to buy MacBook for long-term. But I'm confused between MacBook Air Intel Core 5 2020 vs MacBook Air M1. Which one should I choose? If I buy the intel version I could get 512gb but If I choose M1, I only get 256gb. Pls lemme know ur opinion! :)
Honestly you’re going to get more longevity out of that M1. The Core i5 is just underpowered. I would also consider Apple’s refurbished store to save some money as well.
This is exactly what I needed to know, than you!
I made this video for you 😉
Hey Kevin i just subscribed and turned my notifications on to your channel i reallllly like the way you explain things i really hope i get to learn a lot of things from you in the future...i need your opinion on something if you wont mind answering ...im interesting in getting into videography and editing FYI i dont know anything about it i have 0 experience however i really wanna learn and major in it also im a new multimedia student... im planing on getting (MBP m1 16gb 256g )and 1T external SSD and i really hope the laptop will live with me in good condition at least for 5-7 years, so would you advise me to get the 512gb ssd MBP instead or shoud I stick to getting the 256gb and maybe get a 2T ssd instead or 1T ssd ? one last thing, can i save videos on the external ssd and work on it while its connected , or is it better to only video edit using it and save the videos on hdd? Im sorry if my question sound silly im a beginner here
Not silly at all. Great to have you here.
So I did a video recently on this. You can certainly store that footage on the SSD, however it will start to fill up quickly the more footage and the more you edit.
I’d recommend a HDD for longer term archiving, which is much cheaper. I have a network attached storage device, but in my recent video I showcased a Western Digital 14TB desktop HDD that I got on sale for around $200USD, which is quite a lot of storage space for many folks.
I’d definitely recommend the 16GBs of RAM and although I do edit on my external SSDs all the time, I do like having the extra space on my internal on the M1 mini (1TB), but the MacBook Air is. 256GB model and I’ve been fine with that as well.
But you want this to be with you for several years, so get what you can afford, however also invest now so that you’re not regretting being limited later on the internal drive. Sometimes it’s nice to have a little extra space in case you’re moving files off of an external drive and onto the computer for whatever reason that might be.
I personally have several 1TB external SSDs, but honestly it’s sometimes better to have larger externals if you can because it’s just less to keep up with. I mostly have multiple drives because I do a lot of testing and have many (a lot) of different projects going at once on multiple machines.
According to a review on Anandtech, the t7 consumes about 4 times less power compared to the Sandisk Extreme Pro and is almost as fast. This is important if you are also going to use an SSD with a tablet or phone.
Yes, love Anandtech as a resource. I may have to test this out as well since my T5 has always been my go to for the iPad and phones.
Appreciate you dropping that nugget of info here.
Thanks my man, brilliant vid, really appreciate it. Just deciding if the new Mac Mini is my next computer. People like you, making all these great videos which must take you ages to do - it's brilliant, thanks a lot, really appreciate all the work you do :)
Thanks! Yes, these videos sometimes take days to plan, record and edit...although the editing part is a lot quicker on these machines 😉
Thank you. Glad I found your channel on my suggestion feed.
Well I'm glad we found each other. Great to have you around.
I'm building a M1 Mac Mini 16 gig system with a Samsung 500 gig T5 and 500 gig T7 ssd. I don't shoot or process any video but work with large RAW files in my photography. I'm using two hubs, an Elecife and AGPTEK hub. That gives me 1.25 TB of storage.
Nice! That’s definitely quite a bit of storage. And I think as long as you’re not needing that speed through the hub, then that should work.
That was my thinking when I ordered my M1 Mac mini. I ordered the 16gb and bought a 500gb T7.👍
Nice! It’s honestly a great way to save some cash and they really are convenient to have around. Do you have the mini or still waiting on it?
@@KevinRossRN I’m still waiting on it, it supposed to be delivered by the 12/15. 👍
Excited for you! Seriously. I personally hadn’t been this excited about a piece of tech in a long time. I decided to order the MBA as well, but the RAM bump pushed it out closer to Christmas.
Let me know what you think when you get it. Stoked for you.
im thinking on buying the mbp m1 16gb ram and 512gb ssd what do u guys think it will cost me 1675€ with student discount
So, not sure of your situation, but is that an attainable budget goal? What will you mostly be using it for?
Thank you for this video. I am now more confident about buying an M1 Mac Mini with base storage and 16GB RAM. I currently have a base model 2015 MacBook Pro 13 and I edit off 2 Pioneer External SSDs that I set on raid through MacOS's Disk Utility. Each disk transfers just over 400MB/s, and in raid they nearly reach 900MB/s. They are on a USB hub connected to the USB-A port on my MBP. My footage is 1080p but I export in 4K. Render times are not a concern to me, but I do need to be able to edit smoothly, which is what my current MBP struggles with.
Yeah, I’m going to be doing another video where I talk about the edit itself. Export isn’t usually an issue, but scrubbing through and playing the timeline with edits can certainly slow things down.
Glad to help.
I recently purchased the Sandisk Extreme Pro V2. Now I'm waiting on my MBP (M1) to arrive.
Alrighty! Nice. What will be your primary use case?
@@KevinRossRN photography and drone footage.
Saweet! It’s been such a pleasure editing on this M1. Keep me in the loop on what you think of it when it comes in.
@@KevinRossRN will do
It's fast for my needs, but doesn't not achieve rated speeds because it USB and TB3. Around 830mb/s.
Hey Kevin, as someone that keeps nothing but barebones apps but will be recording 4k Vids around 10-15 minutes for youtube, would you recommend 256SSD or 512SSD for internal then get a external SSD in either case? Will that 256 vs 512 affect longevity? Thanks!
The one thing I like about the extra internal is just to have the option to be able to temporarily move files from an external to the internal if needed, but that’s usually something that may happen occasionally. Sometimes I have multiple projects going at once and although I have about 4 or 5 SSDs I still like having another option.
As far as longevity, you’ll be fine with 256, but the question I always have is can you afford the extra now and how upset would you be if you didn’t have it later?
@@KevinRossRN Thanks so much Kevin, I went with the 512GB just to be sure, if I want to use it for light gaming or something down the line I won't feel limited and for editing it's great so I can edit on the drive then transfer. I figure a couple hundred dollars for 5+ years of peace is definitely worth it.
I think that’s a great choice my friend, especially if you do want to play some games on there, which some of them can be run on an external, but often times it just helps having that extra space. 😉
Great video I dont know if I will spend the money for that just yet but thanks for the review!
My pleasure. And thank you for hanging out here.
Excellent! Sooo hard to pick about accessories and peripherals so any help saves so much research time! I am still new to editing so forgive me if my questions are dumb. It should always be the plan to render to your internal storage right? I think that is what I understood from your video. I ask because you said upgrade RAM first, but if it’s a time saver should you get the upgraded internal storage first if you are editing? I will only be using 4K timelines and will never be a 8K professional kind of guy so I want to verify that a 1TB internal is the minimal starting point for editors? Sorry, I need baby talk here. So is this right, min 16 gig RAM, 1 TB internal, and external SSD to manage storage of footage and finished work?
Many thanks 🙏 and certainly happy to help.
@@KevinRossRN I added a question Kevin in my edit. Can you take a look please?
No worries. So I actually linked up a video that I did here: ruclips.net/video/IH_iTtiABho/видео.html
which explains that process. But to clarify, the RAM upgrade would be my recommendation to occur first.
As far as the external SSD, this can hold all of your raw video footage, and the library and editing bundle from final cut pro (or whatever editor). So everything is happening on that external drive. The only thing that remains on your internal drive is Final Cut Pro itself, and any small sized back up files that Final Cut Pro creates. So, the bulk of the editing and files is on the external, while the FCP application just lives on the internal.
