The hard drives in the new 2018 Mac mini are PCIe which means they are
USB-C Gen 2 can handle the speeds of most (but not all) SSD drives. So unless you want a very high-end solution, you’ll be fine using an external SSD over USB. An external SSD drive plugged in via USB-C will only be 1/5 the speed of the new internal PCIe drives, but it’s still fast. The external SSD drive on my new mac mini is faster than the internal non-PCIe SSD drive on my previous mac mini.
1. Buying a drive.
My first purchase was a Samsung S5. It’s fast, it’s USB-C Gen 2, and it’s cheap. But it caused a 30-second delay each time my mac booted up. Apparently, this is a common problem The drive I ended up using was the Seagate Fast SSD. It’s fast and works well. I purchased the 500GB version. I’ve already filled it up so end hindsight I publish should have gone for the 1 TB version but I was trying to save UNRIVALED SPEED - The Plugable 480GB external NVMe SSD drive hits performance levels not possible before Thunderbolt 3. Connect the drive to a Thunderbolt 3 port to gain 480GB of portable external storage with amazing speeds up to 2800+ MB/sec read and 1800+ MB/sec write in macOS and Windows. What's the best affordable external SSD for the MacBook Air? Although the 2018 MacBook Air supports. Now that you’ve connected your drive you need to choose which data to store on it. I used to recommend using your new SSD as the boot drive, but given that the internal SSD drive is now faster, you are better off booting off your internal drive and just putting some files on the external drive. I kept OSX and my applications on my internal boot drive, as well as my users home folder. So my internal SSD drive looks like this: I moved most the large folders from inside my Users folder onto my external SSD. I did not change my home folder to be the external SSD. I copied the files out of my home folder. I did al this when I was migrating the data Here’s what I moved to my new external SSD Drive: When you move your Music, Pictures and MainStage files you need to tell iTunes, Apple Photos and Mainstage the new location. For iTunes, firstly copy all your music files across to the new SSD. (users/yourname/music/iTunes) Then go to Preferences, Advanced, and find ‘iTunes Media folder location’. Click ‘Change’ and select the new folder. For Photos you need to copy the folder called ‘Photo’s Library’ across, then restart the Photos App while holding the Option key. This gives you the option to select your new Photo library from the external SSD. Photos should open the newly copied library and you should be able to see your photos. If that is the case then go to preferences and select ‘use as System Photo Library’ to make this change permanent. There are some applications that will still want to use files from within your home folder on your internal SSD. That’s okay. I allow them to do that. I find it helpful in my own mind to know which files are where so I have my documents, my music and my photos on my external SSD and I have everything else on my internal one. But you can arrange them how you like. Hello Wayne – This article answered a question I’ve had about buying a Mac mini and its small amount of internal storage. I chatted with Apple support yesterday. They only spoke in generalities, so I said goodbye once that became obvious. Instead of needing to go into an Apple store, I have the answer in your article! I am not sure I need the speed of an external SSD, however, I will price them now. We use a 2011 iMac for using the internet, viewing photos and also watching TV. Its display is going, its internal HD is failing, and I cannot find a good repair shop. Everything about the mini seems to fit EXCEPT it wasn’t obvious about the external drive. I found your website through a link to your comment on a monitor for the mini. That was interesting, but this article gave me what I really needed to know. Thank you. Yes it will depend on what you want to store on it. If it’s just pictures or audio files or a time machine backup then a standard HD will be fine, if you are using it to store applications, or application data, or movies, or stuff that you access a lot, an SSD will be much faster. Speed is nice… but capacity is too. The 2012 Mac Mini has a space for a second hard drive (I installed an SSD). The SSDs are cheap and the upgrade kit for the second drive is $8. It is so nice to have two drives in that machine. For the moment I’m using it to figure out if I should stick with Mojave (and El Capitan on my Mac Pro 1,1) for a few years… til long after the ARM/RISC transition is complete. But anyway is there a way to add the SSD inside the 2019 Mac Mini? That might sell me. Am leaning toward getting a Mac Pro 5,1 if various horsepower/speed needs increase. Thank you for the clear description in this article! I’m in the situation of using a combination Mac Mini and external SSD. Would you have suggestions for back-up configuration and software? Of course, I’d like to back up both devices, but will I have to do it to two separate back-up drives or can I combine them in one … ? Yes grab a 2TB or 4TB drive and you can time-machine both drives to it, or split it in 2 partitions and use CCC to back up each drive to it. Wayne, I connected the Seagate Fast SSD to my Mac mini and found something worth mentioning. The Seagate drive came formatted in EX-FAT and had to be reformatted to Mac OS Extended before I could use it as the default location for Photos library, etc. Thanks Greg – you I should have mentioned this. BestUSB-C Hard Drives for MaciMore2020 It's 2019, and if you're not backing up all your data in multiple places, you're not being as safe and secure as you possibly can. Backing up your data is probably the most critical thing you can do, and even if you used cloud storage to back up data, you should always have a safe 'hard' copy on a hard drive. Of course, the current MacBook Pro lineup only has Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports, but that's OK, because USB-C is fast, future-proof, and will likely replace standard USB, HDMI, DisplayPort, power, and more. Here are a few options to get you started on your search. Staff Favorite The G-Drive by G-Technology is a great USB-C hard drive for most people. It has 1TB of storage and features a quick drive speed of 7200RPM, with transfer rates of up to 136MB/s, thanks to USB 3.1. It comes Mac ready and USB-C ready. Samsung's T5 SSD is a solid-state drive that