Brian

This is the main issue with "What to Buy" threads: The information is outdated so quickly. Bear in mind that the majority of members here are Photographers, so their needs are a bit more than your average user that wastes time on FB, watches Netflix and buys stuff off Amazon. That's why I recommend the same things over and over and the reason that "BRIAN!! JUST TELL ME WHAT TO BUY!!!!" almost never works. Brian's 2019-2020 Windows Computer Recomendations Intel i7 (or i9 if you can afford it, but not a huge deal-breaker unless you are editing video.) 16GB RAM at a Minimum - 32GB or more preferred, like 64GB 1TB Hard Drive for the main drive. I don't care how fast that 128GB / 250GB SSD Drive is, it won't to you a damn bit of good if it's full. Of course the bigger the better when it comes to hard drives. Windows updates can be huge, so I would shoot for a 1TB at a minimum, though a person could get away with a 500GB HD. That said, as I write this, 500GB HD are becoming "Too Small" for today's modern Photoshop and 24MP+ cameras. A video card that has separate & dedicated video memory. 2GB - 4GB is fine (like 4GB) and since Adobe's products are using the graphics cards for a performance boost, a video card with 8GB of Video Memory is a good thing. So call it 4GB recommended / 8GB preferred when it comes to Video RAM. Windows 10 Home is fine for personal use; that said, f you are connecting to work for a day-job, be sure to get Windows 10 Pro. The main issue with those small SSD Hard Drives is that the lack of capacity can get away from you pretty quickly. Remember, you don't get the full Hard Drive Capacity that is advertised after partitioning, formatting and having Windows 10 installed. A 256GB SSD Drive and Windows 10 Installed, should leave you around 200GB or so available. After formatting, your capacity goes from 256GB to about 240GB and Windows 10 takes anywhere from 20GB or so just for itself, not including the large Windows Updates and Backup Data / Patch files. In reality, you have around 189GB to play with. Meaning, your Hard Drive ("C Drive") is no longer a dumping ground where you can click "NEXT-NEXT...I AGREE...NEXT-NEXT-NEXT...FINISH INSTALLATION." without thinking. Or just dump a session or two to edit while you do other things. You will need to be super-anal about what is stored on a small SSD Drive and where those files reside at all times. A 256GB is the absolute bare-minimum that I recommend for the Windows 10 Operating System and a Program or two, like Bridge and Photoshop, ONLY! No photo sessions, no data files, none of that stuff. Those files need to be stored on a Secondary Hard Drive or at the very least, an External Hard Drive. As far as a 128GB SSD, forget it. You are just wasting your time with today's current version of Windows and programs. There is also the pesky thing that comes along with Windows and Photoshop: Areas of the Hard Drive that are used to supplement the lack of RAM or system resources, we know them as the "Photoshop Scratch Disk" and Windows Swap File. The less space you have available for those areas means the less performance you have for your programs. Especially if you have a 24MP or more camera, as those RAW files tend to be on the larger side as compared to a 12MP-16MP camera. That's why I jump up and down about the HD capacity; unfortunately for the consumer pre-built / store-bought computers seem to have small SSD Drives these days. Why? Because they are cheap. Cheap-Cheap-Cheap. The COGS for the manufactures is way low and they get to brag on how fast their computers boot, usually it takes 15 seconds from a powered off state to a login screen. Plain and Simple. They are also fast and weight less than your typical HD, which saves on shipping costs. Yes, a few ounces adds up very quickly if you have a bunch of computers in a shipping container on a boat or in a trailer of a truck. If eliminating just two olives from a jar saved an airline $450,000 per year in fuel savings makes a difference, or the fact that UPS only makes right turns saves millions in fuel each year, you can bet the farm that PC manufactures also are doing the same thing. But I'm digressing here, where does that leave you? Having a realistic budget to start with, which in my opinion is anywhere from $1000 - $1500, just for the computer. With my recommendations, I'm a bit on the higher side as you won't see me recommend the "$999 Special / Package" that comes with a printer, a monitor, surge protector and a bunch of crappy add-ons to make it seem like it's a good value. I'm sure you have seen these deals at Costco or Best Buy, or some other box retailer from time to time. I used to sell computers A LONG time ago, before I became a Service Technician and those bundles would always sell, and the computer that had better hardware on the hood, which would last longer and have less problems, was only the computer being sold-and nothing else...for few hundred more...would sit. That's why we put THAT computer next to the "$999 Special." LOL!! Because it worked. Huge profit for the store and the customer got a "Okay Computer/Good Enough" with lots of extra stuff to make them feel good. As you can see, I'm not in Sales any longer. Right now it seems that RAM is cheap, but processors seem to be expensive. It used to only be a $200 difference between a i5 and a i7, but I just checked the Dell Website and it's like a $300 difference, but now you are getting 16GB of RAM instead of 8GB to start with. Bottom line, it's all the same amount of money, maybe $100 more at the end. It's just that the final cost of a CPU Chip and RAM Sticks Flipped. Another thing to keep in mind: The US Trade-War with China. The majority of computer products or components are either made or built in China. With the current pissing-contest and the value of the US Dollar being high, reflects in the prices that we see. So what do you buy? On Dell's Website, the one that matches most of my recommended specifications, is the $1249 Model. Bear in mind, not only do my recommendations are on the bit of a high-side, there is a method to my madness: When I buy computers, I have an Eight Year Time Frame in my mind. Of course you could get the $799 model or whatever, but you will be replacing that in about 2 years or so. I hate wasting money on this shit. "It's just as good as... or I can only afford..." ultimately costs you more money in the end. Save up, make a plan for it and work with what you have now to purchase what you should buy, instead of half-assing it. Sure, it's important to live within your means, but wasting $700 now and then $1000 later when you could have bought the $1249 model and be done with it...is a better choice long term as you have saved about $450 in the end. Or more if you bought three computers within that 8 year period. KWIM? An i5 CPU will work just fine with Photoshop. Is it a huge deal-breaker? No. Is there a difference? Only with the latest versions of PS CC. If you are still running CS6, there is only a 5-7% difference in speed between a i7 and a i5 CPU. But if you have PS CC 2019 version 20.0.5, yes, there is a difference as the current versions of PS are starting to take advantage of the architecture that makes a i7 or i9 so fast.

