External SSD on M1 Macbook

[blaubär]

Hi,

i am planning on getting a new computer. my i7-4790 has served me in many years, but it is getting old, slow and sometimes it just crashes.
I now have to decide between a new intel based windows PC and the new M1 Mac. I think it will be a intel machine, but given the prices i am considering getting a macbook air with 16gb of ram. Problem is: i have collected almost 3 TB of samples over time and i dont want to part with those. To complicate things further more they are spread over 4 SSD. While there is no problem connecting the SSD to a PC mainboard things are a little bit different for a laptop.
Is there a working solution hooking up 4 SSDs to a macbook?
Thanks.

[FapFilter]

Never tried myself, but USB-C / TB hubs should do. Powered ones are supposedly preferable.
Personally i would opt for one (or two) newer SSD with larger capacities if possible, as four external dongles disks would mean too much clutter for me.
Keep in mind though that AFAIK USB SSD transfer speed is capped at 1GB/s on current Macbooks. Which of course is more than plenty enough, but if you still want more than that, you'll need dedicated Thunderbolt drives, which are not as common and more expensive

[4damind]

From what I've seen, they all use USB hubs or docks. OWC and also Caldigit TS3 should be a good start there, you can connect 4 or more USB-C SSDs without problems.

[blaubär]

Thanks for your answers. The SSDs are in my PC now. I was thinking more if there was a case for upp to 4 SSDs and only one thunderbolt connection to the computer instead of putting them in cases one by one and connect those. Those docks would bring up the price by 30%.

[cel4145]

Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Drive-Do ... B0711L68MS

[blaubär]

Yes exactly. Thanks. The question is: has anybody any real world experience with that case and lets say streaming 100 and more samples to kontakt.