External SDD for Mac mini Pro

An ultra fast external SSD would be useful as a "work" disk for real time, full resolution, uncompressed video production. As a "work" disk, it can speed up the processing of very large software projects which can have thousands of files. The other possible case might be for a high volume file server in a workplace assuming the network has very high speeds.

Other than that, any USB 3.X SSD drive will likely be sufficient. Even though the Mini may not support "dual lane"USB, you could still get transfer speeds of USB 3.2 of 600-800 megabytes per second.

In terms of RAM, especially Adobe apps, you need as much RAM as you can possibly afford. I found in my experience a minimum of 32 GB RAM is needed. With 16GB of RAM, you will quickly get into memory swapping with an editing sessions of any length time especially if you have multiple apps open which will definitely slow things down.

Also, with the apps you mention, they can store massive amounts of data in your home library folder such as caches, saved settings, effects, etc. (particularly ApplicationSupport). We are talking 10's of gigabytes that cannot be located elsewhere. So, you will probably want at a mimic of 512GB internal but preferably 1 terabyte.

One last note, for music and video streaming, even a USB 3.0 spinner will be more than fast enough because even 4K UHD HD videos only stream from disk at 30-40 megabytes per second and music is even less demanding than that. It would also be good for just plain archival storage or backup.

Not very much info to go with, we need to know the configuration of the MM you intend to get. If you want speed and overall performance get as much RAM and internal storage as you can possibly afford. ALL apps should be stored internally, the only things that should be stored externally are large libraries such as your Final Cut Pro library.

Also, is this a hobby machine or something you intend to earn your primary living with?

I have been very happy using OWC Dual Drive Dock with numerous bare SATA 3.5" and 2.5" HDD and SSD drives.

Sustained R/W with SSDs is 530-560 MB/s (Samsung 860/870 EVO 1-2 TB), with HDDs up to 110 MB/s (various very old 5400-7200 rpm HDDs). Mac mini 2018 can also boot from those drives.

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

I have used HDDs as cold archives for images, movies etc (duplicated with Carbon Copy Cloner to at least one other HDD as a backup).

Those SSD speeds are enough for me but the newer similar OWC Dual Drive Dock that supports also M.2 SSD via U.2 Adapter might be around 1000 MB/s with such disks.

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

Yes, the cheapest from a recognised manufacturer, not one of those weird Chinese name types.

Crucial and Kingston are pretty reputable and do some very cheap units along with expensive ones!

You will have to decide whether you want the SATA type or NVMe and you will need an enclosure.

USB 3.0 and USB-C enclosures are under £10 whereas Thunderbolt enclosures are nearer to £100.

Thunderbolts are much faster but USB 3.0/USB-C should be perfectly OK.

If you decide they are not, then you have only wasted a tenner!

Re: “Apple doesn't support USB-C 3.2 2x2, so this narrow the available SDDs out there”

A USB-C(USB 3.1 Gen 2)/NVMe SSD will run plenty fast for many applications, yet will not cost much more than a slower USB 3/SATA one.

As long as a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 SSD can perform reasonably well after falling back to USB 3.1 Gen 2 speed, there’s no reason you have to cross such a SSD off your list. (But of course, you wouldn’t want to pay much if a premium over the price of a USB 3.1 Gen 2 one.)

FWIW, these are the external drives I have in my setup:

Samsung T7 500 GB

SanDisk Extreme Pro 1 TB (note this is USB 3.2 Gen 2 X 2, i.e. dual lane)

Sabrent EC-SNVE enclosure (USB 3.2, 10 Gb/s) + Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB

I also have a couple SATA SSDs in USB3.0 enclosures and are slower than the above but faster than a HDD.

In real world transfers, these will give me transfer speeds of ~600-630 MB/s for the T7 and 650-700MB/s for the SanDisk and the Sabrent/Samsung combo.

While the Samsung 980 Pro is overkill for a 10 Gb/s enclosure I bought it for its high durability rating (TBW - Terrabytes Written) and it was on sale for a really good price and also perhaps in the future putting in a USB4 or TB4 enclosure.

People are fixated on drive speeds and it is all baloney unless you are timing the copying of gigantic files which most people rarely do.

No SSD will slow you down. Even a humble USB 3.0 HDD won't.

The main things governing speed are the CPU/GPU and your own brain.

Drive speed is mainly an advertising gimmick.

Re: “So why do we need SSD then?”

There are two basic types of drive speed: sequential read and write speeds, and random access time.

SSDs absolutely slaughter HDDs on random access time, and that becomes apparent when starting up a computer or launching applications, things that often involve a great deal of jumping around from place to place on the disk. This is why any decent personal computer today will have a SSD for its startup drive, and why you want to store things like the Lightroom catalog (a frequently-accessed database) on one.

All drives are the same whether internal or external.

When you buy a ready made external it is usually just an enclosure with an "internal" drive fitted.

Buying the parts separately gives you more choice and can be a bit cheaper.

However, if you want something off the shelf try this . . .

CRUCIAL 1TB SSD

It has the advantage of being even smaller than a normal SATA SSD.

That changes matters.

It's not a good idea to keep swapping drives using one enclosure as frequent handling could lead to problems.

As the USB enclosures are cheap and very reliable it would be much better to keep every SSD in its own enclosure . . . protected at all times.

Of course it would get quite expensive if you bought Thunderbolt enclosures but you don't need those speeds.

Regarding part of your original post, all your apps should be kept on the internal SSD unless you are booting from an external but that's another story.

Anyway you need to decide which type of SSD to get, either the traditional SATA type or the newer NVMe.

I don't know why you keep fixating on 2x2 as a normal USB 3.0 enclosure should be plenty fast enough and a lot cheaper.

Give it a try.

I use them to edit 4K video in FCP and DaVinci Resolve . . . I even use some old USB 3.0 HDDs and they too have no problems.

This one is very popular over here and cheap.

SABRENT NVMe Enclosure