How about copying a single file to your main HD? Does that work?

You can not undo a RAID without nuking it. To undo a RAID Setup, you delete both drives. No way around it. My main concern is WHY you aren’t able to copy / paste your files to a new EHD. I’d attack that problem first.

Easiest way, copy everything over to a larger EHD. The Drag & Drop you mentioned. It’s not copying anything? You might have a problem with your RAID controller / housing / case and the drives are fine. After you are 100% sure that everything is copied over, you can then replace one HD, rebuild the RAID and see if that fixes it. Or purchase two WD Gold Drives and Setup a new RAID1 and then copy the files from the EHD back over to your RAID. Just make sure you have the latest firmware and software that controls your RAID.

I don’t mean to sound like a Arse but you are headed in a direction that will only waste you time money and cause frustration.

It’s setup as a RAID. You can’t do what you want to do unless you delete the drives / the RAID configuration itself and start from scratch. Both drives are united as “one” with one drive automatically mirroring the other. Other RAID setups, like Zero, Five and “1+0” aka “Ten” treat the data differently across the drives. RAID Level 1 is mirroring. IF A FILE IS MISSING OR CORRUPTED ON ONE DRIVE IN A RAID CONFIGURATION, IT IS NOT GOING TO BE ON THE OTHER DRIVE. PERIOD. THEY STOPPED BEING SEPARATE DRIVES WHEN YOU SET THEM UP AS A RAID 1. It’s not like they are two independent drives; you can’t just pull one and put it in another computer and have access to your files. That’s not how a RAID setup works. You have to get “independent” drives out of your head with dealing with a RAID. If you can’t find a file or it’s corrupted, it’s GONE. What is RAID? Multiple hard drives act in unison for a common purpose. All that is different between the RAID Levels is how the data is mirrored and striped (written) across multiple hard drives. As far as you are concerned, you only have one HD. So what’s the point of RAID? Recovery from Catastrophic Failure. Meaning that in your situation, if one hard drive failed completely, you still have access to your files on the working drive. That’s it. It’s not like BackBlaze or some other service (like Time Machine on the Macs) that has a copy of a file that was accidentally deleted and you can restore; this is why the servers that I work on still backup to Tape or another backup destination and have RAID setups in them. Usually multiple RAIDs. Return that docking station. It’s not going to do what you want it to do. You are just wasting money at this point.

You will need to delete the RAID Setup / Configuration to get them back to Single Drives. Then it’s just a matter of repartitioning / formatting.