The examples I mentioned in this video are that I move the entirety of the files from the internal drive to the external, and then deleted them off the internal. Everything occurred on these SSDs. Hope that helps, but just let me know.
Hi very helpful, nice and clear presentation. Silly question may I ask where you got your headphones stand?
Sure thing. I actually got it from Amazon. Love it: amzn.to/3mNbTsg
outstanding vid! BUT I'm still on the fence, since ill be mainly using the ssd for video editing as well and don't care much abt file transfer rates, should I just get the T5 over the T7 then? theyd probably have the same render performance right?
I like the Sandisk better but didnt know it gets almost twice the operating temp of the Samsung! which would u recommend among the four? T5, T7, Extreme Pro v1, v2 (1gbps)
Thanks! Are you working off of an M1? The only reason I ask is that Read and write drop to about 300-400 on the T5, which I think you’d be fine.
I did an updated video last week??? I think it was last week.
But I shared info on the SanDisk and compared it to some DIY enclosures for video.
@@KevinRossRN yes off the m1 imac. ill check that video out then! you mentioned in this video that performance drops to about 120 (?) when video editing - curious if thatd be different among the 4 ssds
Yeah, so the T5 would be able to handle that just fine, but one of the things I need to cover in an upcoming video is not just export times, but also working through the timeline and playing back smoothly, which again, these externals will do just fine.
However I’d be interested to see what you think of a DIY option.
@@KevinRossRN awesome. those are actually the only things im curious about - the timeline & playback performance, and operation temp of the drives. will wait for your video on them before i purchase! if you could do the T5, T7, ExtremePro v1, v2 drives, that would be really great Kev! cheers
I really enjoyed this vid, thank you! I’ve ordered my M1 MacBook Pro with the 16gb RAM.. but I have a Sabrent 1TB rocket ($100) and an external TB3 case ($100) that acts as a heat sync. I’m able to get read and write speeds of around 2500Mb/s even through the TB3 cable
This has saved me hundreds of dollars with amazing performance
So much better value for the cost compared the ready made external SSDs and upgrading the internals with Apple
I was just looking at the Sabrent yesterday. I agree that these cases and buying your own NVMe is a huge plus. Working on a setup from OWC to review.
Let me know what Read/Write you’re getting when you’re able to test your MBP.
@@KevinRossRN Hey I got my m1 Mac I was able to 1200Mb/s write speed and 2400Mb/s read pretty impressive for $200
That is impressive. And I hope this translates to real world performance, getting you as close to those internal speeds as possible. Really appreciate you keep us all updated. Makes research a little easier 😉
What mic do you use to record your videos? Thanks for the video.
If you’re referring to this video it should be in the description, but I believe it’s the shotgun mic from Deity. Still use it to boom mic shots.
Great video. Could you do a similar one evaluating Logic Pro X on the Mac Mini please!
Sure. What’s your particular use case with Logic? I will say that it does get hungry for RAM, but that’s usually been my experience.
@@KevinRossRN I am in the market for upgrading and would be interested in what your investigations would reveal in terms of pros and cons. Thanks for asking!
@@KevinRossRN i would also like one on logic please. i'm a producer
Are there specific third party plugins you’re using at the moment?
@@KevinRossRN spitfire and native instruments but I’m looking to add more with time
Kevin I have learned SO much about SSDs in the last few days thx to your channel. Thank you so much for the detailed tech information along with real world examples. I’m currently trying to decide which size internal SSD I need for the MacBook Pro I’ll be ordering. The 3-5 vids I’ve watched of yours have helped immensely.
Awesome. Really glad these are helping.
Many thanks. Waiting for 16GB/512 (then external SSDs) M1 Mac mini: What’s your screen?
Awesome! The screen is in the description, but it’s a viewsonic ultra wide. I love it.
Just stumbled onto your channel because I myself just bought a base model M1 Mac Mini and love hearing the opinions on the machine. Very informative and very well shot. You should have more subs.
Appreciate you stumbling over here. Happy to help. Do you have your Mac already, and if so, what do you think of it?
@@KevinRossRN I have it, the keyboard, and the mouse. Just shopping displays right now.
Nice! Best of luck on the display. That’s a whole other rabbit hole to go down. 😀
@@KevinRossRN just wanted to do a follow up Kevin. I got the Dell S2721Q and mounted the Mac Mini to the back. So sick and really clean setup. Loving the Mac Mini’s power so far.
Yes! I love that you circled back around. That’s so great to hear my friend. And, so stealth behind that monitor 🥷I hope it continues to work out for you.
Hi Kevin. Thanks a lot for your videos. I have one question: how about Backups? Do you use Time Machine? If yes, are you using a SSD or normal HDD?
I only use time machine on one of my machines that I use for my business outside of creating because most of my creative is on a server.
That being said, I did do a video recently on backups. You could start with a HDD on a budget. In the video I did I had a 14TB drive that cost around $200US
If buying the m1air just for normal use like surfing, email, YT, FB, Instagram, light gaming and watching movies would it be better to buy one with 512gb memory to hedge for future needs or to buy the cheaper 256gb and save photos, etc to an external drive or iCloud?
If you can afford the extra storage internally, it’s not a bad idea, however for general use, and really heavy use, you can use an external SSD for quite a few workflows.
Great video! Just what I needed to hear as I’m going to buy the m1 Mac mini 16gb ram 256gb ssd. I’m not sure if you use Logic Pro x but I’m planning on using an external ssd to store Logic Pro’s sound library on and other 3rd party virtual instrument libraries. Would you recommend the Sandisk extreme for this sort of stuff or do you think the T5 would be sufficient? Thanks for the great advice! Peace ✌🏼
I do use Logic and storing the library on the T5 would be fine. The SanDisk has about twice the read and write, but that’s really just theoretical and you should be fine.
@@KevinRossRN thanks so much just what i needed to hear and can’t wait to start using this new mac. Still rocking a late 2013 so should notice a big difference haha!
Oh, you’ll notice a difference for sure. You can count on it 😉🤙
@@KevinRossRN can’t wait! Thanks again for the great videos and advice! By far the most helpful 👍🏻
Just glad to be here, and glad to have you here. 👊🤙
Nice video brother!.I am confused between MBA 16gb 512gb and MBA 16gb 1tb. I can afford the 1tb if i stretch my budget a bit but is it worth the extra 200$?. Which storage variant will you consider as more value for money?.
Thanks! For me personally I got the 1TB because I do a lot of testing, but I still use external drives for all of my editing. What’s your primary use?
I will be coding,developing apps just like any other programmer. There will be slight gaming . Also i will be editing vids,pictures(not a hardcore editor but i do work on it). I will get a hdd for sure. Just thinking should i get a ssd or not cuz apple ssd speeds are crazy , only nvme gen 4 can compete with it(correct me if i am wrong) who's price is par with apple's.
Well and the NVMe enclosures I’ve tested aren’t going to run at those internal speeds. The TB retimers/controllers are underpowered, however in my latest research I’m finding the more you max them out the better they perform.
I personally like having the 1TB, but I’ll easy have 1 project that could be 400-500GBs.
@@KevinRossRN do softwares in apple take up more space than they do in windows(in general)? MBA will be my first mac os device.
No, the video I did about running apps on an external drive goes into this a bit more. You can keep the app on the internal, however many of the libraries can be kept on an external.
Macbook air 8core GPU 512gb 16gb ram vs macbook pro 256gb 16gbram same price what will you prefer?Is 256gb extra worth of losing touch bar,fan, better battery life and better display?
What are you mostly using the machine for?
@@KevinRossRN programming and little bit of 4k video editing
Gotcha. So, I’ve got the MBA with 16GBs and 256 of internal as well. For video editing, I heavily rely on the external SSD, but even on my 1TB mini, I’m still using the external drives.
