Need to add storage for 2013 Mac Pro: looking for recommendations

elasticmedia

I just bought a used Mac Pro and it (only) has a 1TB SSD for storage. I figure I use a traditional platter drive for additional storage of audio/video/pictures/etc. and wonder what my smartest move would be. I can use USB 3.0 or I can use Thunderbolt 1 to attach an external drive. My hunch is that either option would be of identical speed for a platter drive, since the IDE would be the speed-limiting factor. I suppose I could also get a fusion drive to make it a bit faster.

Thanks for your input!

marvin

elasticmedia said:

I just bought a used Mac Pro and it (only) has a 1TB SSD for storage. I figure I use a traditional platter drive for additional storage of audio/video/pictures/etc. and wonder what my smartest move would be. I can use USB 3.0 or I can use Thunderbolt 1 to attach an external drive. My hunch is that either option would be of identical speed for a platter drive, since the IDE would be the speed-limiting factor. I suppose I could also get a fusion drive to make it a bit faster.

Thanks for your input!

It depends on how much you want to spend and how much storage you need. I wouldn't recommend a platter drive if you plan on keeping it connected because platter drives slow down the whole system when they have to spin up and they make a bit of noise. You can get a 4TB SSD for $500-600:

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Inch-Internal-MZ-76E4T0B-AM/dp/B07864XY8B
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Inch-SATA-Internal-Gray/dp/B07L3CLM2B

A USB 3 enclosure is $10-20:

https://www.amazon.com/Neeyer-Hard-Drive-Enclosure-External/dp/B07QVCZQ7N
https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Tool-free-Enclosure-Optimized-EC-UASP/dp/B00OJ3UJ2S
https://www.amazon.com/ORICO-USB3-0-External-Enclosure-Supported/dp/B01M08LCXW

A 4TB HDD can be bought for $80:

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Portable-External-Drive-STGX4000400/dp/B07CRGSR16

If you only need an extra 1-2TB, an SSD should be affordable enough. 4TB+ is still a bit expensive but you can always mix and match. SSD for always attached storage, HDD for offloading occasionally accessed data.

Another limiting factor with the speed is the SATA connector on the drive, even on SSDs. Thunderbolt only really matters for PCIe and RAID storage. SATA is 6Gb, USB 3 is 5-10Gb. Maximum real-world speed of most drives is around 500MB/s. The Mac Pro has Thunderbolt 2 so 20Gb (2.5GB/s).