Question 4TB fast USB 3.1 SSD needed - reliable and affordable

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Viennatom

Dec 8, 2019
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Hello all,

I love the SAMSUNG T5 series, but I d need a fast 4TB external portable SSD. Unfortunately, T5 is avail only at 2TB and smaller.
Budget : ~EUR 700 - 800.
I am thinking of a 860PRO 4TB plus USB 3.1 case, but I ve heard that some important commands like TRIM / garbage collection cannot pass the USB - SATA converter chip. Still, a 860 Pro would last a long time even without TRIM in my use case.
In addition, some chips on USB cases reportedly do not support >2TB, right? What a mess!
A good 2TB USB SSD is <400 EUR, while there is only one 4TB SSD (Angelbird) and it is ridiculuously priced.
How can I push SAMSUNG to extend the T5 to 4TB (at maybe double the price of the 2TB T5)?
Since my backup HDDs are 4TB HDD USB drives and I want to backup everything as easy as possible, I cannot live with 2 x 2TB SSDs and having all my data folders distributed over 2 partitions.
Any ideas?
 
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Viennatom

Dec 8, 2019
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This is not for backup data.
I NEED: one fast reliable external data SSD to work with (4TB)
I HAVE: 4 x 4TB USB HDDs for multi-redundant backup (different types of different manufacturers, bought at different times all containing the same data). Together they are VERY reliable.

When did I say that I need to copy the entirety of multi-TB during backup? I am doing only incremental backups.
 
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richiestang_78

richiestang_78

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Mar 3, 2015
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If this is for backup, then you may want to consider a NAS. SSDs are nice but a proper NAS in RAID can be more redundant at a cheaper cost. Synology, Asustor and a few others make some pretty affordable NAS machine. And Seagate makes extremely reliable Iron Wolf line of HDDs up to 14TB
 
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Viennatom

Dec 8, 2019
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Over here in europe, Newegg is maybe not the first shop what comes to mind when searching for hardware. Not sure if they even ship to Austria. The first shop what comes to mind here is that of a poor 3-digit billionaire, who is now down to only the high 2 digits billion range due to divorce cost as I heard.
Need to check if I can order somethin like that "Sabrent" or some off-brand. Cannot understand that the big manufacturers do not want to step into the 4TB market hole.
What you guys think of 860Pro plus some USB case?
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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richiestang_78 said:
If this is for backup, then you may want to consider a NAS. SSDs are nice but a proper NAS in RAID can be more redundant at a cheaper cost. Synology, Asustor and a few others make some pretty affordable NAS machine. And Seagate makes extremely reliable Iron Wolf line of HDDs up to 14TB
Click to expand...
Exactly.
A good NAS (Synology/Qnap/Thecus) makes an excellent backup and storage location.
Multiple drives seen as a single volume.
The recent ones have 10GbE connections if a standard gigabit LAN is too restrictive.

My systems back up to my Qnap every night. The nightly Incrementals from each drive take but a couple of minutes each.
 
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M

mdd1963

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a Samsung 860 EVO 4 TB is now down to $497 on Amazon; slap one in a quality enclosure, or, better yet, into an IcyDock 5.25" adapter bay (mine accepts both a 3.5" drive and a 2.5" drive/SSD, with individual power/eject buttons) so that the drive can be easily inserted/removed....
 
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Viennatom

Dec 8, 2019
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Sorry, I did NOT say BACKUP. Please read my 2nd post in my thread. The data drive is for data MANIPULATION, RAW file processing, etc.. (in contrast to my 4 backup drives)
Since I have 2 houses AND I want to have all data available at all times, I need a PORTABLE 4TB SSD.
Not a HDD since it will not survive being dropped AND it is slow.
Not a NAS, since it needs to be portable between the 2 houses like an USB stick.
I 'd like average read and write speed >= 300MBYTE /s.
 