If I were more mobile, which even in 2021 isn’t promising (at the moment) I’d definitely be thinking about that extra internal drive space.
For me, the touch bar doesn’t add any advantages, but that’s my use case and maybe not yours.
The battery life on the MBA is a wow factor. I’ve only plugged it in once over the last week.
If you’re doing any kind of heavy 4K editing with Raw files or more complicated codecs, then you’d want better thermal management, so a fan would be a must, although I never hear my fan in the mini...like ever.
As far as any programming or coding, I can’t personally speak to it, but going with that 16GBs of RAM (regardless) is the way to go.
When we talk about display, I also think this is relative to your own use case. I believe it to be negligible, but others may disagree. For serious work I’d be connecting to an external display, but again, my use case and maybe not yours.
But let’s talk about the MBP in terms of footprint. When the updated 16 inch is released, I may decide to review it, however I’m more intrigued by the smaller footprint. And so, I’m more looking forward to the 13 inch based on lugging around other gear and having that smaller form factor that’s still powerful is very appealing.
So that being said, I think that although the MBA is incredibly capable and likely to be my every day carry because I know that I’d also have another capable machine to switch to for more intense editing. However, if it were my only machine then I’d lean toward the MBP.
However do keep in mind that with the M1 chipset, the performance in all of these machines are very close. I believe more differentiation will be seen in upcoming models, but these right now are so close.
What I will say however is that we’ve all been down that road of wanting more storage, and if you’re good with external drives, then it shouldn’t be an issue.
Some comments i read on the sandisk one was it was failing on people and they were losing files. What are your thoughts? I plan to get the m1x mbp about to launch so I want a decent portable drive that won’t break the bank.
Let’s just say that any SSD can certainly fail and backing up your files regularly is recommended, however I will also say that I use the SanDisk SSD all the time. You even used it today on a project and so far it’s been great.
Western Digital makes the drives inside of those enclosures. I also use several DIY NVMe thunderbolt 3 and thunderbolt 4 enclosures.
Thx for all your effort you put into making these useful videos! One question: what does your workflow look like when using the external ssd‘s? Plugging in the SD card and copying it onto the mac and then to the external SSD or copying the content of the SD card directly to the external SSD?
So using a hub, just plugging in the SD card to the computer (via the hub), then moving files from the SD to the SSD...I really need to do a video on this. I get asked this all the time, so I better answer the community with a step by step 😀
I was wondering the EXACT same thing! LoL. I’m coming across this vid nearly a year later so if you’re made a vid answering this PLEASE drop a link. Also wondering if an SSD would work as seamlessly if editing on an m1 iPad Pro? 🤔🤔🤔
Yes, I have a video for both. My workflow, and editing on an external SSD in LumaFusion on the M1 iPadPro…I can grab those links.
I saw your other video first, then this one. Great videos and great concept. For me, it’s less about the performance and savings and way more about pushing the organization of my files as far forward into my workflow as possible. I tend to “accumulate” data and that accumulates on my primary HD. It becomes a pain to cull later. If I am working off an external SSD, the accumulation still happens, but it happens on an external drive. When I run out of space, I buy a new one. This would leave my primary HD free of the junk I can’t seem to get rid of.
I am not a pro. Just an amateur. I have decades of photos and videos from family and personal work and am looking at starting a pretty specific YT channel so I expect to gather more files in the coming months and years.
I hear you. I have about 60 TBs of data/footage. I move everything over to my NAS once I’m done with a project.
File management is really boring, but oh so necessary.
Appreciate you stopping by.
For my Macmini I went with just the 8gigs of ram as I'm mostly just running Figma and occasionally Affinity photo and affinity designer. It all runs incredibly smoothly. But totally understandable for someone doing video editing to need more RAM. I also buy an external drive when I need more space it but so far I just store files in the cloud.
You will certainly be just fine with that my friend. I need to test out Affinity on this machine. Thanks for reminding me 😄
If I invest in an external 1TB hard drive so I can do some video editing (more of a hobby/random projects than as a career), how much internal hard drive space do you suggest I have? I'm trying to figure out if I should settle for the base 256 GB storage or splurge for 512 GB of storage.
You can get all of that done on the external and I would recommend taking advantage of it, however I would look at the internal as an investment that I almost guarantee you won’t regret. Can you get away with the base internal? Sure.
Thank you, Kevin, this helped me out so much. I am a bit late on getting a mac mini but this helped me make the decision.
That’s great! Best of luck 🤞
I only got the the 256gb 13’ MacBook Pro M1 this year (was on a budget leave me be) but should I get the external drive for it? I make content for RUclips (on iMovie cuz I can’t afford final cut yet either) 🤔
I think I can speak confidently that you’ll always find a use for an external SSD. I have several and use them all.
Also, as a side not, if you’re interested in Davinci Resolve, they have a free version and it’s really awesome on Apple Silicon.
You’ve fast become one of my favorite channels. Respect
Many thanks friend. Glad you’re here.
Crisp audio. Great lighting. Straight to the point information.
Why thank you. Happy to be of service 👊
I'm a mechanical engineering student who wants to use design software like AutoCAD, MATLAB etc . Is air M1 256gb ok for me as 512gb variant is out of my budget
Well, with the software you’re using I would think the 16GBs of RAM would be helpful in your case.
I actually never thought about opening the files on the external drive possibly slowing down productivity. Possibly with photoshop work it doesn’t make as much of a difference vs video. But you have me rethinking it. I always used an external hd to save my files for two reasons. 1. My macbook pro only had a dreadful 128. 2. If the drive fails or I get a new computer all my files are saved on the external. So I always just opened files from external and edited. I wonder if I should be dragging them to the hd to edit and then dragging them back. I am working with psds, pngs, and vectors. I actually realized I don’t even have an ssd just a regular samsung external hd. So I will purchase one through your link. Thanks again, I love your videos.
Yeah the 128GB is a dreadful thing, and I'm glad to see that being eliminated from the lineup. Even for someone who doesn't edit, I still think it's not enough unless you literally have most everything in the cloud.
As far as the bottleneck, you may experience some of that. I've edited on these drives for years (as I mentioned), and it was mostly because I'm working with very large files, but I can also keep several projects on these drives, and move between them very easily. I also like the fact that these video editors allow for editing (entirely) on these drives. During cutting, correcting and render, that FCP bundle can get as big as 300-400GB's for some of the projects I'm working on, and these aren't that intricate either.
Moving your files back and forth is certainly an option. One thing I do as well however is that I make sure to take the files on the SSD and put them on my server when everything is done...as my actual back up solution, but I do always have old files lingering on these SSDs that I refer back to.
Which year is your MBP?
@@KevinRossRN 2014, and was working for my needs all the way up till a couple mths ago. It started to get sluggish. I don’t know if the hard drive is failing or what. But I kept just waiting for the m1s to come out. Now it is extremely frustrating to get any work done. I finally got my tracking number for my mac mini. Coming from China, delivery date dec 9. It’s going to be a dramatic change in performance for sure.
Oh yes!! Keep in mind, everything that I use it for (the apps/software) seems to all work really well, even the ones that need Rosetta. They’re tough machines, but I know there’s going to be quite a few updates pushed out to make them better.
It’ll definitely blow that MBP out of the water as far as performance, but with patience I think you’ll find the little “experiments” with certain apps are getting worked out. Adobe being one of them. 😀
I’m running Photoshop and Lightroom just fine though.
@@KevinRossRN great to know! Can’t wait.
I’m sure we’ll be chatting more here, but definitely keep me posted when you get it.
