I think a Mac Mini is the best option. Can I upgrade the SSD?

[ullbeking]

Hello all!

I am repurposing some server hardware to build a quiet home server, a high capacity NAS for media, and two backup servers. This is primarily for work and productivity.

As for a DAW, it just occurred to me that the cost effective option would be to get a Mac Mini plus Logic Pro and Ableton Live. I was thinking about maxing out the specifications on the Apple Store, except the SSD. Would it be possible for me to buy the 512 GB SSD and upgrade the SSD myself to 2 TB?

And of course there is a 10 GbE networking port on the Mac Mini that can access media on the NAS quickly.

I am planning to use a KVM switch so that the same keyboard and monitor can operate either the Mac Mini or the servers.

Is my plan feasible?

I need to upgrade my Apple MacBook Pro 2013, which I feel is on its last legs. However I prefer Lenovo Thinkpads for laptop computing, or rather, as thin clients to servers and workstations. Lenovo Thinkpads is that they are repairable and there is much knowledge in the community about how to do this.

Moreover, I figure a well kitted Mac Mini could give even an expensive MacBook Pro a run for its money

In summary, I want to use a lightly loaded Mac Mini as my DAW, after upgrading the SSD to 8 TB (if possible?). Main media storage will be provided by the NAS on the LAN.

How does this plan sound?

[Michael L]

Cant upgrade the SSD, but you can add a thunderbolt SSD. Categorise your data in terms of transfer speed to calculate capacity of internal vs external ssd. Dont skimp on Mini specs!

[flori89]

Internally, no. Best thing you can do is add a NVMe external drive. Those will be fast but still won’t reach the internal SSD in terms of speed.

Apart from speed it doesn’t matter much in Mac OS where you put your files.

I have a rather slow SSD where I store the ST4 libraries, doesn’t make much of a difference.

[jdnz]

Internally, no. Best thing you can do is add a NVMe external drive. Those will be fast but still won’t reach the internal SSD in terms of speed.

the m1 mini’s ssd benchmarks at about 3000 read / 2000 write - which is no big deal in terms of speed nowdays.

If you use a fast nvme in a tb3/usb4 enclosure you should actually be able to match or even slightly beat that ( sinch tb3/usb4 is good for nearly 4000mb/s) - but like you I’d go the cheap otpion and just use somethiong like samsung’s t7 (which is still good for about 900mb/s read/write)

[jancivil]

I at this point somewhat regret not buying the 4TB SSD for my MBP, I've been maxed out for ages on the 2TB and just deleted several things which cost (pretty much unrecoverable) money.

[flori89]

Internally, no. Best thing you can do is add a NVMe external drive. Those will be fast but still won’t reach the internal SSD in terms of speed.

the m1 mini’s ssd benchmarks at about 3000 read / 2000 write - which is no big deal in terms of speed nowdays.

If you use a fast nvme in a tb3/usb4 enclosure you should actually be able to match or even slightly beat that ( sinch tb3/usb4 is good for nearly 4000mb/s) - but like you I’d go the cheap otpion and just use somethiong like samsung’s t7 (which is still good for about 900mb/s read/write)

Sorry but those number just don’t work in real world examples. Here this is much more realistic:



Apart from that, you don’t need that kind of speed for audio.

[jdnz]

Internally, no. Best thing you can do is add a NVMe external drive. Those will be fast but still won’t reach the internal SSD in terms of speed.

the m1 mini’s ssd benchmarks at about 3000 read / 2000 write - which is no big deal in terms of speed nowdays.

If you use a fast nvme in a tb3/usb4 enclosure you should actually be able to match or even slightly beat that ( sinch tb3/usb4 is good for nearly 4000mb/s) - but like you I’d go the cheap otpion and just use somethiong like samsung’s t7 (which is still good for about 900mb/s read/write)

Sorry but those number just don’t work in real world examples. Here this is much more realistic:



Apart from that, you don’t need that kind of speed for audio.

Why would anyone use one of those cheap pluggable usb to nvme adapters - you might as well just buy a Samsung t7?

i was talking about the owc express 4m2 - which can hit 300mb/S ( and can also hold 4 nvme ) - sure it’s not dirt cheap like that pluggable or a t7, but if you want a lot of fast storage you’re not likely to be driven by price ( I just spec’d a quad u.2 8tb array for one project at work - you don’t want to know what it cost but we need the iops)

[flori89]

Internally, no. Best thing you can do is add a NVMe external drive. Those will be fast but still won’t reach the internal SSD in terms of speed.

the m1 mini’s ssd benchmarks at about 3000 read / 2000 write - which is no big deal in terms of speed nowdays.

If you use a fast nvme in a tb3/usb4 enclosure you should actually be able to match or even slightly beat that ( sinch tb3/usb4 is good for nearly 4000mb/s) - but like you I’d go the cheap otpion and just use somethiong like samsung’s t7 (which is still good for about 900mb/s read/write)

Sorry but those number just don’t work in real world examples. Here this is much more realistic:



Apart from that, you don’t need that kind of speed for audio.

Why would anyone use one of those cheap pluggable usb to nvme adapters - you might as well just buy a Samsung t7?

i was talking about the owc express 4m2 - which can hit 300mb/S ( and can also hold 4 nvme ) - sure it’s not dirt cheap like that pluggable or a t7, but if you want a lot of fast storage you’re not likely to be driven by price ( I just spec’d a quad u.2 8tb array for one project at work - you don’t want to know what it cost but we need the iops)

I would assume because they are cheap?

