External SSD

[roland.g]

Found a Samsung 1TB M.2 NVMe drive for $100.

Samsung 980 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD - 3500MB/s Read Speeds, Turbowrite, For PC/Laptop/Gaming

Harness your PC's potential with the 980 SSD. Whether you need a boost for gaming or a seamless workflow for heavy graphics, the 980 is a smart choice for outstanding SSD performance — and it's all backed by an NVMe interface and PCIe 3.0 technology. Satisfy your need for speed with PCIe 3.0, usi...

www.amazon.com

And it has Read speeds up to 3500MB/s.

However, it looks like most external enclosures top out around 1500MB/s. Is this typical for TB3 enclosures?

OWC Envoy Express Thunderbolt 3 Enclosure for NVMe M.2 SSD

World’s first Thunderbolt certified bus-powered ‘add your own drive' enclosure. History-Making DIY Pocket-Sized Storage Solution While small in stature, the OWC Envoy Express is big news. For the first time ever in the history of Thunderbolt, you can buy a bus-powered Thunderbolt certified enclos...

www.amazon.com

SABRENT Thunderbolt 3 Certified M.2 NVMe SSD Tool Free Solid Aluminum Enclosure (EC-T3NS)

The Sabrent Thunderbolt 3 M.2 Nvme Ssd Tool-Free Solid Aluminum Enclosure Is The Ultimate Combination Of Convenience, Performance, And Reliability! Thunderbolt 3 Technology Enables Amazing Speeds Of Up To 1600 Mb/S. Trust & Reliability: Dont Entrust Your Valuable Data To Devices That Are Only “Co...

www.amazon.com

 

[aurora_sect]

From another thread, @illitrate23 appears to have done slightly better with this combo.

The internal SSD on my studio is much faster, but ~1.5-2GB/s should suit me just fine in an external drive. I'm stuck at 400 MB/s right now with my Sabrent Rocket and cheapo USB 3.2 enclosure, but even with that I don't often notice any lag when retrieving files. Maybe a little bit if I open several hundred photos in at once.

Just got two of these enclosures and put two of the below 1tb SSD into them. instead of paying Apple £600 to replace the base 512gb with 2tb, I’ve saved £140 and will now have a total of 2.5tb. I know the speed on the external ports is less than internal, but just ran the speed test on one of the drives using my M1 13” MBP and i think this will be fine for my use.

USB4.0 Mobile M.2 Nvme Enclosure... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08X9YTWJC?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
View attachment 1974128


Samsung (MZ-V8V1T0B/AM) 980 SSD... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08V83JZH4?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
View attachment 1974129

View attachment 1974130

 

[roland.g]

From another thread, @illitrate23 appears to have done slightly better with this combo.

The internal SSD on my studio is much faster, but ~1.5-2GB/s should suit me just fine in an external drive. I'm stuck at 400 MB/s right now with my Sabrent Rocket and cheapo USB 3.2 enclosure, but even with that I don't often notice any lag when retrieving files. Maybe a little bit if I open several hundred photos in at once.

Interesting that he linked a USB4 enclosure v a TB3 enclosure like the Sabrent or OWC. Not sure what the difference would be, but I thought you would need the TB3 to get the 2700 speed he posted. Maybe not.

 

[MRxROBOT]

Interesting that he linked a USB4 enclosure v a TB3 enclosure like the Sabrent or OWC. Not sure what the difference would be, but I thought you would need the TB3 to get the 2700 speed he posted. Maybe not.

The enclosures you linked only use 2 lanes out of the 4 available. Essentially, it’s using cheaper parts to bring you a more affordable enclosure at the cost of speed. There are enclosures that use all 4 lanes, there are plenty of threads on here that outline the fastest combinations, typically topping at around 2,500 MB/s.

 

[MRxROBOT]

There’s a lot of good info and reviews for TB3, TB4, and USB4 enclosures in the following link. Certain enclosures only operate at full speeds with specific SSDs, so be certain to check the reviews on the particular enclosure you end up purchasing.

Thunderbolt 3 M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosures

Thunderbolt 3 / 4 / USB 4 NVMe Enclosures The best enclosures for high speed transfers (2.5GB/s+) usually have one of these 2 chipsets: Thunderbolt 3: Intel's JHL7440, e.g. Acasis TBU-401 / 405 Orico TB3-S2 USB 4: Asmedia ADM2464PD Jeyi TB-2464 Maiwo 2464 ( NewEgg / AliExpress) Satechi Pro...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[aurora_sect]

There’s a lot of good info and reviews for TB3, TB4, and USB4 enclosures in the following link. Certain enclosures only operate at full speeds with specific SSDs, so be certain to check the reviews on the particular enclosure you end up purchasing.

Thunderbolt 3 M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosures

Thunderbolt 3 / 4 / USB 4 NVMe Enclosures The best enclosures for high speed transfers (2.5GB/s+) usually have one of these 2 chipsets: Thunderbolt 3: Intel's JHL7440, e.g. Acasis TBU-401 / 405 Orico TB3-S2 USB 4: Asmedia ADM2464PD Jeyi TB-2464 Maiwo 2464 ( NewEgg / AliExpress) Satechi Pro...

forums.macrumors.com

Great thread--thanks for the link. I'm taking my time to decide based on user tests/reports as opposed to theoretical specs.

