Anyone used a USB 3.0 connected external Drive for Video storage?

TundraCam

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To the original question... It's important to remember that USB3 ≠ USB3. A Gen 2 2x2 is massively faster than a Gen 1 1x1 and there are a half dozen flavors between these. My old MacBook w/ a 2x2 connection to an external drive provides good enough performance to edit fairly hi res video (about 800 Mb/s write IIRC). USB4/Thunderbolt is faster still.

My original Security Spy system ran on old Mac Mini with an external drive connected via USB3 and never had problems w/ 17 cameras (2k, 4k and 5k) and over 90 days of vid.

If you're having performance problems I think I would write directly to the external drive though, not move files to it as backups as the backup routine could result in a lot of extra churn.

I'd agree w/ getting a NAS rather than just a drive enclosure and Synology is good. I think I'd go for more than 2 bays for future expansion though.
 
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