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Viennatom

Dec 8, 2019
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That is not a solution in search of a problem. That is a severe problem I am willing to spend $$$ to have it solved properly. I am pretty sure there are more guys out there wanting a good 4TB USB SSD..
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Viennatom said:
Sorry, I did NOT say BACKUP. Please read my 2nd post in my thread. The data drive is for data MANIPULATION, RAW file processing, etc.. (in contrast to my 4 backup drives)
Since I have 2 houses AND I want to have all data available at all times, I need a PORTABLE 4TB SSD.
Not a HDD since it will not survive being dropped AND it is slow.
Not a NAS, since it needs to be portable between the 2 houses like an USB stick.
I 'd like average read and write speed >= 300MBYTE /s.
Click to expand...

--------------
Since my backup HDDs are 4TB HDD USB drives and I want to backup everything as easy as possible, I cannot live with 2 x 2TB SSDs and having all my data folders distributed over 2 partitions.
--------------

That's what I went with.

Now that we have a more in depth knowledge of the previously unstated requirements, maybe other solutions will present.
Still, Samsung and the other major players have not marketed a 4TB external SSD.
 
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Viennatom

Dec 8, 2019
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yeah my whole set of data is 2.25TB and growing, mostly RAW images.
When backing up that data to one or more of my collection of 4TB backup HDDs, I do not want to search for folders on several smaller SSDs. I want to have ALL working data on one 4TB SSD, then do the SyncBackFree "Mirror" command to update one of those 4TB backup HDDs IN ONE SINGLE STEP.
 
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richiestang_78

richiestang_78

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A NAS is still a better option for several reason.

  1. A Gigabit Ethernet connection is much faster then USB 3
  2. Most NAS allow for the use of a SSDs as cache
  3. Redundancy of drives in RAID.
  4. Allows for remote access when not at home instead of having to have the physical storage.
Here's a recent video about one
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpxBmxj5mP0



Its up to you, but a pure SSD external USB drive is both costly and not really that fast. It's better to have a 1TB drive on the system you work with and then use a NAS for mass storage of stuff you aren't currently working on.
 
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Viennatom

Dec 8, 2019
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Thanks 4 the mentioning of the LMS578 controller chip. If that is the key to TRIM and also to UASP (??), then that is maybe the way I 'll go. But I am still more inclined to the 860 Pro instead of the cheap EVO.

NAS is no solution, since one of my computers does not even have a real network. It is getting internet over a WLAN connection from my smartphone by tethering (4G). That's it.

(
This computer is the 2 x 8 core / 32 Threads HP z620 with 64GB RAM from this thread:

Home workstation with great CPU power at reasonable cost

Hello all, I am new to Tomshardware, my name is Tom and I am searching for hardware ;-) This should be an ongoing discussion thread about my upcoming computer build - not 100% sure if I have placed it right. I am 100% sure, that many other builders / users will have similar requirements /...
forums.tomshardware.com forums.tomshardware.com
)

The computer in the other house is an i7-8700K with 32 gigs and a lightning-fast 960EVO M.2, booting WIN 10 at about 3000MBYTE /s. This computer does have a cable LAN connection to the internet router.
 
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Viennatom

Dec 8, 2019
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question to the community: What kind of bad things could happen if I buy 860 PRO 4TB and an enclosure and fail to get TRIM working?
Keep in mind that I am talking 860 PRO SSD, what can handle quite some tough write wear and tear, and that I am not going to write more than a few TB of data per year.
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Viennatom said:
question to the community: What kind of bad things could happen if I buy 860 PRO 4TB and an enclosure and fail to get TRIM working?
Keep in mind that I am talking 860 PRO SSD, what can handle quite some tough write wear and tear, and that I am not going to write more than a few TB of data per year.
Click to expand...
For that use level, nothing bad will really happen.
Waste of a good drive, though.
 
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V

Viennatom

Dec 8, 2019
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It is a standard user scenario - collecting data and mostly NEF files on one drive, browse through the files with preview as fast as possible, process the NEFs using RAWTHERAPEE, maybe add a few videos or MP3 files and have all that big 2TB + chunk of data backupped to various external HDD drives regularly.
 
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