For those interested in trying a Mac or going down the Mac + External Drive route, Mac Mini’s are currently on sale in the UK for £539: Amazon.co.uk
Arguably one of the best value Macs ever made, given Apple’s history of usually charging extremely over-inflated prices. I guess they want to use the Mini to get people into the Apple eco-system.
You can use this guide to install macOS on an external dive and set your Mac to boot from it: Install macOS on an external storage device and use it as a startup disk – Apple Support (UK)
I tested it with a standard USB-C external SSD (such as this 2TB Crucial which is just £119) as well as one in a TB4 enclosure (more expensive but faster) and it worked fine with both (You won’t need a faster TB4 drive unless you are editing 4K footage or doing something that requires something quicker than 350MB/s).
The added bonus is if you’re considering becoming a digital nomad the Mini would be perfect to act as a server (with something like Apple Remote Desktop) to let you dial into it whenever you need any of your files.
