Lou asked a very good question via email:
“If I read correctly, the M2 Macs internal storage is twice as fast as Thunderbolt 3/4 throughput. Is it possible to partition the internal drive and use partition 1 for the System and partition 2 for the media?
Naturally a larger Internal would be costly but as I understand this, it would be way faster. If so, how would that compare, speed wise, to an external HD raid, or external SSD raid? And would keeping the media on the new internal drive be faster than most external RAIDs?”
Larry replies: You are correct, the internal SSD drive of M-series Macs is about double that of Thunderbolt 3/4. And your Mac needs internal storage in order to work. So the question is whether adding lots of additional storage makes sense. And, in almost all cases, the answer is no.
CREATE PARTITIONS?
What a partition does is create two, or more, “independent” storage pools. You would create a partition when you want to boot using different operating systems. But, since there is only one data “connection” to the internal SSD on any Mac, partitioning the drive still means all data flows through that single connection. Which means there’s no speed difference if you have one, two, or more partitions.
Partitioning simply to store data gets you nothing – except extra overhead. It is far simpler and better to store media – like other documents – in a folder on the internal drive. Partitioning would add unnecessary overhead and complexity.
Folders are easier to create, easier to manage, can store tens of thousands of files and are fully supported by the operating system. Stay away from partitions.
HOW FAST IS FAST?
If you are doing single camera editing, or small multicam projects, an HDD, or HDD RAID, will be fine. As you move into multicam editing, an SSD or SSD RAID will be necessary.
None of these are fast enough to fill a Thunderbolt pipe, though they are more than sufficient for most single camera editing. However, most NLEs today running on M-series Macs can render faster than these HDD units will support.
So, to get more speed, especially for multicam editing, your first thought might be to move all your data to the internal drive to take advantage of its speed. However, it will be far cheaper to buy an NVMe SSD – or SSD RAID – than spend excessive amounts of money expanding the internal drive. Only an NVMe or an SSD RAID approaches the speed of Thunderbolt 3/4. In most cases, they provide more than enough speed for NLEs and video editing.
NOTE: Here’s an article illustrating the storage speeds necessary for video editing.
FASTER THAN THUNDERBOLT
Yes, accessing media on the internal drive will be faster than an external drive. BUT! does your NLE require that speed?
Thunderbolt 3/4 transfers data around 2,850 MB/second, assuming your computer is connected to storage using an NVMe SSD or SSD RAID.
So, in every “normal” case of editing, you don’t need the excessive speed the internal drive provides. because your NLE can’t take advantage of it. Clearly, you can use the drive for editing, but you won’t max it out.
NOTE: This is not to say that the extreme speed of the internal drive goes to waste. The Finder uses it to launch applications, copy and transfer files, and many other tasks. It’s just that you won’t see much benefit from this extreme speed for editing.
EXTERNAL STORAGE
Yes, in the past, I recommended storing media on external drives because external drives cost far less than Apple’s internal storage. External drives can be easily moved from one computer to another. And external drive capacity can be expanded as needed.
I still recommend external media for these reasons; because almost all projects don’t require enough data to fill a Thunderbolt pipe.
Based on my experience, I recommend editors purchase Macs with 1-2 TB of internal storage, an external SSD or SSD RAID for current projects to take advantage of their extremely high-speed, and a spinning hard disk (HDD), HDD RAID or server to backup projects that are no longer being edited.
There are, of course, exceptions where extreme speed is essential. But most video editing is not one of them.