Very informative Kevin. I’m intending to purchase a M1 in a few months and yet I buy my house. I want to start backing up old files from PC. If I back it all up now from PC , will it need to be reformatted when I move to Mac ?
If you use the exFAT file format, then it'll "communicate" with both Windows and Mac. I would say though that SSDs are nice, very fast, but for a longer term back up solution, you could also consider a hard disk drive system. Much cheaper, however for a working external drive SSDs are the way to go.
@@KevinRossRN , Thankyou T7 arriving Friday
Awesome. And I’d just go straight to erasing/formatting that drive. It has this security app on it and if you install it, it can then make it harder to format. You just want the drive to work and I assume you may not need any extra security protocols.
Subscribed.... Always find your videos informative. More importantly I agree 100% with your rationales. You really are a pleasure to listen too. Thanks Ross.....Stay Cool..... I'm Canadian living in South Korea.
Hey, so glad to have you here my friend. Fantastic that the content helps you with your buying decision. Sending my best to you. Look forward to seeing you again.
Should I get a Mac mini or a iMac for video and photo editing and school
Do you already have a monitor to pair with the Mac mini?
Hi, Kevin. It is a great content. I find your video is really tech savvy and smart. I really want to watch all of it, as compare to other videos I watched this is more detailed and professional. Also, a bit of personal preferences, if the video can have separate segments to divide your content to different talking points, it will be much easier to get your valuable points quicker. This is a great work. Just want to offer a little suggestion for people who may not that good at tech.
Thanks. I’ve added more time stamps in more recent videos, usually those that are over 10 minutes long or those that have a clear delineation.
Appreciate the feedback and glad you’re here.
thanks for the scoop bro. i ordered the sandisk pro and 16gb mini .. do you think editing off the sandisk pro will be faster and more fluid than using the internal ssd?
TEM! My man! Hey, I understand the dad hat thing. That's why I prefer the flat bill. Even if it's a little off, it still looks straight 😉
So as far as editing on the Sandisk, yeah, you should be fine. Like I said in the video I was getting about 1-2 minutes slower on the render times with the external. Which, I'd expect that. There's a natural bottleneck happening anyway, so the advertised Read/Write won't be achieved. However, before the M1 I was mostly getting the bottleneck with the CPU (and sometimes GPU), but I'm not seeing that now. The thermal management is just incredible and even if there was some throttling to occur you'd really have to be pushing this thing. I did an overnight render of that 8K Raw on the external SSD without one single issue. The CPU and GPU were chugging about 11 hours to transcode/render that thing to the SSD. But if you're working with 8K Raw all the time, you'd be transcoding and optimizing anyway.
I took Josh Yeo's A7siii footage (from Make Art Now) and chewed through it like nothing, and that too just added a couple more minutes to the render on the external. I've also got a guy in Norway sending me R5 Raw footage as well, and he's already sent me Raw photos, which Photoshop on the M1 handled beautifully, even though it's not optimized.
Anyway, the short of it is, the internal is going to provide the best performance, but I think the gains you'll get from the M1 chipset for editing will more than make up from a couple of minutes lost with the external SSDs during your render. I do plan on building a NVMe setup to test the speed of those cases from OWC paired up with those drives, but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't perform astoundingly better than these Sandisk or Samsung's because of that bottleneck. We'll see.
@@KevinRossRN my man .. appreciate the info bro keep up the good work 👊
Will do brother. And you as well 👊
I’ll keep my eye out on the channel to see what’s happening when you get the mini. You’ll definitely want to talk about it 😉😀
Never Ever - it‘s a bottleneck!
You are so right about the 8 gb of ram verses 16. I have a Macbook pro 2013 (upgraded to 16g of ram 512) and it is kicking my iMac 2015 tail (8g Ran 1TB).. thank you for the knowledge.
You got it 👍
Thank you for the time you spent here. 🤘
Hiii I’m thinking about getting the MacBook Pro with the 16GB memory/ram and I can’t decide between 512GB or 1 TB of storage. For example, 512GB w/ hard drive or just 1TB. I’m planning to use this for school and video editing. I would like to hear your opinion/recommendation! Thank you.
Are you getting the M1 or the M1 Pro?
@@KevinRossRN M1 (MacBook Pro 13” w/ Touch Bar)
Okay. So as far as video editing, you can definitely do that on an external SSD, but are you trying to avoid an external option?
Personally I’ve found the upgrade to 1TB nice to have for creative work when you don’t want to be tethered. Not sure where you live, but I know that in the states the price of that M1 with the upgraded internal drive starts pushing the price closer to the M1 Pro.
However I will say that I’m editing a video right now and I’m using an external drive. I use them all the time and I really like keeping the majority of the work files off of the internal when I can.
I do have an older MBP with 512GBs of storage and there have been rare occasions I’ve had to free up some space, but only a couple of times.
@@KevinRossRN I heard you have to replace external hard drives every 3-5 years. Would you recommend doing that or just get the 1TB?
@@KevinRossRN also how many years do you think 512GB would last vs 1TB?
Awesome Video! Super informative and answered most questions I had about external drives. I do need a suggestion from you if you don’t mind. Im thinking of purchasing M1MBP with 16gb and 1TB just because I had budgeted for the 16” i9 MBP, but im wondering if it’s overkill for the work I’ll be doing, which is Photo-Editing, Video-Editing and just casual business work; emails, conference calls, etc...
Would 8gb RAM and 512gb SSD manage? In just starting my business so I don’t know how much work I’ll have because of the clientele.
Not sure what apps you’re using for photo editing, but what I can say is that photoshop and Lightroom are definitely hungry for that RAM. How long do you plan to keep the machine?
@@KevinRossRN currently I am using photoshop and Lightroom heavily. I plan on upgrading to Final Cut Pro for video Editing from my current software.
And honestly probably till it dies on me, this is gonna be my 1st Mac so we’ll see how well it does. I’ve been using a super slow desktop for everything so far, but I want something faster and more portable because I am always on the go to different shoots.
It’s been debated heavily among my circles.
If you want this to be a better investment for the longer term, 16 it is my friend.
@@KevinRossRN Thank you so much! 🙏As as for the storage space, would you recommend 512gb and save 200$ and get the SanDisk 2tb 1050mb/s?
I have a 1TB setup on the mini and 256 on the MacBook Air...I still use an external SSD for both. Just sayin’
Totally Agree! So happy with the M1 Mini with 16 GB of RAM, thanks to you. Coupled with 500GM HD. Thought I'd share for your new viewers. Kevin finally laid down the 129 for the SanDisk EXTreme SSD 1 TB! Funny story, I bought the SanDisk for my son for Xmas. After talking to him before the holiday, He told me he has A SD SSD Extreme. So I kept it and bought him a weather vane monitor system for his house. It was a Win Win! Happy New Year my friend!
Ha! That is funny, and glad to hear that it all worked out. And that’s a great price on that SanDisk. Really hard to beat for the price, honestly.
Great to see you again. Happy New Year to you as well.
Wow! So calm. First time watching you and loving your energy.
Much appreciated friend. Glad to have you over here and hope that this helped.
Bro I'm in heavy confusion,
I've got two options,
Macbook air 512GB OR Macbook Pro 256 GB.
Will the external SSD (Samsung T5) work smoothly with the 256GB macbook pro if I go for the pro 256GB?
I'm a student, want this for casual purpose, Netflix and chill and all.
Kindly reply!
Casual user...heck even a slightly heavy user, go for the Air. Best bang for the buck. You can still add in an external SSD that’ll work just fine.
I have the M1 Air as well as the M1 mini and they are both awesome.
Looking to buy a Mac Mini M1 to replace my 2013 iMac. Would you say it's a good idea to get a 16gb ram, 256gb model with a 1TB external SSD? Or should I upgrade the internal storage of the Mac Mini to 1TB? Thank you
What are you mostly using it for?