[Gadget Fiend]

What's the difference between a PCIe, NVMe, and M.2 drive? I think PCIe and NVMe are mostly synonymous. But M.2 seems to be a slower spec (and is maybe physically larger than NVMe). I would appreciate any clarification you can provide.

[syntonica]

Purchase what you can afford for the internal drive and fill it to about 1/2 to 3/4 full. An external drive will be plenty fast enough for recording and playback. if you have huge sample libraries, they will be nicely portable, as a side benefit.

Unless you need to record 24+ stereo tracks at 192k, 32-bit, of course. (I'm being facetious here. 24 tracks is under 20MB/sec...} Audio is really just not that strenuous compared to what hard drives can do these days. Video, on the other hand, is a whole other kettle of monkeys.

[jdnz]

What's the difference between a PCIe, NVMe, and M.2 drive? I think PCIe and NVMe are mostly synonymous. But M.2 seems to be a slower spec (and is maybe physically larger than NVMe). I would appreciate any clarification you can provide.

m.2 is a physical description - in m.2 format you can get sata, ahci and pcie interface drives. The proper desciption will be something like m.2 2280 - which tells you the module is 80mm long and 22mm wide - most storage modules are 2280 format but you do see short and long format modules, and the other sizes get used for things like wifi and lan cards

more importantly in nvme m.2 you also need to know the pcie version and number of lanes the drive supports ( drives will always fall back to lower pcie revisions and less lanes - but there’s not a lot of point paying top $ for a pcie4 x4 drive to put on a board that only does pcie3 )

[jancivil]

I don't experience any performance issue with a pretty much full internal SSD NVE.

[Gadget Fiend]

What's the difference between a PCIe, NVMe, and M.2 drive? I think PCIe and NVMe are mostly synonymous. But M.2 seems to be a slower spec (and is maybe physically larger than NVMe). I would appreciate any clarification you can provide.

m.2 is a physical description - in m.2 format you can get sata, ahci and pcie interface drives. The proper desciption will be something like m.2 2280 - which tells you the module is 80mm long and 22mm wide - most storage modules are 2280 format but you do see short and long format modules, and the other sizes get used for things like wifi and lan cards

more importantly in nvme m.2 you also need to know the pcie version and number of lanes the drive supports ( drives will always fall back to lower pcie revisions and less lanes - but there’s not a lot of point paying top $ for a pcie4 x4 drive to put on a board that only does pcie3 )

Thanks for the info! It's very helpful.

So the older 3.5" SSD drives (that were thicker and enclosed in in something like a "case") were SATA drives and were slower than the thin, exposed NVMe m.2 memory "modules" that support PCIe. Does that sound right?

Just out of curiosity, are the larger 3.5" SSD SATA drives slower than m.2 SATA drives?

Please let me know when you have a moment.

Thanks for your help!

[jdnz]

So the older 3.5" SSD drives (that were thicker and enclosed in in something like a "case") were SATA drives and were slower than the thin, exposed NVMe m.2 memory "modules" that support PCIe. Does that sound right?

Just out of curiosity, are the larger 3.5" SSD SATA drives slower than m.2 SATA drives?

I think you mean 2.5" sata ssd - as that's the common standard ( there are 3.5" format ssds - but they're generally aimed at datacentre use and generally aren't sata interfaced )

Anyway, yes most 2.5" ssd's are sata - so are limited by the 6gbps sata bus ( this caps max usable speed at about 550 megabytes/sec once you take off the sata protocol overheads ). M.2 sata modules have the exact same bus bandwidth limit - so run into the same limit.

In the enterprise space there are SAS 12gbps interface ssd's which ups the limit to about 1100 megabytes/sec - but not something you'll often see outside of servers ( $$$$ )

In general m.2 nvme speed is usually vastly faster than sata - but it varies by both drive ( there's still plenty of nvme modules out there that will struggle to give a sustained speed >1500megabytes/sec - espec for small capacity modules ) and the negotiated bus speed ( a pcie4x4 nvme should be able to deliver speeds up to 8000 megabytes/sec - a pcie3x4 nvme will run out of bus bandwidth about 4000 megabytes/sec - but if you're unlucky and your board only gives a pcie3x1 link to the m.2 then the actual usable bandwidth will be 1000 megabytes/sec - it all comes down to the 'narrowest' part of the chain)

[Gadget Fiend]

I think you mean 2.5" sata ssd - as that's the common standard ( there are 3.5" format ssds - but they're generally aimed at datacentre use and generally aren't sata interfaced )

Anyway, yes most 2.5" ssd's are sata - so are limited by the 6gbps sata bus ( this caps max usable speed at about 550 megabytes/sec once you take off the sata protocol overheads ). M.2 sata modules have the exact same bus bandwidth limit - so run into the same limit.

In the enterprise space there are SAS 12gbps interface ssd's which ups the limit to about 1100 megabytes/sec - but not something you'll often see outside of servers ( $$$$ )

In general m.2 nvme speed is usually vastly faster than sata - but it varies by both drive ( there's still plenty of nvme modules out there that will struggle to give a sustained speed >1500megabytes/sec - espec for small capacity modules ) and the negotiated bus speed ( a pcie4x4 nvme should be able to deliver speeds up to 8000 megabytes/sec - a pcie3x4 nvme will run out of bus bandwidth about 4000 megabytes/sec - but if you're unlucky and your board only gives a pcie3x1 link to the m.2 then the actual usable bandwidth will be 1000 megabytes/sec - it all comes down to the 'narrowest' part of the chain)

This is awesome information. Thanks so much.