MacBook Air M4 with 32 Gb RAM. Should be enough for a decent LLM.
egze
Nicoo
SSD not included.
For much less money I have Amazon.co.uk
It dissipates heat better than another one I paid €90 for. And it’s reinforced with silicone (shock absorbing).
I have one with a Samsung Pro 980. Another with a Crucial P3 Plus SSD 2To PCIe Gen4 NVMe M.2 SSD ( CT2000P3PSSD801). 120 € / 2 To
The only concern is a Mac disconnecting it randomly and corrupting data… but I’ve not heard of such reports.
For that, I have a drive that shuts down cleanly (it remains self-powered for a few seconds to write the last bytes).
This drive takes a few seconds to boot up because it’s waiting for the capacitors to charge (for self-power). It also takes a few seconds to shut down (5 or 10 seconds, the time to empty the self-power).
1
hubertlepicki
I use the very same model and I am happy with it too. Although my usage is like a bigger pendrive so nothing heavy but been using it for a while and no issues.
2
AstonJ
Keep in mind the one I linked to is Thunderbolt 4 (40Gbps vs 10Gbps of the drive you linked to). If you are just using a drive for storage (and not for running the OS/video/intensive work straight off it) then USB 3.2 should be fine 
I haven’t watched it but this person mentions your drive in the first few seconds and why he went to TB4 (and then goes on to compare the UGREEN TB4 drive to the ACASIS):
1
TimButterfield
Actually curious here…
What’s the advantage of a laptop if it requires a boot drive bolted to the wall? Doesn’t that greatly reduce the portability of having a laptop in the first place instead of a normal machine? I like a laptop because I can take it all with me and work on the same project from another location. This would seem to defeat that. Or, am I missing something?
2
AstonJ
It’s only a good idea for desktops or laptops that you use like a desktop (i.e one that you don’t need to take anywhere)
1
D4no0
AstonJ
Behind what specifically Daniel?
Here was my reasoning:
I don’t think I’d buy a MBP again either - mine stayed connected to my monitor 99% of the time because it is just too heavy/cumbersome (at least to use as I did my MBA, which was very light, very evenly weight distributed etc). If I need a break from the desk I just pick up the iPad and do whatever I can on that (so catch up on reading, or looking over the forums, or sketching something out etc) and just leave everything else to when I am back at the desk. You also end up saving a lot too - a Mac Studio the same spec as an upgraded MBP is about £1500 cheaper here, meaning you can either save the money or upgrade the Studio beyond what you would have a MBP.
Part of the reason I got a Mini was:
- Because I needed a replacement urgently as my MBP had just become unusable and I had a lot to catch up with at the start of this year (and none of it involved resource intensive work like graphical programs - I only really need a machine for that when working on a new project or a major refresh).
- I was curious how well a base M4 and an external drive would work given the advantages outlined above. (It’s now what I would recommend to anyone who doesn’t need a Mac for a specific resource intensive use-case.)
- I am beginning to resent supporting Apple because I feel they need to be more ethical and pay a fairer price for essential minerals from places like DR Congo. They are the richest company in the world with the largest profit margins, yet the atrocities they are complicit in do not sit well with me. They need to do better and like everyone else I can vote with my purchase choices.
- I am planning on going travelling (I need a break!) so a cheap and low power consumption machine I can leave on while travelling would be ideal (so I can dial into it when need be - rather than take my data with me and risk it being stolen or accessed/copied at airports etc)
So there are a lot of positives, and you reminded me, I think we need a thread for Digital Nomads! 
3
adamcstephens
I have a desktop two floors away in my basement. I got a steal on an HDBaseT extender which includes 4K@60hz HDMI and USB 2.0 over a single cat6 cable. It works pretty well in my case, but you can see from those specs there are some compromises. If you could pass through a single wall you can leverage more standard cabling and higher speeds.
2
AstonJ
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: How to use an external storage device as a Mac 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.
2