Best external nvme options for 2019 27" Imac

[jaysz]

I just picked up a 27" iMac yesterday, it's the middle one and I would like to boot from an
nvme drive as I find the fusion drives a bit pokey. So what are my best options as far as an enclosure
and drive, or would it be better to boot from a normal ssd with a usb c cable? Thanks for the help.

 

[0128672]

Oh darn, by the title I thought you were asking for iMac name options, which would have been fun.

 

[Juicy Box]

So what are my best options as far as an enclosure
and drive, or would it be better to boot from a normal ssd with a usb c cable?

"Best" should be defined, as it is very subject what best actually means.

If you want speed, a TB3 drive would be good. My Late 2012 iMac is booting from a Samsung X5 which is a TB3 NVMe enclosure.

Without doing a striping RAID0, NVMe in a TB3 enclosure is probably the fastest option for my Late 2012 iMac. It would be much faster for your 2019 iMac.

 

[jaysz]

Yeah I am looking for speed, but also value for speed as well, which means to me if I get
80% of the speed for 50% of the cost I am good with that. But I am looking at getting a T3
enclosure and buying a WD Black 1TB drive.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"So what are my best options as far as an enclosure
and drive, or would it be better to boot from a normal ssd with a usb c cable?"

Your BEST "option" is to RETURN IT immediately, and then order one with an SSD inside.
NOTHING will run better or faster than that.

 

[jaysz]

Thanks, but that's really not helpful at all, bought a 2019 27" iMac for $1000
with Apple Care as the guy needed the money, and I am very happy with it.
However coming from a pc where I have had an nvme and ssd's for quite a while
I am not loving their 5400 rpm craptacular drive, fusion or no, it's subpar
at this price point and has no business being inside the case.

Would a better option be opening the case and installing an ssd inside, I have been building PC's
for about 40 years now, thanks for the help.

 

[Fishrrman]

Your original post didn't say that you bought it used for a good price.

You could get an nvme blade SSD.
1tb should run about $110.
Don't worry about the "fastest", you only need one that's 990MBps or so for what I suggest:

Get a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure and put the blade into it.
Numerous ones are available.
I use an Orico.

USB3.1 gen2 will give you about 965MBps reads, and in the 850MBps range for writes.

These do run on the warm side, and can get modestly hot under heavy write loads.
But for "just regular running", they're fine.

You -could- get a Samsung X5, which can yield reads over 2,000MBps, but reports are that these get very hot, even under normal usage, and when they do they will "throttle down" the speeds. I don't have one, that's what I've read at macintouch.com and elsewhere.

 

[jaysz]

Thanks a bunch, was debating on buying a gen2 or a thunderbolt enclosure as I would prefer to
not void the warranty, thanks again.

 

[DracheMitch]

USB3.1 gen2 will give you about 965MBps reads, and in the 850MBps range for writes.

I have a PCIe (not SATA) NVME in a 3.1G2 enclosure connected with a Thunderbolt cable (guaranteed best option) directly to my MacBook Pro 2019 and I get just under 790MBps read and 926MBps write. Theoretical bandwidth never matches up to actual. Even though that's still better than any SATA drive could pull, that's not much better than the theoretical bandwidth of USB 3.0's 625MB/s, and well short of 3.1G2's 1250 MB/s.


I personally would recommend even a simple Thunderbolt enclosure over USB for booting because all USB burdens the CPU while Thunderbolt does not. I'm getting a PCIe to NVME card to put in a spare Razer Core X.

 

[bsbeamer]

Just picked this up for use with a Samsung 970 EVO:

ORICO NVME Enclosure

ORICO NVME Enclosure

www.amazon.com

System SSD SM1042L 1TB is around 1920MB/s write & 2160 MB/s read (little less than 50% full)
Orico NVMe Samsung 970 EVO 1TB is around 1650MB/s write & 2475 MB/s read (less than 10% full)

40Gbps TB3 with Intel certification. Great if you already have an NVMe blade to use. Works well when placed on a rear shelf on the iMac 27". Warm or hot to the touch when constantly throttling data to the drive, so be aware of that (just like most other NVMe). Would not velcro or mount directly to the back casing of an iMac. If placing directly on a desk, use some kind of coaster.

 

[Klaus_mac]

"Best" should be defined, as it is very subject what best actually means.

If you want speed, a TB3 drive would be good. My Late 2012 iMac is booting from a Samsung X5 which is a TB3 NVMe enclosure.

Without doing a striping RAID0, NVMe in a TB3 enclosure is probably the fastest option for my Late 2012 iMac. It would be much faster for your 2019 iMac.

How do you connect Samsung X5 to iMac 2012. I also have X5 but it doesn't work with MBP'15 2015 via T3–>T2 adapter

 

[Juicy Box]

I also have X5 but it doesn't work with MBP'15 2015 via T3–>T2 adapter

You can use TB3 drives on older TB 1 or 2 Macs, but bidirectional adapter doesn't provide power for TB3 devices.

So, you can use a TB3 device with its own power, or you can use a TB3 dock with the TB3 device that would be the source of power.

In my case with the X5, I use a TB3 Dock.

 

[Klaus_mac]

I see, thank you! You didn't have a TB3 dock on the list, so I thought there might be a way. What is your TB3 docking station?