04-18-2022, 05:12 PM
RAM,
"It surprised me when I tried my XPG 8200 with my M1 MBA"
I find this telling. Those speeds with an NVME stick in a USB 3.1 Gen 2 box are within the same general range of a 2.5" SATA SSD in a similarly equipped box. The difference is you can take the NVME stick out of the USB 3.1 Gen 2 box and plant it into a USB 3.2 or Thunderbolt box and enjoy a significant improvement in performance. No can do with the 2.5" SSD. Swapping the box ain't gonna make a difference. It'll still be a drive that is in the 500Mbps to 550Mbps (or so) range.
Since I'm considering a move to an M1 box at some point, I'm looking at moving my 1TB NVME sticks from their current USB 3.1 Gen 2 boxes to Thunderbolt boxes. I heard that if you want to use an external drive as a boot drive, a Thunderbolt external is the way to do it. So, I'd benefit from the boost in speeds with the existing hardware and be ready to go for the M1 machine once I jump to it.
Robert
"It surprised me when I tried my XPG 8200 with my M1 MBA"
I find this telling. Those speeds with an NVME stick in a USB 3.1 Gen 2 box are within the same general range of a 2.5" SATA SSD in a similarly equipped box. The difference is you can take the NVME stick out of the USB 3.1 Gen 2 box and plant it into a USB 3.2 or Thunderbolt box and enjoy a significant improvement in performance. No can do with the 2.5" SSD. Swapping the box ain't gonna make a difference. It'll still be a drive that is in the 500Mbps to 550Mbps (or so) range.
Since I'm considering a move to an M1 box at some point, I'm looking at moving my 1TB NVME sticks from their current USB 3.1 Gen 2 boxes to Thunderbolt boxes. I heard that if you want to use an external drive as a boot drive, a Thunderbolt external is the way to do it. So, I'd benefit from the boost in speeds with the existing hardware and be ready to go for the M1 machine once I jump to it.
Robert