Mirrored is Mirrored. What is on Drive #1 (Or it might be labeled Drive #0) is automatically / instantaneously copied on Drive #2 (Or labeled as Drive #1.) So if you have a bad sector / data corruption on one drive...guess what? You have data corruption / loss on the second drive!! There is no fail-safe, other than if one HD completely fails, you are still able to function with the working drive. That is a RAID1 by design, it protects you from a HD loss or failure, not corrupted / lost files. You then replace the bad / failed drive and tell the RAID to rebuild itself. If you want more of a fail safe with RAID 1, you'll need a second RAID 1 that you duplicate to, or simply a larger external HD that you duplicate your Mirrored Drives weekly, or at the very least monthly and kept off-site. This way you only lose a week's worth of data. Sometimes its really tough trying to figure out which HD is failing. You have a 50/50 chance and it's possible that you might have some diagnostic software that could let you know. That said, most of the software-based RAID systems aren't robust and don't give you a whole lot of info. My recommendation? Get a larger EHD and backup that RAID, like now and I'd replace both those drives at the same time. Since they were purchased & installed at the same time, have been running for the same amount of time, it is very possible that one HD is going and the other will then die a few months from now. Keep in mind, these are WD Caviar Black Drives, and while they are very good and I've used them in my systems for decades, they aren't meant to be in a RAID configuration. That's what WD RED drives are meant for and going forward, you want WD Caviar GOLD Drives. When I was really considering building a fancy NAS for a home media server, without question I was going to use WD Gold Drives. They are better / faster than the WD Red Drives and are meant to be in RAID Setups / NAS Units, etc.

Not much has changed, really. Data is data. What has changed is the interfaces and speed. If you want a Mirrored System, that's still a RAID 1 setup and you will need a motherboard that supports RAID in order to do this, otherwise you'll need to purchase an External Hard Drive that has this feature. As far as a machine for 2019: Intel i7 or i9 16GB RAM at a Minimum - 32GB or more preferred. 1TB Hard Drive for the main drive. If you are building your own computer, go with a SSD Drive. Please be aware, if purchasing a store-bought computer, I don't care how fast that 128GB / 250GB SSD Drive is, it won't to you a damn bit of good if it's full. Windows updates can be huge, so I would shoot for a 1TB at a minimum , though a person could get away with a 500GB SSD or M.2 HD for the main drive. A video card that has separate & dedicated video memory and does not use the RAM for its memory. 4GB of video memory is fine and since Adobe's products are using the graphics cards for a performance boost, a video card with 8GB of Video Memory is a good thing. So call it 4GB recommended / 8GB preferred when it comes to Video RAM. I like Windows 10 Pro but I'm more of a power user. Most people will be fine with Win 10 Home. Synctoy is an old Microsoft program. It's mean to keep track of changes to a folder and then automatically backup that folder to another location at a certain time you configure it. It's not a "Mirrored" method, at least not in the purest sense.

As far a special tools, this is what I used: The rounded end of a toe-nail clipper handle works great to pop in the little button to open the RAM Access Panel. The one that I used was made in China. So if you are feeling American for the 4th of July, look for one made in the USA. Static...yes, it's important to touch something metal to ground yourself before handling the RAM. Just don't go walking over to one side of the room, touch a refrigerator or something, then walk all the way back to the computer. You could build up a static charge by doing that, which defeats the purpose. Touch something metal within an arm's reach. Computer components are made A LOT better these days then back in the 80's. Back then you could wave a Styrofoam Cup over a Motherboard and it would start doing weird things. So just use common sense and go slow and methodical. Handle the RAM by the edges, wash your hands before and make sure they are dry, etc. Like I said, this should take 5-10min for the whole time. The hard part? Trying to get the stupid Access Panel Button pushed in without scratching the finish. Hence the rounded edge of the Toe-Nail Clipper. Also if you put your Mac face-down, the RAM Cage has a tendency to fall back into place, since Gravity will be working against you. So be prepared for it; it's a two hand job unless you insert the sticks with the Mac up-right. Oh, the RAM sticks only go in one way, so make note of which side the notch is (I think it's the left, facing the back of the iMac...) when you pull the Apple RAM.