 

[bsbeamer]

Make sure your enclosure is 40Gbps if you want to take advantage of the maximum speeds. Some of the dual NVMe enclosures are non-RAID and appear as two separate drives in macOS. Not necessarily a bad thing for most people, but something to be aware of.

Have personally had great experiences with Orico enclosures in the last 2 years. If you truly want to get maximum speed, you might need to explore some of the PCIe card options. Several have capacity for 4 blades and have blazing speed when used in the right expansion box. Most eGPU's can still work as a PCIe expansion box with M1 even though eGPU itself does not work.

 

[F-Train]

Most eGPU's can still work as a PCIe expansion box with M1 even though eGPU itself does not work.

Could you expand on that?

 

[bsbeamer]

Could you expand on that?

Most eGPU's are just PCIe slot(s) over Thunderbolt with a beefier PSU than a standard expansion box. Nearly any PCIe card inserted into the "eGPU" housing should work, as long as it is macOS compatible and physically fits within the housing.

Here's the exact product note from Sonnet (who makes the Breakaway Box eGPU models):

Supports Non-GPU PCIe Cards
Supports Thunderbolt-compatible full-length, full-height, single- or double-width cards –perfect for pro audio I/O and DSP cards and pro video I/O and transcoding cards.

Some people probably want to look at the Sonnet Fusion Dual U.2 SSD PCIe Card and get up to speed on U.2 SSD if they need larger capacities than (standard M.2) NVMe with speed greater than SATA. For those who just need a lot of (standard M.2) NVMe, the Sonnet M.2 4x4 Silent PCIe Card is probably going to do the trick.

 

[illitrate23]

Interesting that he linked a USB4 enclosure v a TB3 enclosure like the Sabrent or OWC. Not sure what the difference would be, but I thought you would need the TB3 to get the 2700 speed he posted. Maybe not.

I was searching Amazon for enclosures that promised the higher speeds and would deliver quickly. There weren't a lot of options that fit. I initially definitely wanted to get TB3, but didn't find any on Amazon that promised the faster transfer speeds.
I expect they'll come, but as of last week, there were very few options if you wanted data transfer speeds above 1500.

Then again - in real-world scenarios, I'm not sure I'd actually notice if had external drives at 1500mb/s instead of 2700mb/s. I probably spent more than I needed to, but less than if I'd asked Apple to put a bigger drive inside the Studio.

 

[bsbeamer]

I forgot about this product as well, which might be of interest to some people. A TB docking station with 2 NVMe built in:

Echo Dual NVMe Thunderbolt Dock

Thunderbolt docking station with internal M.2 NVMe SSD storage expansion, fast USB (10Gbps) charging ports, Thunderbolt daisy-chaining, and up to 5K display support. For Mac, Windows, and iPad Pro.

www.sonnetstore.com

NVMe compatibility chart with read/write speeds, but believe those are theoretical maximum when in RAID:

https://www.sonnettech.com/support/downloads/manuals/NVMe_Dock_M2_compatibility.pdf

Especially pay attention to the "not compatible with macOS" products, even if not using this dock.

 

[roland.g]

I forgot about this product as well, which might be of interest to some people. A TB docking station with 2 NVMe built in:

Echo Dual NVMe Thunderbolt Dock

Thunderbolt docking station with internal M.2 NVMe SSD storage expansion, fast USB (10Gbps) charging ports, Thunderbolt daisy-chaining, and up to 5K display support. For Mac, Windows, and iPad Pro.

www.sonnetstore.com

NVMe compatibility chart with read/write speeds, but believe those are theoretical maximum when in RAID:

https://www.sonnettech.com/support/downloads/manuals/NVMe_Dock_M2_compatibility.pdf

Especially pay attention to the "not compatible with macOS" products, even if not using this dock.

Thanks. I currently have a CalDigit TS3+ for my MBP and don't need the dock per se. Nor do I want to spend that on a box for storage. As I see it $25-100 for an enclosure and another $100 for a 1TB Samsung 980 put me at or below the $200 Apple is charging for a 1TB SSD upgrade in the base Studio and ups the storage from 512GB to 1.5TB for about the same price. I'd probably forgo the hassle of the external setup if you could get a Studio in store with 1TB. But I also haven't decided yet. So I could order one and wait till May!!! Nice thing is I'm not in a hurry.

 

[F-Train]

Most eGPU's are just PCIe slot(s) over Thunderbolt with a beefier PSU than a standard expansion box. Nearly any PCIe card inserted into the "eGPU" housing should work, as long as it is macOS compatible and physically fits within the housing.

Here's the exact product note from Sonnet (who makes the Breakaway Box eGPU models):

Supports Non-GPU PCIe Cards
Supports Thunderbolt-compatible full-length, full-height, single- or double-width cards –perfect for pro audio I/O and DSP cards and pro video I/O and transcoding cards.

Some people probably want to look at the Sonnet Fusion Dual U.2 SSD PCIe Card and get up to speed on U.2 SSD if they need larger capacities than (standard M.2) NVMe with speed greater than SATA. For those who just need a lot of (standard M.2) NVMe, the Sonnet M.2 4x4 Silent PCIe Card is probably going to do the trick.

Thanks. My Mac Studio is replacing a 2018 mini with Asus AMD Vega 56 GPU in an Asus XG Station Pro enclosure. I planned to sell both the GPU and the enclosure, but I hadn't considered using the enclosure with a PCIe card. I'm now looking into it.