While I am not a
While I am not a « Mac guy, » I recently bought a 2020 Mac mini. Why? Well, I was quite intrigued by Apple’s new M1 processor, and the $699 starting price was actually reasonably affordable. And so, I went with the base model (8GB RAM,256GB SSD), as Apple’s prices for more memory and storage are a total rip-off. For instance, to go from 8GB to 16GB RAM costs $200. Sorry, but I can’t drop two bills on 8GB. Not happening, Apple. Unfortunately, you cannot upgrade the RAM, so the 8GB decision might bite me in the ass one day, but I’ll cross that bridge later. However, since the little computer has two Thunderbolt and two USB ports, I knew I could always add fast storage later on. And now, Other World Computing (aka OWC) has a new rugged drive (for macOS and Windows 10) that is perfect for this. Called « Envoy Pro FX, » it is an NVMe M.2 SSD (with speeds up to 2,800MB/s) housed in an enclosure — fairly typical. What makes it special, however, is it has two chipsets — Intel Titan Ridge for Thunderbolt and Realtek RTL9210 for USB. In other words, you get the best of both worlds — the speed of Thunderbolt when connected to such a computer and the compatibility of USB when a machine doesn’t have TB.
