Need recommendations for Mac compatible SSD to help after effects run faster

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@ciarag35458132 wrote:

Hi! I am running After Effects (+ entire Adobe Suite) on my Mac M1 with 64GB memory, and 4TB SSD

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The M1 Macs that can be configured with that much memory and storage come with extremely fast internal SSDs, up to 7000+MB/sec depending on which M1 model you have. If your Media Cache and other caches are currently on that kind of internal storage, that is pretty much the fastest place you can store them. If you are able to maintain a large amount of free space on your 4TB of internal storage after already allocating enough space for cache files to optimize After Effects performance, you are unlikely to benefit from moving caches to an external SSD.

That’s because the majority of external SSD storage is going to be a lot slower than what is inside your Mac now, unless you spend top dollar. And spending that much still won’t beat the internal storage speed in some higher end M1 Macs, because the fastest way you can connect an external SSD is Thunderbolt, but Thunderbolt is currently limited to 40 gigabits (5000 megabytes) a second theoretical, much lower in real world use. If you go with USB 3 at 10Gb/sec to save money, you might get 900-1000MB/sec real world out of that…significantly slower than M1 Mac internal storage.

If you find that your new M1 Mac still runs After Effects slowly, you might need to troubleshoot something else about the system and your use case (like Andrew Yoole’s last paragraph said) because your M1 Mac internal storage might be faster than any external you can afford. But helping with that troubleshooting would require more specifics about the exact M1 model you have (MacBook Pro? Mac Studio?).

The combination of these two items is the fastest external storage system I have found. Nearly twice as fast as any solid state Thunderbolt SSD (I have 4 of them) by more than 50%. Make sure you use high-quality cables. That also makes a difference.

        Compatible up to USB 3.1 Gen 2 Speeds (10Gbps). Adapter Includes USB-C and USB 3.0 Cables (Supports M.2 NVMe SSDs 2280 2260 2242) 

With this inside:

         SAMSUNG (MZ-V7S1T0B/AM) 970 EVO Plus SSD 1TB - M.2 NVMe Interface Internal Solid State Drive with V-NAND Technology     

I verified transfer speed with the Black Magic Design Speed Test. I suggest that you also download it.

Obviously drive and interface speed are paramount for performance.  

USB 3 drives are more cost effective.  For an easily available option, the Samsung T7 Shield drives have great performance.

Thunderbolt drives are more expensive, but faster.   LACie Rugged RAID Pro is one of the better ones around.  Also take a look at OWC, who have some of the fstest available, at a price.

But I wouldn't expect spectacular performance increases just for moving your caching to anothe drive.  It's more likely there's something else bottling up your system.  You haven't told us much about your hardware, and nothing about the types of work you do, ie resolution, third party plugins, project complexity etc. If you can provide more detail there may be more ways to detect a problem.