The one I linked to is a different Part Number. The "M" on the end seems to be that it was tested in a Mac. Now, there are two reasons of thinking: They are both the same, and the "M" is the "Macintosh Tax." Manufacturers know that Mac owners are used to paying more money so they might be trying to add a little extra profit, although small. This "M" memory also might be more compatible with the existing Apple RAM, if you were just upgrading slightly. The other way of thinking is that there is no difference and either will work fine. Bottom Line: For the best performance and compatibility, it's best to use the SAME RAM STICKS in all your memory slots. Since you are pulling out the Apple RAM, and replacing it with a quantity of two 16GB kits, you should be fine with the cheaper option. That said, for and extra $12, you will have peace of mind knowing that it has been tested in a Mac. What would Brian do? Besides talking in the 3rd person, I'd look for a Crucial Coupon Code to get free shipping or whatever to offset the $12 cost for the "Mac Tested" RAM @$73.99. At $6 per kit difference, we are really splitting hairs.

Purchase two of these kits: Crucial 16GB Kit You will remove the existing Apple RAM and install four 8GB sticks in all the slots, totaling 32GB RAM. Big difference between 8GB and 32GB when using Mojave.

No. It should be a 4K camera. 3840 x 2160. Unfortunately, I really do not have any Drone experience. I actually just got a GoPro Hero 7 as a gift and will be learning how to do video and such. I would recommend finding and joining a DJI Mavic Pro 2 Facebook Users Group. They will be able to help you much more than I can. I will also move this thread to “The Land If Misfits” for others to chime in, but those threads never seem to get much attention. I did find this video and it seems decent: DJI Mavic Pro 2 Settings

Oh!! Now I get it!! Now that’s a better question. Actually, you don’t want to go above 80% full on ANY Mac HD, internal or external. I usually state a conservative number, like 75% to give members a bit of wiggle-room. As soon as you go above 90% full, things can get serious in a bad way...95% or more...downright scary and dangerous. You are really playing with Fire above 95% full. The reason is, the Mac OS treats both internal and external hard drives the same. (I won’t go into specifics of why, your eyes will glaze over, LOL!) So if you are full on your main drive, you will have a performance hit, if one of your externals is full, you will have a performance hit. So the fuller the HD, the slower a Mac runs. The more files / folders / crap stored on the Desktop, the slower the damn thing runs. Here is what I would do: Use your 2TB drive for TM only. Even if you reformat it and start over. Put nothing else on it. Your 5TB drives take the place of your two 1TB externals. Move the existing data / image files to two separate main folders, one labeled 1TB EHD 1 & 1TB EHD 2, unless the drives are just duplicates of each other. Then all you have to worry about is one EHD and one folder. Going forward, you can duplicate one of the 5TB drives weekly and keep it off-site. I would not let TM manage backing up your externals, YOU need to do that. Only have images / data on the 5TB EHDs. In the long run, you are keeping things simple. If you ever had a catastrophic failure, putting all your eggs one one basket with TM isn’t a good idea. TM is really meant for your internal HD only. Not your other externals. So says me. And the Apple Employees that work at the Genius Bar. For your main drive: CULL-CULL-CULL!!! You do not need 75 photos of your lunch taken 5 years ago. Those out of focus images from that family session 3 years ago and will never see the light-of-day? GONE!! BE. RUTHLESS. Your goal is to get above 350GB free on your internal Mac Laptop HD. Better yet, shoot for 400GB. Even if you have to move some items temporarily to one of the 1TB drives as a place holder. While you are at it, now is a good time to review how your file / folder structure is laid out. Does it work for you? Can you find things within 30 seconds? Or is crap all over the place? Now is the time to make things better...while culling, organize things. I’m sure this is going to take a week or so, but keep chipping away at it. When it’s done, your Mac will be in a much better place. Right now, I’m a little concerned.

It’s to eliminate the possibility of Data Corruption. You do not want Time machine creating a Time Machine Backup of your Time Machine Backup Drive to itself. Clear as mud? Plus, what happens if that Drive fails? Not only do you lose your image files, TM files are also gone. If you say, split your external drive into two partitions, one for images and one for TM, what’s the point of using TM? The EHD is backing up to itself. In reality, Time Machine is to backup your Primary Macintosh HD that contains the OS and programs, etc. It was never intended to backup External Drives, since they are external and should already be treated as external backups. Time Machine is meant to get you going again when your primary he fails, is replaced, and you need to restore the new one. Steve Jobs saw the importance of backups and wanted to make backups “fun” and “easy,” especially since the Macs were going to a sealed unit mentality; just look at how difficult it is to upgrade RAM in a 21.5” iMac or today’s modern Apple Laptops... As far as an automated way, that’s where TM is limited. It’s not like a program such as Veritas BackupExec, which is a program that servers use, that automatically does a verify at the end of a job if you tell it to. The only way to check, is to manually check them yourself. Honestly, all verification does is check the file size and extension and see if things match. BackupExec never opens the file, just makes sure the file could be read and is the same size / extension as the original.

