[ProllyInfamous]

>trying to figure out ... fast external storage

Acasis makes 40gbps external nVME cases. Mine feels quick (for non-LLM tasks).

I also use 10gbps Terramaster 4-bay RAIDs (how I finally retired my Pro5,1).

>energy usage

This thing uses an order of magnitude -less- energy than the computer it replaced, and is faster in almost every aspect.

[ryan-c]

10gbps is slow enough to be annoying when you're loading a 200GB model, unfortunately.

[ProllyInfamous]

You might consider then getting four 40gbps nVME enclosures, and then RAIDing multiple together (e.g. in a big stripe, you could get 160gbps throughput, only limited by # physical interfaces). Each slice could be +TBs.

Obviously increases your failure rate, but if you're constantly updating the same models (and not creating your own) you don't really need redundancy.