Sometimes, Good Enough is Good Enough

Recently, I purchased a MiniStack STX to serve as an external drive for my M4 Mac Mini. Why this unit? Because it includes both a reasonably fast SSD and a HDD. So I can use the SSD for performance, then archive the SSD to the HDD to protect my data.

I’ve used one for several years to hold the main database for my Axle AI historical photographs library that I am sharing with my family, and I wanted to replace it with a newer unit.

But… now that I had installed a new MiniStack, what should I do with the old one? It sat on my desk for a few weeks as I ignored this question. Then, last week, I realized it was the exact size as my Mac Studio.

NOTE: Here’s another look at this same question, comparing the speeds of a Samsung T5 vs. T9 SSD for video editing. The answer, though, remains the same.

So, I plopped it under the Mac Studio for additional storage. (Sigh…. one thing working with media guarantees is that you will never have enough storage.)

Connecting it wasn’t hard, once I had the right Thunderbolt cables, and I now had 6 TB of SSD media and 4 TB of HDD media available. Then, I ran some speed tests.

Sigh… Not bad, but when compared to my Thunderblade (2,850 MB/sec) or an even newer Thunderbolt 5 device (~5,000 MB/sec), the MiniStack STX just wasn’t that fast.

That’s when I had an epiphany.

As the results from the Blackmagic Speed Test (above) indicate, this unit is more than fast enough to fully support HD, 2K, 4K, even some 8K editing (up to 30 fps). Since I’m not doing any 4K work, much less 8K, this unit was perfect for the editing that I’m doing.

NOTE: The HDD in the MiniStack HDD transfers data around 250 MB/sec. Still OK for editing, but much better as a backup drive for the SSD.

Then, I decided to run more tests.

Exporting ProRes 4444 video from Telestream ScreenFlow using an M2 Max Mac Studio transferred data at less than 300 MB/sec.

Exporting a ProRes 4444 HD file with effects from Premiere on an M2 Max Mac Studio transferred data at less the 150 MB/sec.

Rendering a ProRes 4444 HD timeline in FCP essentially equaled the speed of the MiniStack for playback, but only wrote files around 150 MB/sec.

In all these cases, that perceived “slower speed” of this older unit was totally fine for all the editing I was doing. In fact, none of my software really pushed it that hard. Which provided a simple reminder that I didn’t need the fastest gear to get my work done.

NOTE: Yes, multicam editing, really large frame sizes, or really fast frame rates need really fast storage. But for HD and 4K? Not really.

Faster is better – but not required. And the speed you need is probably not as fast as you might expect.

NOTE: I didn’t test Resolve, but earlier tests showed that Resolve’s speeds range between Premiere and Final Cut. Different media, different features, and different computers will provide different speeds. But the overall rule holds true: Any SSD is faster than any HDD and, while faster is better, once you get over 500-600 MB/sec, your speeds are good enough.