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I have several external drives attached to my Mac Studio, all of which are used for video projects. Some are just for storage, while others are for rendering. When rendering video, everything needs to be set up for the best possible performance; otherwise, it could mean the difference between minutes or hours of rendering time.
Slow drive = slow rendering.
Slow cable = slow rendering.
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Believe it or not, a poorly designed drive enclosure could also equal slow rendering. You might think a drive enclosure would have nothing to do with transfer speeds or rendering time, but that would be false. Not only do those external drive housings include electronics, but they also have to deal with another factor that can negatively impact a drive: heat transfer.
This brings me to the TerraMaster D1 SSD Pro external NVMe SSD housing. When this arrived some time ago, I didn't really think much about it. I unboxed it, slapped a drive in it, and attached it to my Mac Studio, assuming it would be just another external drive I would use for video rendering.
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But I soon realized that even though I have multiple enclosures holding the same type of drive, this particular housing would help improve the rendering speeds because of its dual-fin heat sink design. No matter how long a video was being rendered, the process was not hindered at all.
According to SanDisk, excessive heat during data transfer can affect performance. I've personally watched a drive's performance degrade with excessive heat.
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