provides way faster transfer rates than physical hard drives. Solid-state drives don't have moving parts, so if you happen to drop this one, there's less to break! SSDs are more expensive, but with this one, you get write speeds of up 540MB/s, which is over three times faster than many hard drives. If you like to store TV shows and movies on your hard drive, consider a solid-state drive! The Glyph Blackbox Plus is a rugged, portable hard drive that can keep up with you wherever you go. It's surrounded in rubber to protect from drops and has enough capacity for all your backups and then some. You get write speeds of up to 140MB/s from just 5400RPM, as well as a 3-year warranty in case anything goes wrong. It also features fan-free heat dissipation, so it's nice and quiet. With read and write speeds of up to 2,800MB/s and 2,300MB/s, respectively, this portable drive is perfect for videographers. It's designed for rendering and compiling high res photos and videos with up to 40Gb/s data transfer. It also looks like the Ferrari of external hard drives. SanDisk's Extreme 900 SSD is a powerhouse solid-state drive that offers up to nine times the transfer speeds of external hard drives. It's made of durable aluminum and rubber, and the solid-state core is shock-proof. So, this is far less likely to die on you should you drop it (compared to hard drives). With a low price per terabyte, G-Technology's G-Drive SSD is one of the more versatile solid-state drives on the market, and it comes from a brand that Apple recommends. You'll get transfer rates of up to 560MBps and USB-C connectivity. Plus, it has IP67 water/dust resistance, it's drop-tested to ten feet, and it has 1000 pound crush-resistance. The LaCie Rugged of yesteryear got me through my entire post-secondary education, and now that there's a USB-C option, it'll help get you (and maybe even your children!) through school or work with reliability and that fast connection. The body is rubberized to help it stand up to daily wear and tear, and 2TB should be more than enough for all of your files, documents, Final Cut projects, and much more. There's a 2-year warranty on these, which includes data recovery services. CalDigit's Tuff hard drives are rugged, colorful 2TB drives that offer USB-C connectivity, and there's even a USB-C to USB-A cable for backward compatibility. With an IP57 rating, these drives are water-resistant in three feet of water for up to 30 minutes. They're dust-resistant, so you can take yours with you anywhere, knowing that your data is safe from the elements. You may know SanDisk for its SD cards, but its hard drives are excellent as well. This solid-state drive is smaller than the average smartphone and has a hole in it so that you can clip it to a bag. It's shock-resistant and ruggedly designed, so it's perfect for life on the move. Western Digital makes some of the best hard drives around, and this well-priced USB-A and USB-C compatible hard drive fits right in with all its other excellent drives. It's made for Mac and is Time Machine ready. Visual Studio 2019 for Mac A free and full-featured solution for individual developers to create applications for Android, iOS, macOS, cloud and the web. Please see the Release Notes for more information. Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.8.1.4. Released February 22, 2019. We fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac becomes unresponsive when selecting two column view. Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.8.2.1. Released February 28, 2019. We fixed an issue where Debugger features sometimes don't work as expected with Unity. Visual studio 2017 community for mac download. Download previous versions of Visual Studio Community, Professional, and Enterprise softwares. Sign into your Visual Studio (MSDN) subscription here. Visual Studio 2017 for Mac. Visual Studio Test Professional 2017. Visual Studio Team Explorer 2017. Agents for Visual Studio 2017. Today, we released updates to both Visual Studio 2017 and Visual Studio for Mac. Start your download now while you browse the rest of this post: download Visual Studio 2017 version 15.6 or Visual Studio for Mac.We’ll trigger the update notification flag in the tools in the coming days. For the extreme outdoorsmen and women, this rugged hard drive does more than protect your external hard drive from scratches and breaks. It's watertight, so you can drop it into a pool of water up to one-foot for 30 seconds without anything seeping in. The tethered Thunderbolt cable means you don't have to bring any extra cables, too. External hard drives are must-have peripherals for anyone with a computer. They give you additional storage space, which can fill up fast on laptops, and are essential to backing up your data safely and securely. Every one of the drives on this list is easy to set up and start using right away. All you have to do is plug one into your Mac. The G-Drive is our staff's favorite portable hard drive because it's affordable and reliable. It's Mac-ready but can also be reformatted for Windows computers. If 1TB isn't enough, there is also a 2TB, 4TB, and 5TB version available. A three-year limited warranty backs the G-DriveThe G-Drive is supported by a three-year limited warranty. We may earn a commission for purchases using our links. Learn more. Picking out a new keyboard for your Mac can be tough, but having something that’s efficient, easy-to-charge, and is good for the environment is a bonus.2. What to put on it.
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How to speed up your mac with a Solid State SSD DriveWhat’s the best SSD drive for a Mac and how do I install it?Does my mac need more memory?How to get the most out of your ipod and laptop batteryAdding Network Storage (NAS) to your MacRoss Smithsays:June 30, 2019 at 7:56 am 
says:September 19, 2019 at 11:22 am Leave a Reply
Fan favorite
G-Technology G-Drive 1TB
Best for speed
Samsung T5 SSD 500GB, 1TB, 2TB
Rugged pick
Glyph Blackbox Plus 1TB
Best for video
Samsung 5X Portable SSD
Upgrade option
SanDisk Extreme 900 SSD 480GB, 960GB, 1.92TB
Best value
G-Technology G-DRIVE Mobile SSD Durable Portable External Storage
Long-lasting
LaCie Rugged 2TB
Durable and reliable
CalDigit Tuff 2TB
Compact pick
SanDisk Extreme SSD
Budget pick
WD 2TB My Passport for Mac Portable External Hard Drive
Waterproof-ish
G-Tech All-Terrain Drive
Our personal favorite
Catch some rays and stay green with these solar keyboards for your Mac