External SSD Enclosure Advice

[tamorgen]

Good morning all,
I've ordered a Mac Studio (M2 Max) and I'm anxiously awaiting for it to be assembled and delivered. One of the things I read from many people was to get an external SSD in place of the internal SSD that Apple provides (4 TB is a $1200 upgrade). Initially I was looking at a couple of enclosures that sit directly underneath the Mac Studio or Mac Mini, but the one's I saw had terrible transfer rates, or only were capable of using older types of SSD ( OWC Ministack, Satechi Mac Mini hub).

I've kind of given up on that idea and I'm looking at just planning on getting a stand alone single m.2 NVMe SSD enclosure. I don't see any that strictly say Thunderbolt 4, but most say T3/T4 USB3/4, and the speed is really dependent on the chipset on the controller.

What I've come up with is a ACASIS 40 Gbps M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure off of Amazon. Has anybody had any experience with this enclosure (good, bad, ugly)? I'm looking at a Crucial 4TB P3 Plus to go in it.

Any thoughts?

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[RUQRU]

This Thunderbolt 3 enclosure from OWC is $89:OWC Envoy Express

I am using the SanDisk Professional 2TB PRO-G40 SSD - Up to 2700MB/s, Thunderbolt 3 with my M2 Max Studio.

 

[tamorgen]

This Thunderbolt 3 enclosure from OWC is $89:OWC Envoy Express

I am using the SanDisk Professional 2TB PRO-G40 SSD - Up to 2700MB/s, Thunderbolt 3 with my M2 Max Studio.

View attachment 2221357

Interesting. I had looked at that one, but OWC was claiming top speeds around 1500 MB/s. The Acasis is claiming in the 2800 MB/s range

 

[RUQRU]

Interesting. I had looked at that one, but OWC was claiming top speeds around 1500 MB/s. The Acasis is claiming in the 2800 MB/s range

I called them and they could not explain why their enclosure was so much slower than the competition.

Here is a video showing the Acasis in action. Good results:

 

[joevt]

I called them and they could not explain why their enclosure was so much slower than the competition.

OWC Envoy Express uses only 2 lanes of PCIe gen 3. Most enclosures use the full 4 lanes of PCIe gen 3.
I think it was necessary for them to get "The world’s first Thunderbolt™ certified bus-powered ‘add your own drive’ enclosure"

Here's a list of certified Thunderbolt products. I think you can find bus powered enclosures that are 4 lane. Are they also ‘add your own drive’?
https://www.thunderbolttechnology.n...&field_prod_tb_version_value_many_to_one=tbv3

 

[HDFan]

One of the things I read from many people was to get an external SSD in place of the internal SSD that Apple provides (4 TB is a $1200 upgrade).

The internal upgrade is expensive. However it may give you speeds that you can't easily get externally. Almost 8000 MB/s in my case.

 

[tamorgen]

The internal upgrade is expensive. However it may give you speeds that you can't easily get externally. Almost 8000 MB/s in my case.

I upgraded to 1 TB, so I'll be able to run most apps that I want fast access to, but low priority stuff I want to be able to offload, so the external storage seems to make sense.

 

[Dr_Charles_Forbin]

I upgraded to 1 TB, so I'll be able to run most apps that I want fast access to, but low priority stuff I want to be able to offload, so the external storage seems to make sense.

I still haven't found that magic bullet yet so I may do just what you're doing - 1 TB on board... squeeze everything on there and use an external drive for music and pictures.