NO, YOU HAVE IT RIGHT 16GB for sure! and external for storage...
I got my son an iMac M1 8 gigs. He down loaded photo shop, premier pro and adobe illustrator and now he has no memory to actually run it. What do you recommend as an external drive ? He’s a greasy man and I sign him up for 1 week class … let me know
You mean an external drive other than what I recommended in the video?
And when you say he doesn’t have memory, is it RAM you’re talking about or storage space?
@@KevinRossRN I meant external drive. I saw another video of yours to familiar myself with memory / ram. I ended up getting ssd scan drive 1 tb, lt was on sale for $109 at Best Buy. I’m not computer savvy , but your videos are very helpful.
Awesome. And that SanDisk should be fantastic. Best of luck.
The m1 chip mother board is a lot smaller, the heat sink , fans etc are a lot smaller. So there’s loads of UNUSED SPACE inside the Mac mini m1 case compared to the Mac mini intel. Leaves plenty of options for someone with the know how to MODIFY UP ONE OF THESE inside the case. Like adding this thunderbolt hub inside the case some how with a modified slot in the case. JUST A THOUGHT 💭
Oh boy! I feel another video brewing. This is a great idea.
I watched a video saying SSD internal for apps and HHD external for video editing/gaming is a good setup for a Macbook Pro 2012 upgrade... since you mentioned SSD external setup, would you also recommend for an older Mac?
So the external setup for video editing is something I’ve done for years, but you have to keep in mind the throughput of the computer. So thunderbolt 3 is definitely efficient.
USB 3.0 is much slower, 3.1 and 3.1 Gen 2 could be manageable, but still much slower than the internal drive. I definitely knew creators editing on an external on a 2011 MacBook Air via usb 3.0.
Thanks for your helping✌🏼
I decided to go on Macbook Air M1 base model 999$ 8GB Ram with external ssd drive.
I’m ableton or logic pro x user and making video’s with Premier and Davinci.
Do you think the base model would handle these? Or i should upgrade it to 16GB Ram
Notice this that i’m going to change my mac to 16 inch pro next year when M1X Or M2 comes out! What’s your thoughts ?🙏🏼thanks
If you’re going to upgrade next year, and you just want to get into this chip, then I’d say that’s fine with a couple of caveats.
Davinci should run pretty well on the M1 now, Premiere not so much. Adobe is still working on this for Premiere, but Lightroom and Photoshop through Rosetta works pretty well.
I’m not sure about Ableton, and LogicPro native is fine, but if you use third party apps for Logic, you’ll likely need to operate with Rosetta, and the demands on the RAM will increase. As an example, I was working in Logic and granted, I was working with a lot of tracks, but it wanted to use 15GBs of RAM.
Everything worked fine and I didn’t have any hang ups, not to mention the memory swap was occurring on the SSD, but just wanted to share that experience.
@@KevinRossRN thanks answering I really appreciate it🙏🏼 you helped me a lot
Happy to help 👍
Thank you for this video, Can you recommend any monitors for around the $300-$400 price range to go with the M1 Mac Mini 16GB or will i be wasting my money? I will be using this computer for editing videos for You tube. Thank you in advance Jim new subscriber
Hey there! Great to have you around. Have you researched any of the monitors from BenQ? I'd say a monitor investment is important for sure, BUT, knowing how to use those scopes in your video editor is even more important. You can have the most beautiful monitor, and yes, it's awesome to have a beautiful monitor. However, getting comfortable with looking at those scopes will help tremendously because I can tell you that my videos look completely different on my current monitor, because most smartphones and televisions that people are watching on are not calibrated the same. Hopefully that makes sense.
Do you have a particular size of monitor you're interested in?
@@KevinRossRN Well not sure I am trying to replace a 13" 2013 mac book pro. So I think I would be happy with something bigger than that. Thank you very much for getting back to me.
Sure. And the monitor rabbit hole runs deep my friend. Deep 🐰
@@KevinRossRN What is BenQ? So no recommendation or can i not get a ok monitor for that price? Thanks
So this is at the higher end of your budget: amzn.to/3naLK79
But BenQ makes some pretty decent monitors for creators. The Q line of their monitors is geared toward creating. This of course is just one option, but I will say that BenQ was also on my list when I was looking for monitors for my workflow. The particular one I linked up is USB-C and should be able to easily connect to the M1.
This is just a start though.
Should I upgrade my old macbook pro 2014 to a currently available faster
SSD-RAM or buy a new macbook air m1. Just for everyday use, would the
performance difference be negligible?
The performance difference between the M1 and your 2014 (even with the upgrades) wouldn’t be negligible. The M1 is pretty darn efficient.
However, I certainly am not in the business of persuading folks to get something they don’t necessarily need. For general use I would assume your 2014 (upgraded) would be great, however what would be some things you’re most interested in with M1? I assume you’ve done a little more research, so are there aspects of the M1 that really appeal to you?
@@KevinRossRN mostly, Nothing much of the new air M1 I am clinging to, just need my pro 2014 to run as fast as the latest just for every day non-editing use. As you mentioned I would then rather stick to my old pro 2014 for quite a while. Thanks for your suggestion.
Yeah, no point and spending a ton for every day use if you don’t need to. With some RAM and SSD upgrades your machine will definitely get some more speed.
Very usual info mate. Answered my question 👊🏼
Glad this helped. Thanks for being here.
I bought the based mode to use it for a while then reseller as my country is 6 to 1 USD. I'll buy the 16gb model next year. My first Mac so I'm hyped for it to arrive. I'm gonna be learning video editing to get into it as I already do film Photography
It’ll provide you with a fantastic start. Feel free to pop back over and let me know what you think.
Hi Kevin, thank you for your work. I'll cut to the chase, I'm not tech savvy at all. I'm a composer and I recently bought the M1 MacBook Pro (with the larger RAM) to boost my digital composing software performance. To save money, I planned to store all my digital sample libraries (from Spitfire Audio) on a 2TB external SSD drive. I was about to buy the SanDisk 2TB Extreme Pro Portable SSD when I saw several reviews claiming it underutilizes the speed of the M1. Do you know anything about this? I don't want waste money an external SSD that renders substantial benefits of the M1 ineffective and it's too late for me to purchase the 2TB internal storage (which was outside my budget anyway). Not being tech savvy, perhaps I'm totally misunderstanding the situation, but I'd like to get an external SSD that matches my M1 instead of wasting its potential. Am I making sense? Thank you!
Thank you…and yes, you are making sense. So when I made this video I was in the beginning stages of testing the M1, which at this point I’ve done quite a few tests.
There is in fact something happening with the Thunderbolt controllers on the M1. This is across all of the devices, even the newly released iMac and iPad Pro.
In the follow up videos I have talked about the issue and this even occurs on really fast SSDs.
As a video editor the difference in render has been negligible on the SanDisk vs. these other drives that I’ve assembled and that are rated at 3-4 times the speed.
If you’ve researched SSDs then maybe you’ve come across these DIY NVMe SSDs in a Thunderbolt enclosure. Ive tested a few.
But to pivot back to your workflow, have you edited from or used an external drive for your libraries in the past?
What I can say is that there is a hardware problem that seems to cause a communication slow down in these thunderbolt ports.
However the CPU and GPU are really awesome at performing quite a few heavy tasks, which brings me to the bigger question in what the real impact would be on the actual workflow because regardless of how fast the SSD is, it also comes down to how fast the program can actually read and write the data (simply put).
I’m sure that the internal drive will be the most efficient, however if we put this up against the SanDisk that’s supposed to get 1050MB/s (the one I tested) as advertised, but really getting maybe 750-80MB/s read and write, would this really matter in the workflow?
