I plan to use the 2TB on the Mac studio to hold OS, Photoshop, Lightroom, LR Catalogs for fastest performance, ALL of TopazLabs AI software, Affinity Photo/Designer/Publisher, Davinci Resolve or Final Cut Pro since they cost about the same for learning Video editing. (I hope 2TB will be enough)
Then add a Caldigit Thunderbolt 4 hub for more ports (sadly it will add redundant card readers) then daisy chain off of that a Thunderbolt 3 hub (until a Thunder bolt 4 version is released) with a SATA—III SSD 2.5” (Samsung 870 EVO 4TB drive (I wish I could afford a Samsung 860 Pro) for Photos and customers sublimation designs, and font, clipart, and files storage (Actually the design files might get put on an external drive to allow more photo storage space)), and a PCIe 3.0 m.2 (Samsung 980 pro (I have a spare 2TB but hope to buy a 4TB later)) As a work drive before moving files to the SSD and backed up to a larger external storage drive of unknown type at this time.
My current workflow thoughts are as follows..
Copy files from Camera storage card to the m.2 2-4TB drive for culling and editing put card back into camera and formate it or delete the photos, (Lightroom catalog will be on the much faster 2TB main drive in the Mac Studio (man I wish I could have afforded the 4TB version), move edited photos to the slower SSD drive, backup all files on the 4TB SSD drive to another drive. (I am not sure if it will be as large an SSD drive as I can afford or an external Thunderbolt 3 or 4 enclosure with a huge mechanical drive in it.
Am I making any mistakes in my thoughts? Is there a better, faster, more efficient workflow? I am totally new to Macs but thought I could share work related info between my iPhone and m1 iPad Pro easier this way.
View attachment 47091
View attachment 47092
View attachment 47093