MacBook Pro AND HARD DRIVE RECOMMENDATIONS - 6K PRO

Hi! I recently purchased a 6K pro. I have been somehow getting by editing with my ancient 2013 MacBook Pro using 2 USB 3.0 solid state Lacie external drives (one with the footage on it and one as my CACHE). My last few projects have been Red Epic 5k footage and my 2013 MacBook Pro has somehow gotten the job done! As suspected, my 2013 computer isn't enjoying 6K BRAW footage.

I'm going to buy a new 14" MacBook Pro. Do you think that hooking up my Lacie USB 3 solid state drives (via a USB 3 to USB-C connector) in combination with a new MacBook Pro 14" M1 Pro would do the job editing? Or, do I need new external solid state drives because my old drives would bottleneck?

As I already blew my budget, I'd like to get the $2000 base model MacBook Pro 14" - Apple M1 Pro Chip with 8-Core CPU and 14-Core GPU, 512GB SSD. Would this in combination with my USB 3.0 solid state external drives be ok editing?

Or, do you think I would need an upgraded 14" MacBook Pro ($2500) - Apple M1 Pro Chip with 10-Core CPU and 16-Core GPU, 1TB SSD. And, keep my current project on the internal SSD drive? I don't anticipate my projects being more than 500GB.

Or, would upgrading the 14" base model to 32GB RAM somehow allow me to get by using my USB 3.0 solid state drives? That would come in at $2400.

I would appreciate any thoughts and recommendations.

Thank you!

James

Your drives will not get slower on a MacBook M1, you'll need an adapter anyway if they are not USB-C.

Unfortunately, the Disk Speed Test by BM is not listing BRAW, but the ProRes values will give you a good indicator what you can get at medium compression rates for BRAW.

More RAM will not matter at all, neither positive or negative, if you don't get into serious Fusion work. Heck, I can work with 12K footage on my MacBook M1 Pro and that's 4 times the data of your Pocket 6K.

If this is data rate:
6144 x 3456 (6K)
Blackmagic RAW 3:1 - 323 MB/s
Blackmagic RAW 5:1 - 194 MB/s
Blackmagic RAW 8:1 - 121 MB/s
Blackmagic RAW 12:1 - 81 MB/s
Blackmagic RAW Q0 - 194 to 483 MB/s *
Blackmagic RAW Q5 - 49 to 139 MB/s **

then in some cases USB3 may be on the edge. It should do 300-400MB/sec from SSD.
Anything <300MB/sec should be stable.

Thank you both for the info! This is great and sounds like I will be in the ballpark shooting with a bit of compression.

Much appreciated.

James