I can’t say for sure because I’m not familiar with your particular software, but this may not be an issue 🤷♂️
Again, just making an educated guess based on all of the testing I’ve done.
Thanks. I've a bunch of those drives so I think I'll make the leap to the mac mini.
Mac mini it is! What do you currently have?
I have a 2010 Mac Pro 5.1 which has served me well.
Hey, I’ve got two MBPs from 2010 that we still have in rotation. I hear you on that one. So it sounds like you’re due for an upgrade 😀
Love and appreciate your content my dude.. just picked up an M1 Mac mini to help cut down some time editing in Adobe Premiere Pro. Was wondering how iCloud can still update across all my devices if I'm using the PRO portable external SSD as my main hard drive? Hopefully that makes sense lol. Thanks again homie.
Thanks! So do you want to sync everything from the SSD to iCloud? Or just manually put those files in there?
@@KevinRossRN Appreciate the response man.. so I mainly want to run all my video editing on the SSD which I believe I know how from one of your videos. But I'm running into a problem with my iCloud Drive.. since I have the lowest storage space on the M1 all my content that's on iCloud won't sync to the M1 and if I just use the SSD to store everything then I won't be able to access the new content I create on the M1 across my other devices unless I just keep airdropping. Yikes that's a lot.. basically wanted to know if there was a way I can use the SSD you recommended as a means to keep my iCloud updating across all my devices. sorry that's so jumbled lol. Once again, appreciate the help brother.
Well, to simply a little, because all of that footage is going to pile up quickly, have you thought about a back up drive, like an easy store or something similar?
The SSD is great to edit off of and have a few active projects, but that space will get eaten up quickly. I’d advise a cheaper solution like a hard disk drive for archiving. It’ll give you so much more space at a reasonable price. You can often find those drives on sale pretty regularly, especially at Best Buy.
@@KevinRossRN awesome. Thanks again dude! Keep killing it.
Indeed 👊🤙
waiting on delivery of the 16gb mac mini , already got the sandisk 1 tb ssd, so lets hope it all works, ps been a pc user for 25 years, time for a change
Wow! I know, it's been fun to watch what this little thing can do. And, that there are quite a few folks coming over from Windows. Not a ton, but they're trickling over. In my opinion I think it's a great price point to give MacOS a try.
@@KevinRossRN going to install the final cut pro too as i am sick of trying to edit 4k on my stuttering proxy laden timeline.
Final cut is ( in my opinion) the easiest to learn...besides iMovie.
Not to mention, it’s optimized for the Mac and works really well. Davinci Resolve also works well and has a free trial... just in case you ever want to experiment.
I am about to do the same. new to MAC as well...
Can you show us your ssd workflow. some of us are not really familiar with working through your ssd. and tell us the pro's and con's. Thank you Kevin
Sure, here is a detailed walkthrough: ruclips.net/video/QhjQjBCHWQ8/видео.html
I have a pinned comment in this video which states to make sure you keep original media on the external rather than copying it to the internal as I had in this video.
I typically keep all original media on the external.
Aye I actually want to know what kind of Microphone his using?
It’s a Deity shotgun mic. It’s linked in the description.👍😉
@@KevinRossRN does that mic also works connecting to a ps4 console?
It’s an XLR mic, so not without an audio interface.
Great tips. Thank you. Really help full.
Glad that it helped. Thanks for letting me know. 👍🙏
Appreciate this video! I am on several (lol) waitlist for a Sony A7s3 and looking to purchase the M1 16g/512 MBP. I wanted to be able to edit completely from an external SSD so I appreciate your REAL LIFE test 💪🏾🙌🏾
Oh, the a7siii? Nice! I think you’re going to love it. And yes, you’ll be able to edit that footage on the external.
@Kevin Ross yes if it ever comes back in stock 😵💫🥴 lol. SUPER excited, tho I've been waiting AWHILE 😤. Looking forward to upgrading my gear 😊💪🏾😎
I know, a bunch of creators have stock alerts set because it seems everyone is waiting…although we’ll see if that A7IV changes that up slightly. 🤷♂️
Great Videos! I have enjoyed the series, I am still looking for external storage for my Mac Studio. Have you looked at the Trebleet - Super Thunderbolt 3 Dock for Mac Studio&Mac Mini, Dock Station with NVMe/SATA Slot? Its 299, but could be a good deal for what I need. Company seems legit and has replied to my questions and hasn't tried to hide the poor external speed issue on the M1 system. I need this to serve my mac and new iPad Pro.
Thanks! I don’t have direct experience with the Trebleet, but do know about the company. I’ve been meaning to review some of their hardware.
Are you looking more as an archiving solution or would like to primarily work off of the SSD?
@@KevinRossRN I'm looking for a lot, and trying to invest wisely for future proofing. Mostly I need a work drive, but also need a hub for various legacy items like drives, an audio interface, piano. The CFexpress card reader would come in handy eventually as well as the extra SDXC card slot would come in handy, I have a 250GB card I already use on my 2013 MacBook Pro. Trebleet would give me the ability to add 2TB of SSD and a SATA Drive. While I already have a few 4TB external hard drives, which I have had issues with due to a cheap usb hub. I want to use the Trebleet SSD for a work Drive and use the SATA for Time Machine. I am hesitant due to the price, but its not that bad of a deal for all its offering.
Gotcha. Well as far as the price, it’s pretty much in line with most Thunderbolt docks I’ve used or my colleagues have invested in. A good hub/dock should return in the investment of time and of course the ability to scale up, which you’d be able to do with your current/future peripherals.
I’d have to look into the actual specs of this Trebleet dock as I assume that you might be giving up a TB port or two if it’s giving you the option of housing a SSD or SATA drive.
@@KevinRossRN wanted to say I got that trebleet dock and it’s rocking it in speed. Already getting a bigger SSD stick for it, I made the mistake of saving a hundred bucks and only getting 1tb. That would suit me for a work drive at this time but I ended up really needing an SSD for my Apple Photos(cloud works but drives me insane on loading videos).
The dock does a great job of tying together all my little external drives. I bought an Akasis enclosure for the 1tb stick. Using Samsung 980 pro, recommended by trebleet. I paid more than I wanted but consider it a better purchase due to the ability to upgrade easily. I mean I’m already switching out sticks and it’s not even been a month.
I posted a response on one of your latest videos but felt it would be more relevant to comment back on this discussion.
Thanks again for the great videos they helped me in the right direction. I was a pro audio guy, but video is another animal.
And I’m glad you also posted here. Always appreciate when folks pop back over for updates. It helps the community.
I’m thankful for your time here.
I currently using my iPad Air 4 for editing videos, and using my iPhone to record. What should I use for photos and videos? Just so I can have more space on my phone and ipad
What program are you editing videos?
So I’d say the SanDisk that’s 1050MB/s read and write would be a decent choice for moving files pretty quickly. I always recommend 1TB at a minimum, but totally up to your budget.
You shouldn't tell people to pay for 16GB RAM, I haven't seen any clear evidence of performance difference between the 8GB and the 16GB M1 devices, only difference may be in terms of emulation through Rosetta or perhaps when multi tasking (browsing on a bunch of websites) while rendering a video. There is a new Sandisk SSD Extreme Pro New Generation that is 2000MB/s and I saw a video someone shows it rendering even faster on that than with the internal SSD upgrade. Really, it is my understanding, that people should just choose the entry level 8/256GB and choose the Air not the Pro.
Appreciate you weighing in here, and I appreciate your perspective. Now, I believe I've said to get what you can afford, and to put any bump in spec toward the RAM, which I did state that this is where folks should put that investment first. As far as workflow this doesn't come down to a benchmark app, but rather as you state a real world use case.
