Fast external storage? OWC Express 4M2

[Deccr]

There’s lots of discussion around external USB3/4 SSDs, Thunderbolt NVMe enclosures and their transfer speeds with the M1 devices.

I wonder if anyone has tried using the OWC Express 4M2 with an M1 device?

They accept a maximum of 4x NVMe drives, can run as RAID 0/1/4/5 & 10 or JBOD or Span. Maximum transfer speed is quoted as 2800MB/s, so not too bad in comparison to internal storage.

It doesn’t come cheap at $279/£270 but only requires 1x Thunderbolt connection for up to 4x drives. I wonder if this would be a good solution for fast external storage, if not a large fast external boot device?

With single slot NVMe thunderbolt enclosures costing close to $100/£100, this may be more economical if you want to add fast storage with some expansion capability.

I’m curious to see how they test out, in speed comparisons, with single NVMe slot thunderbolt enclosures.

 

[joevt]

OWC Express 4M2 is limited to ≈750 MB/s (less than 970 MB/s) per NVMe drive since each one is connected as PCIe 3.0 x1
2800 MB/s requires software raid (either SoftRAID or Disk Utility). You can't boot from RAID so if you want to boot, you need to boot from a single drive and RAID the other 3 or boot from part of one drive and RAID all four - one drive can be larger than the other three, then you can RAID all of the 3 smaller drivers and part of the larger drive, and the remaining part can be for boot.

The main benefit of the 4M2 is capacity. It can benefit performance with the slight inconvenience of software RAID.
A third benefit related to performance is the problem of otherwise fast NVMe drives (3000 MB/s) having slow performance in any Thunderbolt enclosure (800 MB/s for write) - since the 4M2 only support PCIe 3.0 x1, the slowness doesn't matter, and software RAID can let you achieve the bandwidth expected of Thunderbolt.

The Thunderbolt write performance slowness of some NVMe SSDs can be eliminated by using an SSD that doesn't have that problem. PCIe 4.0 NVMe devices usually don't have the problem (but it's kind of a waste to use a 5000+ MB/s NVMe in a 2800 MB/s Thunderbolt enclosure - at least it will show what Thunderbolt can achieve).

Different benchmark give different results.
AmorphousDiskMark is the fastest (should be able to get 3000 MB/s from Thunderbolt)
AJA System Test Lite is second.
Blackmagic Disk Speed Test is third.

ATTO Disk Benchmark is similar in performance to AJA - it has a couple interesting features:
1) it shows how different transfer sizes affect performance.
2) it has the ability to test multiple disks at once that aren't in a RAID so you can see what the speed of an ideal RAID 0 might be. The ideal RAID 0 speed is unachievable because a RAID is only as fast as its slowest drive (multiplied by the number of drives in the RAID).

 

[jdb8167]

There’s lots of discussion around external USB3/4 SSDs, Thunderbolt NVMe enclosures and their transfer speeds with the M1 devices.

I wonder if anyone has tried using the OWC Express 4M2 with an M1 device?

They accept a maximum of 4x NVMe drives, can run as RAID 0/1/4/5 & 10 or JBOD or Span. Maximum transfer speed is quoted as 2800MB/s, so not too bad in comparison to internal storage.

It doesn’t come cheap at $279/£270 but only requires 1x Thunderbolt connection for up to 4x drives. I wonder if this would be a good solution for fast external storage, if not a large fast external boot device?

With single slot NVMe thunderbolt enclosures costing close to $100/£100, this may be more economical if you want to add fast storage with some expansion capability.

I’m curious to see how they test out, in speed comparisons, with single NVMe slot thunderbolt enclosures.

Right now, SoftRAID from OWC is in beta for Big Sur and the latest version isn't currently working with the M1 on 11.2. Unless you like troubleshooting, you might want to hold off of buying a OWC software RAID device until they work out the issues with their drivers. It does appear that they have cooperation from Apple at least so installing the RAID driver extensions is not going to be a problem.

SoftRAID not compatible with M1 Macs running 11.2

 

[radus]

I don't know how fast it can get - but today I got the new Samsung SSD 980 Pro 2TB (PCI-E 4, nvme).
Inside a no-name Thunderbolt 3 enclosure it is nearly as fast as the interal SSD:

 

[Deccr]

Very interesting. Where did you get the enclosure from? You say it's a no-name, but can you provide any information about the enclosure?

Was it directly connected to your Mac mini or through a thunderbolt hub/dock? Those are some impressive speeds (although they should be for the cost of that drive ?).

 

[radus]

I bought it with an 480 gb ssd inside from amazon and replaced that ssd.

 

[Deccr]

Thanks - can you share any images (from Amazon or the manufacturer). I'm curious to know what the drive looks like.

 

[radus]

Nekteck 480GB Thunderbolt™ 3 SSD Hard Drive | Nekteck

FAST DATA TRANSFER: The Nektek external storage drive provides up to 2300MB/s read speed and 1400MB/s write speed. No more waiting for many hours to transfer

www.nekteck.com

this enclosure is available under different names to

 

[Deccr]

Nekteck 480GB Thunderbolt™ 3 SSD Hard Drive | Nekteck

FAST DATA TRANSFER: The Nektek external storage drive provides up to 2300MB/s read speed and 1400MB/s write speed. No more waiting for many hours to transfer

www.nekteck.com

this enclosure is available under different names to

Thanks. Good to know.

I’ve been looking at this enclosure, which looks interesting. It’s a TB3 hub and NVMe enclosure in one:

￡82.06 | JEYI ThunderDock ThunderBolt 3 ThunderBolt 4 JHL7440 Storage NVME SSD TYPEC3.1 PD charger USB C3.1 DOCK m2 M.2 PCIE SSD DP8K

AliExpress

 

[radus]

Thanks. Good to know.

I’ve been looking at this enclosure, which looks interesting. It’s a TB3 hub and NVMe enclosure in one:

￡82.06 | JEYI ThunderDock ThunderBolt 3 ThunderBolt 4 JHL7440 Storage NVME SSD TYPEC3.1 PD charger USB C3.1 DOCK m2 M.2 PCIE SSD DP8K

AliExpress

maybe this is even better, with the newer titan ridge controller (I bought mine 2019-01)

 

[Juuro]

I need an enclosure similar to the OWC Express 4M2. But are there options which support PCIe 4.0? I just need it as an external drive for Lightroom and Final Cut.

 

[joevt]

I need an enclosure similar to the OWC Express 4M2. But are there options which support PCIe 4.0? I just need it as an external drive for Lightroom and Final Cut.

Thunderbolt is limited to ≈2800 MB/s. A PCIe 4.0 NVMe will run at PCIe 3.0 in a Thunderbolt 3 or Thunderbolt 4 enclosure (or Thunderbolt 5 enclosure when they exist until you have a Mac that also supports Thunderbolt 5).

 

[Juuro]

Thunderbolt is limited to ≈2800 MB/s. A PCIe 4.0 NVMe will run at PCIe 3.0 in a Thunderbolt 3 or Thunderbolt 4 enclosure (or Thunderbolt 5 enclosure when they exist until you have a Mac that also supports Thunderbolt 5).

Ah, great I didn’t know that. Then it’s great that I already have the OWC Express 4M2.

Are there any specific M.2 SSDs anyone can recommend?