In other words, having a transfer rate of 40 Gb/s. The enclosure should be Thunderbolt 3 or USB 4 (Thunderbolt 4) compatible. Most (if not all) NVMe SSDs can transfer data at significantly higher rates. The drive should be a using a interface that is faster than legacy SATA, which has a maximum transfer rate of 6 Gb/s. When choosing the drive and enclosure consider the following. There also exists the possibility of using an internal SSD placed in a drive enclosure. See the article Move Your Mac's Home Folder to a New Location. Samsung's list price for a 1 TB X5 SSD is also $400.Ī user's home folder location can be set from the User & Groups pane of the System Preferences application. I should point out that at the time of purchase you can upgrade the 2020 Mac mini to an internal 1 TB SSD for $400. Note: The Samsung X5 drive has TRIM support when used with macOS. This allowed macOS to operate a maximum speed, while there was sight drop in speed when accessing user files. The Mac was configured so macOS resided on the internal drive while the each user's home folder resided on the Samsung X5 drive. I quickly learned this was not enough storage.

I am using a 2018 Mac mini with a 256 GB internal SSD. So storage can be expanded by adding an external Samsung X5 drive, albeit at a 18% drop in speed. Samsung specifications state the X5 Thunderbolt 3 SSD has speeds up to 2.8 GB/s. Apple specifications state the internal drive has speeds up to 3.4 GB/s. Storage can be expanded by adding an external drive. Both the memory and the SDD are not upgradable.

Ssd drive for mac mini mid 2010