When rendering a video I would expect that a creator will also have Photoshop or Lightroom open working on their thumbnail for RUclips while the render is occurring, while also have some browser tabs open for research or typing out notes in Google Docs, and doing keyword research (if they are indeed posting on RUclips), and likely a few other tasks that may need that RAM. I remember having to shut everything down but my NLE during render so that I could give it as much RAM, CPU, and GPU runway so that I could just get these projects to render. That's definitely no fun.
Yes, these chips are extremely optimized and even Rosetta has been a lifesaver for most of the apps that aren't optimized. The concept of the architecture isn't new, but it is having us think differently about CPU, GPU and utilization of RAM vs the x86 architecture.
The base models are very capable and I have quite a few creator friends that are doing just fine. I also have creators I'm in touch with that are benchmarking these against their i9's and dedicated graphics cards. Some on YT, some aren't. But, there are some scenarios we're seeing where the RAM is being utilized whether for development, video editing, or audio...and there are multiple programs/tasks running as you would expect on any machine anyone would be using. But again, I agree that the base model is just fine and will perform quite well, but as this architecture evolves so will the programs that we run on it. Efficiency will be a priority, I'm certain, but we will start seeing more demands on these chips being places...as we ask more of them to do for us.
This certainly is about making folks feel bad about a base model investment. If it's what you can afford and gets the job done for you then I'm all for the tool that gets you to where you need to be. For creators that are looking at these machines and comparing them to their iMacs, Mac Pro, or their 16" MBP I certainly don't recommend leaving those behind, but those tests they're running have been a bit more surprising with 8GB vs 16GB. I'm not saying we're going to be able to future proof these things for the next 5+ years necessarily and I understand the law of diminishing returns, but the evolution of the architecture and those demands will likely put some folks in the camp of wishing for more RAM.
As far as the next gen external drive, I plan on building (assembling) one and popping in an NVMe setup in it for my own testing to see where, if any, bottleneck exists.
Appreciate you weighing in here. I always welcome differing opinions. What do you currently use if I may I ask?
@@KevinRossRN I currently use my Intel Xeon + Nvidia GTX1080 in the Shadow.tech cloud (at $15/month) for all my 4K60 video editing, over the past 18 months or so. Before that I would edit 4K30 on wevideo in the cloud for about 18 months, and before that I did all my 1080p video editing directly on RUclips Editor (which has since been discontinued). Sure I am not to be considered pro video editor, but I have published about 3000+ videos in 4K on my RUclips channel, most videos I actually don't need to edit, I mostly just film all in one shot. But there are 20% of my videos or so which I do need to edit, quick trim, join some clips on a basic timeline mostly, sometimes recently I also multi camera edit 2 videos at 4K60 onto a 4K60 timeline, so I need auto clip sync and easy pushing 1 or 2 on the keyboard to select camera angle in the edit. Render out quickly is useful too. I actually think the entry level M1 Mini or M1 Air outperforms my $2000-equivalent Xeon+GTX1080 setup in the cloud. But I still only pay $15/month so I cannot justify investing $700-1000 for an M1 Mac. Though I really really want it, and doing that also get onto using something like Davinci Resolve and try if I can upgrade my content to 4K 10bit 4:2:2, publish HLG content, but my Panasonic G9 would only be able to do that in 4K30 so I would only do that if I somehow upgrade to another camera, the A7Siii is way too expensive and has worse IBIS than my G9, but maybe Panasonic comes with a G10/GH6 shortly. Here in Europe the prices are also about 35% higher than in the USA (thanks a lot Apple!)
I have been talking about Arm powered laptops for over 10 years on my RUclips, I filmed hundreds of them. And my website is called armdevices, so in my understanding of how those Arm platforms are done, is that they have nothing to do with x86. The RAM can be used totally differently. By Arm chips on Android and iOS and their OS have been totally designed differently the way multi tasking works, the bottleneck I think can only really happen if you use 2 or more apps simultaneously that absolutely need RAM and can't manage with SSD Swap. If currently you put the video render as a background task while you open your web browser or edit the thumbnail, it's possible that Big Sur slows down your rendering session because it downgrades the importance of that video render using RAM, but I think that is likely a little mistake they can easily optimize in the months to come. Stuff like video rendering, even when places as a "background app" should always have prioritized access to the fast RAM. Anything other you might do, would probably perform just fine on second grade Swap memory to SSD, even if you are web browsing complicated websites, it needs much less imperative RAM access, so I think in the months to come, for sure, the optimizations will only mean that less RAM will only work even better.
The only risk for the RAM is for Apple to be truely evil and somehow they might decide to "down throttle low RAM or old devices" over time, just as there has been admitted evidence of Apple doing with iPhones over the past decade, they justified it being to save on battery usage as the unreplaceable batteries get worse. Apple might purposefully slow down 8GB RAM devices in like 6 months, then prioritizing the experience for 16GB RAM users, but I actually kind of doubt they would do that.
What I think is more likely to happen is that Apple will release more entry level devices still, I think a 8GB/128GB entry level laptop and Mini is possible at about further $200 lower price or so. The hardware of a Macbook Air costs more or less the same as an iPad, not much more actually. So if Apple can sell iPads at $499 they can offer some cheaper Laptop too. They might not make the cheaper one as "metallic" as the Air/Pro, it might be something a bit smaller and thinner. So when they do that, they can't be making those more mass market devices slow down overtime.
I think surely as more and more apps get M1 native optimized, the performance with 8GB RAM is only going to keep getting better. Even Apple's first party apps Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Garageband, etc will only get even better, maybe 20-30% better with further M1 optimizations over the months to come. I also think Adobe, Google Chrome, Microsoft Office and others will keep optimizing so the experience on 8GB RAM I think will only keep getting better.
You on and I are on the same page. I hear you on all fronts.
I think that’s the thing we’re not certain about with Apple’s SoC and their software. With every iteration of the MacOS updates, we seemed to experience slow downs one way or another. It’s definitely evident in their handsets, but I’ve only been using iPhone since April.
Maybe Apple will bring better software and hardware efficiency because it’s their chipset.
For the creators on RUclips, and maybe I’ll just speak for myself, this is just one of the business endeavors I’m involved in. Testing and reviewing, giving my thoughts. When the next iteration comes out, yes, I will get it and compare the two.
But for most I just want to make sure they get a little more longevity out of their setups because I know that those watching videos on the updated M1X or whatever they call it, are those that waited and are curious about finally upgrading. Whereas I also hope I can report back to those that have the M1 that they’re fine having made the investment they made today, and there’s no reason that M1 is obsolete...hopefully that makes sense.
Anyway, it’s still been fun working with these machines. Feel free to keep me in the loop on what you end up deciding, if the M1 or next iteration is in your future 😉
@@KevinRossRN I hope they do M1 at 8GB/128GB at $499 for Mini or $799 for Air, then that's what I would go for. And with the 1TB or 2TB Sandisk Extreme Pro New Generation at 2000MB/s external SSD. Still waiting a bit I bet maybe Apple decides to release those after Christmas or so. So basically, just only use internal SSD for app installation data, and all rushes and output the renderings to the external SSD only, and backup rushes+edits to an external HDD and the cloud. But I would also just simply stick to my Arm powered Chromebooks and Arm Powered Windows 10 laptops as soon as Google/Microsoft and Qualcomm simply announce to support video editing apps for 4K60 video editing on those, I am sure those other Arm processors also have realtime+ hardware acceleration for 4K60 encoding/decoding in themselves, even with many codecs supported, so I expect sometime in 2021 to also see good 4K60 video editing on those cheaper Arm powered laptops and mini PC desktops too, at half the price or lower than current M1 Air. In my opinion $1000 for an Arm powered laptop is way overpriced. I understand though the M1 is a beast and it's awesome, I do not expect Apple to already bring an M1X or successor that soon, more likely I think any Mac Pro/iMac might "simply" run 2 or 4 of the M1 processors and work them in parallel to render out videos 2x to 4x faster.