For now, leave it as exFAT. This way you can get stuff off your Mac and copy it to a Windows Computer. To answer your question, we will use the Windows Disk Management Tool and I can walk you through it. Should take about 5 min to accomplish.

I get the "What's a good EHD to buy?" question on a fairly normal basis and my answer is, "It depends..." The problem is not the hard drive, that's the easy part. The problem is the filesystem difference between the two worlds. By default a Mac OS will READ a windows drive but not WRITE to it. It's really a one-way proposition. A few things come to mind: Use a cloud based service that works with both Windows and Mac and you upload/download stuff. Use an external HD that is exFAT partitioned Use a program that is designed to write from a Mac to a Windows EHD. Out of the three methods, 2 & 3 make the most sense. The two hard drives you linked to must be using a exFAT partition method. Please note, that exFAT while an option, is not 100% fool-proof. There could be issues and data loss; as for a long-term method of storage, it is much better for a traditional (spinning) Windows Drive to be formatted to NTFS and a Mac Drive to be Journaled HFS+. There is a newer filesystem type for the Macs that is better for SSD Drives, but lets keep things simple for now. While doing your data transfer, you want to COPY AND PASTE, NEVER-EVER CUT & PASTE. You do not want to "Move" your files, but just simply copy them. This is just in-case that writing to the exFAT partition screws up and the files get corrupted. When you just copy and leave the source files intact, you simply start over. If you move the files and things go wrong, you could have data loss. In addition, it's much better to create the partition on a Windows Computer; I've tried setting up a Windows Partition (FAT32) EHD using a Mac in the past and it never seems to work correctly. I almost always have problems and error messages. If I create the FAT32 Partition or exFAT Partition on a Windows Computer, it works just fine. The Mac OS is just really good at creating Macintosh Partitions and not Windows. I do not recommend the WD "Green" Drive or "Eco Friendly" drives as they tend to fail. A LOT. Unfortunately, it's hard to figure out which Western Digital EHD Models have Green Drives. Personally, I like the WD "Black" Line as they are very reliable and run fast and cool. From the reviews that I've read, it seems the 8TB version of the WD drive contains a WD Black 7200RPM drive inside it. I'm not 100% sure the smaller versions have a "Green" Drive or a "Blue" Drive in them. Why am I so concerned about the colors? It's how WD classifies their drives: Green: Cheap. Poorly Made. Usually fail within a year. According to a Best Buy employee, it's the #1 most returned HD and the one that people always purchase due to them being in-expensive. When you hear of people having problems with dead WD drives, chances are, there was a "Green" Drive inside the EHD case. Think entry-level DLSR, like a Nikon 3000 or Canon Rebel. Blue: Mid-Range. I've used these drives in a pinch and seem to work well. The downside is that they aren't as fast as the Black Drives but don't have the high-failure rates of the Green Drives. Think Mid-Range DSLR, like a Nikon D750 or Canon 80D. Black: Professional. I have used this line for decades and have never had a problem. This is what I look for. They run fast (7200 RPM) and run cool. Very reliable. Cost more that the Green or Blue but totally worth the extra $50 or so. Think High-End DSLR, like a Nikon D850 or Canon 5D Mark IV. Red: Professional / Server. These are meant for NAS units or Servers running 24/7. You would think that these drives would be even better than the Black Drives, but I have seen people complain about failures during some production years in the past, so my opinion is mixed. Purple: This line is meant to record video, meaning lots and lots of writing 24/7. You usually find these drives in Security Units recording video with multiple cameras. Out of all the WD line, either the Black or the Blue is the type of drive that you want. The problem is, that it's really-really-really hard figuring out what HD is inside the External Case. The 4TB My Book could be a Green Drive and the 8TB model could be a Black and they both look the same on the outside. Also, they could be formatted differently and might require and extra step or two to get working. LaCIE HDs are usually Mac Formatted and I have owned them in the past. They are decent. What concerns me is the interface port on the model you linked to. Using USB-C to USB 3.0 cable should work fine on a brand new computer that has USB 3.0 ports but I'm not sure how well on a older computer that has USB 2.0 ports. Of course I could be wrong in my suspicions and it works just fine. Anyway, since you are more than likely buying a new computer, if you do get the LaCIE, just make sure you use a USB 3.0 port. They are usually Blue or have a SS with a lighting bolt near them. The USB ports near the network jack are meant for your Mouse / Keyboard and are usually USB 2.0.

