2 TB external SSD (Page 6): Thats funny I have been USB external drives for years on my Macs, I did have to buy an adapter to thunderbolt for my last iMac 2017, but they work just fine.

Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

Ednsb wrote:

Yes, don’t buy western digital. And it needs to be thunderbolt 4, not USB-c. OWC has a thunderbolt case for $79 then you put your own SSD chip in it.

Thats funny I have been USB external drives for years on my Macs, I did have to buy an adapter to thunderbolt for my last iMac 2017, but they work just fine.

MDI Mainer

jimopho wrote:

Okay, smells like too good to be true to me. How is this possible that they can be selling a 16 TB SSD drive for $30?

Take a look at the many. many reviews.

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

Manglesphoto wrote:

Thats funny I have been USB external drives for years on my Macs, I did have to buy an adapter to thunderbolt for my last iMac 2017, but they work just fine.

They just won’t be as fast. Why pay for an SSD drive if you’re gonna slow it down with a transfer bottleneck?

Arend Loc: Holland

Gatorcoach wrote:

Beacuse it is chinese made, chinese shipped, and you will likely never receive it and/or it will break with no recourse. Just sayin'

All the Apple gear (Mac, iPad, iPhone etc) in Chinese made and hence shipped from there. Just sayin😂

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

Arend wrote:

All the Apple gear (Mac, iPad, iPhone etc) in Chinese made and hence shipped from there. Just sayin😂

it’s fine if you’re buying from a major manufacturer or through some place like Amazon or Alibaba or hopefully Newegg where you have some protection, but buying through random internet ads you’re taking your chances. A guy in my club bought a travel tripod from one of those. It looked amazing for $40. That’s because they used the artwork and copy from the Peak Designs Travel Tripod kickstarter and it’s a $600 tripod. I told him it had to be a scam but he’d already ordered. Several weeks went by and he finally got a package from China. There was a tripod in it. I wouldn’t have trusted it to support a cellphone. He called and complained and they offered a $15 refund. He paid through PayPal, thinking he’d be protected. They agreed that he could get a refund, but since he had received the product he would have to return it. It would have cost $80 to ship it back to China. That’s a pretty common scam. So be careful with internet ads and if the price seems too good to be true then it probably is.

dbrugger25 Loc: Raleigh, NC

I have a SanDisk 2 TB Extreme Pro Portable SSD Model SDSSDF81-2700. It is extremely fast, has a non-slip surface and appears to be rugged, It wasn't the least expensive drive but I really like the very fast file transfer speeds. I bought it from Amazon. It cost $239.00 US Dollars. Given the rated 1,050 MB/Sec Read Speed and 1,000 MB/Sec Write Speed, I thought it was worth the price.

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

Fotoartist wrote:

I bought this 2TB SS drive recently from B&H. It was cheap (and small).

I had one of these and I found that it was too small and the color makes it blend in with everything else in my camera bag. Too easy to misplace.

FiddleMaker Loc: Merrimac, MA

Ednsb wrote:

Yes, don’t buy western digital. And it needs to be thunderbolt 4, not USB-c. OWC has a thunderbolt case for $79 then you put your own SSD chip in it.

Ednsb, I am thinking about getting a refurbished iMac 27 inch from OWC. Is this something that I should consider doing or should I stay with an Apple retail store (if they sell refurbs)?
Other UHH members are welcome to chime in on this subject.
~FiddleMaker

Real Nikon Lover Loc: Simi Valley, CA

jimopho wrote:

Hello people, I'm looking to pick up a 2tb external SSD drive to go with my Mac Studio. The prices seem to range kind of widely. Any recommendations? Or ones to avoid? Thanks.

Jim

Jim I bought four 8TB SSD's (Seagate) from Costco on sale at Christmas. I have created a mini raid system with these. They are working great. I was all in at $400.00 It was a steal to come up with a total 64TB for that price. I bought a RSHTech 7 Port USB switch with power supply and run it to my 3.0 USB. I am able to do quad backups quickly. It could be faster but I am not complaining.

Jim

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

FiddleMaker wrote:

Ednsb, I am thinking about getting a refurbished iMac 27 inch from OWC. Is this something that I should consider doing or should I stay with an Apple retail store (if they sell refurbs)?
Other UHH members are welcome to chime in on this subject.
~FiddleMaker

I'm not Ed. And I love OWC. But unless you need an *Intel* Mac for legacy software that will not be re-written in 64-bits or for the Apple Silicon SOCs, I'd avoid all 27" iMacs for now. At some point in the future, Apple will drop support for Intel processors. They are headed down their own path rather rapidly. I expect that 5 years from the introduction of the last Intel Mac, Mac OS will no longer be upgraded for Intel machines.

Apple Refurbished is a great source for Macs. https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished

You get the same hardware and accessories and software, in a white box instead of a colored one. It opens and works just like new. But you save a pretty large handful of change. I bought my MacBook Air from them. I saved about $250.

The M1 Macs are fantastic. The transition has been very smooth for most of us. A few users of obscure software have been frustrated by developers dragging their feet or just dumping Mac support out of hubris. But most Intel Mac software works on the M1 in Rosetta 2 emulation mode.

FiddleMaker Loc: Merrimac, MA

burkphoto wrote:

I'm not Ed. And I love OWC. But unless you need an... (show quote)

Bill, thanks for you post. I have also been giving some thot to the new iMac 24 inch machines running on their M1 chips but my concern was it wouldn't handle Adobe's Lightroom or Photoshop as well as the Intel driven 27" machines. But of course, I could be totally wrong in my thinking here.

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

burkphoto wrote:

I'm not Ed. And I love OWC. But unless you need an... (show quote)

You should be aware that future iMac 27" models may be of the Pro variety whatever that means. Link is to macrumors.com a fairly reputable site.

rbtree Loc: Shoreline, WA, United States

rmalarz wrote:

If 2 is good 16 is much better, and only $30. br ... (show quote)

At newegg, even? You must know those are fakes. Scam products. Not sold by NE, advertised there.

rbtree Loc: Shoreline, WA, United States

Real Nikon Lover wrote:

Jim I bought four 8TB SSD's (Seagate) from Costco on sale at Christmas. I have created a mini raid system with these. They are working great. I was all in at $400.00 It was a steal to come up with a total 64TB for that price. I bought a RSHTech 7 Port USB switch with power supply and run it to my 3.0 USB. I am able to do quad backups quickly. It could be faster but I am not complaining.

Jim

Say what? The cheapest 8 tb SSD is over $700. Heck, an 8 tb HDD is at least $120. You must be trippin'.

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

rbtree wrote:

Say what? The cheapest 8 tb SSD is over $700. Heck, an 8 tb HDD is at least $120. You must be trippin'.

He’s trippin’. Those are just hard drives, not SSD’s. He’s also tripping if he thinks hooking up 4 external drives through USB is anyway to run a RAID.