Yeah, that’s a good assessment on those “higher end” Macs.
The interesting thing will be how they deal with cutting into their iPad sales with the MacBook Air being so capable, and having a keyboard and really good display.
I’m still using my iPad Air, but I’ve seen a lot of folks transitioning over to the MBA as a replacement.
Exciting times for the consumer (creator or not).
DUDE YOU ARE SO UNDERRATED!!!!!
A big thanks my friend. Glad it helped.
This is great advice, and that saves lots of unnecessary expense. External Drives, and even FREE cloud storage on sites like DropBox, and Box, help people on tight budges. Great video! Thanks for such practical tips!
Glad to have you here. Happy that it helped.
You used the SanDisk Extreme and not the Extreme Pro right? Old generation or new generation?
The new generation. That make it confusing. The 1050 read/write. The product number ends in 1T00-G25
You should check out the Satechi hub...they’re designed specifically for the Mac Mini. Just ordered one for my new M1 Mac Mini...16g 256g SSD. I got a 500g external drive but it’s not a SSD...don’t really need to spend the extra cash on a SSD just for extra storage for music, pics and docs.
Who said I might not have picked one of those up?🤔😉
Ha! Yes, in my research I did come across that. It’s actually been in and out of stock online, but I agree. A great little setup for sure.
I loved having the ability to add an SSD in my EGPU for my MBP and just edit from that if I needed to.
Appreciate the recommendation, and I agree. A great little piece of tech that I hope to be testing and talking about here. 😀
Congrats on the mini! Let me know what you think when it you get some time with it.
Will do...don’t get it until the end of the month. High demand right now I guess.
Definitely high demand, especially if you bump any of the specs. Excited for you though.
Great vid Kevin!!! You have a new subscriber :) I'm thinking over getting M1 when it's optimised as you mentioned. Will keep on working with my Macbook Pro 2015 for now. Please advice on external SSD. How to get the max speed? Do i need to get your USB -C hub and will it work with my laptop? Or it will be the same with any USB hub? Cheers
Thanks! Great to have you here. Now refresh my memory here, does your 2015 have thunderbolt (the original)?
@@KevinRossRN Thanks for the rapid reply. Yes Two Thunderbolt 2 ports (up to 20 Gbps)
Two USB 3 ports (up to 5 Gbps)
So, I’d have to test this myself, but lack the machine. However, you may find yourself getting (roughly) the same throughput.
So with a USB-C to TB2 adapter, you may actually be able to achieve closer to 10Gbps with the type c connected directly into the drive, whereas just using the USB type A you’re likely going to be closer to the 5Gbps mark.
Now, I’ve definitely edited on 3.0 and 3.1 speeds, which was fine, but you’ll notice a difference once you’re able to get that full 10Gbps via USB-C.
So, the hub I’ve mentioned is USBC so you’d need one that is TB3, however I feel like you’ll have a bottleneck, and it would be more efficient to plug directly into your computer if able.
@@KevinRossRN Thanks man. I will look for an adapter, but if it's too complicated and costly might just wait for M1 instead.
I mean if you at least have the SSD, you could certainly work off of that until then, but I agree, certainly don’t go down a hole you don’t need to if you’ll invest in the updated chipset in the near future.
Hi Kevin, thank you for the review. Going to go with 512 SSD HD and 16GB of ram. My question is can I use my 2009 IMac as a monitor? Would like to use old and new mini at the same time. To transfer etc. It’s just to get me going. Obviously going to get a 4K 27” in the future.
So I have this exact iMac. You should be able to do it with target display. I just tried, but I only have mini display port to HDMI or VGA.
I believe this requires mini display port to a full display port, which I have a ton of adapters, but I don’t seem to have the correct workaround. I’m trying it though. I’ll see if I come up with something that works.
@@KevinRossRN Kevin Thank you. No worries. I have a source for one display for now. The mini Mac is not coming until Jan 16th. Very backed up with the 16GB RAM. Do hopefully by then I'll have enough cake for a 4K 27. I have waited to long, but glad I did for a new CPU. The M1 is going to put my video processing to the next level. Mostly action project, Kayak fishing and Skiing. Also looking at the Caldigit TS3 plus. Santa just brought GoPro 8 Black. Happy New year. Love your vids BTW.
This will definitely level up your video editing. I think the Caldigit is a great choice. I’ll be reviewing a similar setup once it comes off preorder, but Caldigit is very capable.
Hopefully that ship date will bump a little for you 😉
Appreciate you hanging out here 👊
@@KevinRossRN Let me say this, I watched several reviews on the Mini M1, however your reviews were the most impressive. Your influence pushed me over the edge! Almost like the St. Patty's day cliffs at Vail! Thank you! I'll keep you up to date. maybe on Twitter. Stay safe. 2021 is going to rock!
Ha! Well I really appreciate you saying so, and I’m very glad to be able to have helped.
Thanks so much, friend. Here’s to 2021. Sending my best 👊
Just what I was looking for. I decided to buy the new Macbook Pro M1 Pro base model, which means 512 GB so I need external storage but not paying +$200. Thank you!
Hey happy to help. It’s a great workflow. Best of luck.
Thanks! Btw may i know could i download apps into the external ssd and launch it on the mac?
I did do a video on this. So you can run the entire operating system on the external, but I know that’s not for everyone.
However with many of the apps, you can have the app live on the Mac and the library and contents of the app can be housed on the external.
i like your channel, my english is so bad but your articulation is great for me to understan this video
That’s awesome. Glad to help, and so glad to have you here.
Outstanding presentation, thank you.
I appreciate you taking the time to be here.
This channel is underrated!!!
Well at least I’m not overrated 😂
Thanks so much. I appreciate you hanging out with us here.
The drives reviewed and shown are not thunderbolt but USBC. Would like to see what is available as faster thunderbolt 3/4 on market. Is OWC Envoy Express enclosures worth the money with NVME drive?
The OWC is what I have in the works my friend. I will definitely report back.
@@KevinRossRN Just Got my OWC Envoy Express put in WD Black NVME 1 TB Format APFS no encryption. Write 1388 MB/s Read 1495 MB/S 5 GB Stress
Sweet! I really appreciate you keeping us posted. I’ve got the Samsung Evo plus on order to try. So are you getting close to advertised speeds on the WD?
@@KevinRossRN Yes OWC advertises as 1553 MB/S real world.
Appreciate you keeping us updated. Many thanks friend. 👍
Interesting video as I'm planning on buying the Mac Mini M1 with the bigger memory but want to save on the storage. I'm not doing video editing really just my own iPhone videos and photo editing but I do have a lot of photos and I have all my own CD's ripped to my current Mac Mini 2014 machine. Would love to see a similar video showing how you can store music, photos and everyday usage geared for a normal consumer and not a RUclips creator using an external hard drive and so saving money on the Mac Mini. Thanks
How’s your current mini holding up these days? I have one from 2009 that still works.
External drives are definitely a life saver.
Do you have a video describing the performance gains/losses of booting from an external ssd or nvme drive on an M1 Mac. I have a base Mac mini M1.
Not booting from, but running programs, gaming, editing, etc. it depends on the SSD, but Gen 2 performs similarly to a NVMe. Have a couple of videos on that, and my latest video (today) is on a thunderbolt 4 dock that when fully saturating the ports, boosts the performance.
A very good video, keep the good work.
I’ll keep moving forward, thanks!