DIY Thunderbolt SSD for Mac: How I Built One That Outperforms Off-the-Shelf Drives

Readers, I’m going to tell you an incredible story… the story of How I Built My Mac A Thunderbolt SSD ⚡️

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Source: Author | Story Cover Art

Over the last few months, while I was on my writing hiatus, I made several wise tech purchases for my existing Apple Ecosystem. Something I wish to share with all of you in the coming few stories.

So I thought — why not start with the Mac? My M3 MacBook Pro is one of the most dear devices from my Apple Ecosystem — it’s the beauty as well as the beast. It runs much of my critical workflow — such as the last-stage editing of my Medium stories, working on multiple windows at the same time (since I am still not used to window management on iPadOS 26), and now, my university-related academic stuff too (Yup, I am a student… again!)

Working with such heavy and often demanding workflows has made me realize the importance of time-consuming yet critical backups and fast-throughput drives to transfer miscellaneous files, more than ever before. Even the 512GB on my Mac, which once seemed ginormous to me, seems to be slipping away faster after I installed a dozen apps for my college work.