Anyone here add 1TB/2TB via external enclosure to their new 256GB Mac Mini M4?

[Furioso]

If so, which enclosure and NVME did you buy? 

 

I'm looking at buying the 256GB and adding 2TB but I've heard some enclosures use different controllers and I don't want to buy bad NVME that craps out on me. 

[KhunLA]

I have the SanDisk 1TB version for my ASUS (Win10) laptop, and they do make a 2TB, also for Apple.  Thinking is should be compatible.   Fan of SanDisk and they've yet to fail, owning about 8 of their drives.

 

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HRQ12ZM/A/sandisk-extreme-portable-ssd-2tb#:~:text=With the SanDisk Extreme Portable,your iPhone%2C iPad and MacBook.

 

Bought mine from Advice Dist.  the past year, on sale, about ฿3000, I think off sale, about ฿3500, for 1TB.

[Furioso]

30 minutes ago, KhunLA said:

I have the SanDisk 1TB version for my ASUS (Win10) laptop, and they do make a 2TB, also for Apple.  Thinking is should be compatible.   Fan of SanDisk and they've yet to fail, owning about 8 of their drives.

 

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HRQ12ZM/A/sandisk-extreme-portable-ssd-2tb#:~:text=With the SanDisk Extreme Portable,your iPhone%2C iPad and MacBook.

 

Bought mine from Advice Dist.  the past year, on sale, about ฿3000, I think off sale, about ฿3500, for 1TB.

Thanks you make me realize to buy name brand there are cheaper NVME's out there with names like KingSpot lol.

Also, I've seen videos where they buy the base 256GB Mac Mini M4 and make it a Super Mac Mini by moving their home folder to the external 2TB drive and the read/write speeds are way faster than the external 256GB NMVE. Obviously Apple will take measures to fight this though. Still, this is the primary reason I'm buying the 21,000 baht 256GB Mac Mini M4.

[KhunLA]

43 minutes ago, Furioso said:

Thanks you make me realize to buy name brand there are cheaper NVME's out there with names like KingSpot lol.

Also, I've seen videos where they buy the base 256GB Mac Mini M4 and make it a Super Mac Mini by moving their home folder to the external 2TB drive and the read/write speeds are way faster than the external 256GB NMVE. Obviously Apple will take measures to fight this though. Still, this is the primary reason I'm buying the 21,000 baht 256GB Mac Mini M4.

I take a lot of photos & vids, so my laptop's SSD was getting full.  Now ~50% free, and ext SSD storing the prior few year of media.   Ext SDD stay conx, so fast access to anything shot previously.

 

[sometimewoodworker]

On 3/10/2025 at 11:05 AM, Furioso said:

I'm looking at buying the 256GB and adding 2TB but I've heard some enclosures use different controllers and I don't want to buy bad NVME that craps out on me. 

First point, you are going to cripple your Mac if you cheap out on the 256GB model. 
it has only 1 RAM chip for the disk (the M1 models had 2 all others have 1) the models with 2 or 4 RAM chips use interleaved read/write and that gives an impressive speed boost, so you need a minimum of a 512 Mb model (I don’t know the drive specs on this but it is probably 2 x 265) you probably gain about 70% with the interleaved IO

 

For the external drive enclosure I have a ZikeDrive with a 10cm thunderbolt 4 cable(https://ziketech.com/blogs/news/what-is-zikedrive?srsltid=AfmBOorjgmTmcdR_a54dd7VblAtSmMKk2jgxJwK3lhNyBpg6ak3zxmqg) you are going to be able to keep your coffee warm on it it can get hot enough it almost burn.

The best memory for that is the SAMSUNG 990 PRO

cost is about 4~5 thousand for the enclosure and 7,700 for the drive, the speed is Read/Write Speed
Up to 3.8Gbps/3.1Gbps

 

I also have a Orico enclosure with a 2TB disk that is probably significantly slower than the Zike but then I don’t use that as a boot disk for my M series MacMini

[sometimewoodworker]

On 3/10/2025 at 11:57 AM, Furioso said:

Also, I've seen videos where they buy the base 256GB Mac Mini M4 and make it a Super Mac Mini by moving their home folder to the external 2TB drive and the read/write speeds are way faster than the external internal 256GB NMVE. Obviously Apple will take measures to fight this though. Still, this is the primary reason I'm buying the 21,000 baht 256GB Mac Mini M4.

You probably need to proof read your post, I think I have corrected it

 

My experience is with an interleaved internal disk there is no significant difference between that and the blazingly fast external I have.

 

if you have a crippled machine then you can probably improve things by a fast SSD, but have you seen the same procedure on a dual chip Mac mini?

 

I rather suspect that you are not going to get the best performance using an external SSD

[jas007]

On 3/10/2025 at 11:05 AM, Furioso said:

If so, which enclosure and NVME did you buy? 

 

I'm looking at buying the 256GB and adding 2TB but I've heard some enclosures use different controllers and I don't want to buy bad NVME that craps out on me. 

I recently nought the name model Mac mini with the M4 chip.  I've read about using en external drive or enclosure to boost the storage capacity and I've read about using an external disk as a boot disk so speed things up.  It'd all possible, but for someone like me, the current base model seems fast enough. Overkill, probably.  I'm not a content creator and don't need blazingly fast speed or more storage.  Mostly, I browse the internet and listen to music I stream from tidal or Qobuz or Apple Music.  My computer never even gets warm.