4 hours ago, TimG said:
Ha! Yeah, right...... 
Hey, some more advice please, oh IT gurus?
Disk storage space: at present I have a 3TB fusion drive in my iMac. In addition to the usual applications, it holds my approx 1.2TB image collection which I access through LR. I also have a NAS as a Time Machine backup and, for paranoia reasons, I have a G-Tech 4GB RAID system. I have lots of backups.
I see with the Mac Mini and the Mac Studio that 2TB internal drives are the max. It makes me ask the question as to whether with the "new" technology I really don't need to pump up the internal drives but can use externals. I really want to be able to access my images through LR at any time without having to wait for downloads, pregnant pauses or whatever. With the Fusion drive I can do this. Is there a way of achieving the same thing using an external drive?
The reason for asking is, I guess, that Apple (there, makar0n, I've said it), bless them, charge $600 extra for a 2TB SSD in the Mini or Studio. Seems an awful lot.
Despite what I appreciate is very well intentioned advice from you guys, I'm not going to return to Windows. I sold my soul to the devil (take a bow Jobs/Ives) years ago and have so much invested in Apple goodies that there is no way I could Go Back. Beside, I now have no clue how to use Windows.
So external hard drives, can they work seamlessly enough to appear as internals?
Idiot boy question maybe?
Hehe 600$ for 2TB SSD...best summary of Apple i've seen lately, short of the 999 USD monitor stand 
Anyways, TL:DR - easiest/cheapest/fastest - get external USB-C (or better USB 4) based SSD/NVME drive.
Long wall of text:
To give you an idea: 2TB SSD's cost about 100-200 Euro (ie lower priced are SSDs , higher, NVMe drives). 4TB ones are starting to show up at 300-400+. And for you would be even cheaper since you can probably get things easy from US, or at the very least order in EU then export (claim VAT back).
Also, don't know Fusion drive first hand, but google tells me it is actually SSHD - so basically sort of a hybrid drive, where bulk of the data is stored on a slow HDD, and only frequently accessed data is on SSD "cache". Overall solution might be faster than normal HDD but definitely slower (especially with lots of small files) than real SSD/NVMe. And more prone to issues due to HDD part being mechanical.
Now as for external drives - thanks to USB-C one can have very fast access, almost like drive being mounted inside. (sans maybe PCIe 3/4 NVMe but i do not think you need 6000MB/s read/write :). So, you could get "ready out of the box ones" ones, like Samsung T7, Crucial X6, Sandisk Extreme Pro, OR, you can get any "normal" ssd (Samsung 980 Pro, Sabrent Rocket etc), either in 2.5" or M.2/NVMe format, and just buy external USB enclosure for it. The first solution is perhaps easier, 2nd one is more versatile - i.e if in the future you want to upgrade the SSD inside, you can just change that and keep the enclosure. Also you have much bigger choice of storage drives. That is my preference at least - for example i keep a single 2TB SSD in enclosure as a working medium for gf, which is later often copied/synced to NAS (she often carries things between home and work), and i keep two 512GB drives in pen drive format enclosures, one as my local carry/transfer on, and 2nd a WindowsUSB install for random testing/benching.
Stay away from external HDD drives - heavy, bulky, requires more power (important when working on battery, also usually only 5400 rpm can be powered via USB, 7200 needs external PSU), prone to damage traveling (mechanical system). If you really require huge storage space (i.e. beyond 4TB) setting up local NAS with say RAID 5 makes more sense.
There is no need to get any "Apple" branded external drive, it is a total nonsense. As long as Mac has USB-C (Thunderbolt is usually compatible too), anything will work. You can also format it in exFAT so that drive is compatible both with Mac and Windows. As an extra bonus of USB C drives, you can also plug it into the phone directly (that is if your phone does not suffer from having Light something something connection). Only thing i am not sure if what kind of an encryption can be done under Mac (like Bitlocker in Windows). NEVER EVER HAVE UNENCRYPTED EXTERNAL DRIVES.
Depending on the Mac you have, you might be able to upgrade the drive yourself - I think older ones used the same components as PC, so its a simple swap (maybe with drive clone). With never ones, as far as i understand, this is no longer possible, as Asshole company used proprietary interface and locked it down so one cannot even reuse a drive from another Mac.
Another plus for external drive - you can reuse or sell later if not needed anymore. With locked down internal one, unless you sell the whole Mac, you are stuck.
Suggestion wise, depends on your preferences of course, but having gazillion of external HDDs i would not recommend. They do break. Plus organizing these, keeping track of backups etc is rather a chore. But having at least a single external SSD is pretty useful, with speeds around 1GB/s via USB-C you should be good for LR. Or you go the separate SSD/enclosure route, and you might get 2GB/s+. Seems slowly USB 4 enclosures are starting to show up, and they up the speed from 10Gbps to 40Gbps.
And in general, maybe some more optimized setup:
a) NAS (real one, not G-Tech RAID...ready made or DYI, very easy to build with even 10 year old parts, running OMV/Freenas including encryption etc) as the heart of your storage. Keeping all there, with addition of say copy of the photos you working on an external SSD for speed reason. Having all on NAS means it can be accessed from any other device in your home network, no need for more external drives, and that includes TVs etc where you want to play things. External access is also easy via VPN, so you can remote in to home from wherever in case you remember you just need that one file in the middle of Indonesia.
In addition one backup on an external drive (with proper backup tool that can dedup/run incremental/encrypt) stored locally and one stored offsite - best on servers like Backblaze (costs unfortunately) but even additional HDD stored at your friends also does the job, if let's say a meteorite strikes your home.
Easy, centralized, no gazillion of copies, easy to sync, access and backup.
b) Modification of the above, real life example from my friend - insane photo maniac who's hobby is to restore 100 year old cameras and develop things in his own dark room, because that is what Belgians do apparently. Regularly deals with photos (often scans) of few GBs size for a single picture.
Like a) but he has skipped the external drives. Instead set up NAS with NVMe class drives allowing 5000 MB/s read/write, then hooked all up to 10Gbps LAN. So all he does is just plugs his PC/Laptop to LAN and effectively works on anything stored on NAS like it would be stored locally on his computer (i.e speed wise, thanks to both fast NAS as well as 10Gbps network).
Definitely a bit more expensive setup which also requires 10Gbps network equipment.