That's the problem, as Macs become more commonplace, having to reformat drives is the norm. It's not THAT hard. Just a few steps and I can walk you through it. It's literally a 5 min process. Honestly, it's better in the long run if you do it. The Amazon link I gave above has 4TB Models and it's around $92. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LQQHL4E/ref=twister_B07CMLR679?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

One thing I usually do not recommend are the $79 Special at the Box Stores, as they are usually lower-end, low-quality drives. You want to avoid anything "Eco Friendly" or "Green" when it comes to External Hard Drives as well. I have found those type of drives have high failure rates over the years. What to look for? A 7200RPM USB 3.0 Hard Drive. I like the Western Digital Caviar Black Hard Drive line, and I think I have found one that is in an EHD Configuration: WD 8TB MyBook One thing I noticed is that the EHD is formatted to a ExFAT partition, rather than the typical GPT Disk Type. ExFAT is compatible with both Mac & PC, but it's not fool-proof and would recommend you re-partition / reformat the hard drive to the Windows GPT Partition and NTFS filesystem. (I know, "Huh?" Just get back to me if you purchase that drive.) Is this EHD going to stay in one place, like on your desk, or move around with you? How large do you need the capacity to be? If you are going to use this on say, a laptop and carry it with you all over the place, then a SSD Drive might make more sense, though that is at a higher cost per Gigabyte.

Looks OK. I would save up a little more and get a i7 as PS CC is finally taking advantage of what makes a i7 so fast. But if that’s all you can afford, so be it. It’s fine.

Looks like it. In addition it has. USB 3.1 port. Prices sometimes vary by model years.

"Here are the specs that I recommend for a Photo-editing Machine (6-2019): Intel i7 (or i9 if you can afford it. 16GB RAM at a Minimum - 32GB or more preferred, like 64GB 1TB Hard Drive for the main drive. I don't care how fast that 128GB / 250GB SSD Drive is, it won't to you a damn bit of good if it's full. Of course the bigger the better when it comes to hard drives. Windows updates can be huge, so I would shoot for a 1TB at a minimum, though a person could get away with a 500GB HD. That said, as I write this, 500GB HD are becoming "Too Small" for today's modern Photoshop and 24MP+ cameras. A video card that has separate & dedicated video memory. 2GB - 4GB is fine (like 4GB) and since Adobe's products are using the graphics cards for a performance boost, a video card with 8GB of Video Memory is a good thing. So call it 4GB recommended / 8GB preferred when it comes to Video RAM. I like Windows 10 Pro but I'm more of a power user. Most people will be fine with Win 10 Home." I like the Dell XPS 8930 line. Here is a model that meets my criteria. As far as Monitors go, you want a IPS-Based display, at least 24" and either has a Matte Coating or Matte Glass on it, basically you don't want a glossy screen. It screws with calibration and can do weird reflections. I like the Dell line of displays. They are very affordable and are quite decent. They also tend to be easier to calibrate. Here is the Dell Ultrasharp U2417H. I also remember seeing in your post on FB Ask Damien, that you are planning on running Quickbooks? If so, you really want 32GB of RAM, heck 64GB isn't out of the question for you.

I'd get this one instead: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1090478-REG/g_technology_0g04023_g_drive_6tb_7200_thunderbolt_usb3_sata3.html Thunderbolt 3 is FAST. It's like having another internal drive. Plus, it also has a USB 3.0 port, so it can hook up to your old MBP. As far as the size, I have a 12TB G-Drive. LOL!! 4TB is what I'd have at a minimum these days. 8TB is good if you can afford it.

Personally, I like and use G-Drives with my Macs. They are a little more expensive than the $79 special at Best Buy, but are worth it since they tend to use higher quality components. I also recommend that you don’t go cheap on your primary storage device. The other benefit to G-Drives is they come Mac formatted and are ready to go out of the box, and they include cables as well. What year is your iMac and MBP?

I'm sorry, you are SOL. It's FB Messenger, not regular messenger / SMS Texting. I don't think those FB messages are stored locally on your phone. Perhaps you should dig through your messages in a browser while logged into FB? It's a long shot and I still think they are gone.