External drive for macbook

[zulicheg]

Friends, I have a Macbook Air M1 and a WD Black 2Tb drive and a Ugreen external box for it 20Gbps. I go to USB devices, and it says USB 3.1 with a speed of 10Gbps. As I understand it, the MacBook cannot work with USB over 10Gbps? Then why does it say that devices up to 40Gpbs are supported?

And the second question, tell me the models of external drives or external boxes for the nvme drive so that the speed is maximum.

 

[PaulD-UK]

You need USB4 for '40Gbps', which is a marketing term, but is about 3 times the speed of USB 3.1 10Gbps.

A good enclosure is the OWC Express 1M2:

OWC Express 1M2: Portable USB4 NVMe M.2 SSD Solution

Offers incredible speeds of up to 3151 MB/s, DIY flexibility with NVMe M.2 SSDs, and compatible with USB4, Thunderbolt, and USB-C computers and devices.

www.owc.com

There are lots of other lower price, lower quality USB4 ones available.

 

[zulicheg]

On Aliexpress there is Ugreen USB4 40Gbps for $50, here is the question, will it give full speed on MBA M1?

 

[PaulD-UK]

That UGreen enclosure should work with an M1 Mac, as earlier similar ones worked OK.
It will run at quite a high temperature, but that is normal.
There are other ones on AliExpress with bigger fins on the case to help with cooling.