External drive for Thunderbolt

[PeterAit]

I have finally bitten the bullet and ordered a laptop suitable for heavy-duty processing with Lightroom and PS. I'll be using an external drive for catalog and photos and want to take advantage of the Thunderbolt 3 ports on the computer for best speed. I'll need 2 TB. Do I really need an SSD drive to get the best speed or would a fast mechanical drive be as good--or almost as good? Any recs for a specific product? Thanks.

[MDL_SD]

You absolutely need an SSD, no HDD will come close to the speed.  Check out the reviews at www.thessdreview.com.

[digitaldog]

At this price, had to go for a 4TB:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gigadrive-world-s-fastest-external-ssd/x/26647704#/

[armand]

At this price, had to go for a 4TB:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gigadrive-world-s-fastest-external-ssd/x/26647704#/

That looks very very good. I did a little research on it: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/forbes-personal-shopper/2021/04/23/gigadrive-thunderbolt-4-external-ssd/amp/

Honestly even is the speeds would be half of what they advertising I would be happy. Feels risky though.

[digitaldog]

First, I would also take the reported speeds with a grain of salt but.... looking on Amazon, a 4TB SSD like Crucial X6 4TB Portable SSD is $415. And without spec's such as water-, dust- and shock-resistant.
I've crowdfunded about a dozen differing products over the years without any issues. Yes, there's a risk but I'm willing to take it considering this drive is a good $50 less than the Crucial and similar 4TB SSDs with better specifications Thunderbolt 4 for the future etc.