[OWC Envoy Express TB3 Enclosure] Sabrent 2TB Rocket issues. Help?

[amartinez1660]

Hi, hope this is the right way to do this (saw similar posts but related to double sided vs single sided stick on another enclosure).
I have received the OWC Envoy Express (pre-oredered when it appeared around here on macrumors) and a Sabrent 2TB Rocket NVMe stick.

Summary of the issue:
- Installed it and it worked fine for about 2 days, after that it stopped working, it just stops showing on Finder (System Report does show the TB3 OWC enclosure though).
- After a week and a half of troubleshooting with Sabrent just returned it and get a new one, assuming it was a faulty one.
- I did receive a new one and it worked, for about a week, then once again it has stopped showing on Finder, Disk Utility doesn't show it, etc.

Is anybody aware of serious OWC Envoy Express enclosure issues? I find it unlikely that I have received two faulty SSD sticks one after the other.
Also, I can't remember clearly, but it might be possible that it stops showing after a desktop restart (or several restarts).

Any pointers?
Would be greatly appreciated.

Troubleshooting steps done on the first drive:
- Make sure the enclosure is detected (it always is, this hasn't been an issue yet)
- Tried USB-C cable swap on the enclosure (doesn't work, the macOS sends a notification that it needs to be connected with a TB cable).
- Connected to a windows PC that has USB-C (the enclosure is detected to be connected on the hardware listing but the SSD isn't).
- Was asked to connect it directly to a motherboard (have no way of testing this as of now).
- Several other things that I can't remember.

The only thing that worked was getting a new stick, installing that and then it works all fine, until it doesn't.

SYSTEM:
- iMac 2020 8-core 16GB GPU option 2TB internal SSD
- 4 USB3 connected enclosure (an Orico 4 drives bay)
- macOS Catalina latest (10.15.7)
- OWC Envoy Express enclosure with Sabrent 2TB SSD: formatted to APFS when asked to be initialized with Disk Utility.

-------------
UPDATE #1: was on the phone this time with OWC tech support and they seem to have quite a few similar cases with these drives being on any external enclosure. Probably still anecdotal evidence but something to watch out for. Same issue from several customers, it works for some days until it doesn't.

 

[gwerhart0800]

I have the same enclosure (also bought as part of the pre-order) with an Inland Premium 2TB NVME SSD (Micro Center house brand) in it and have had no issues. This drive currently houses my on-prem photos library. Other than the top speed (1580 read) being well below that speed of the Inland drive, it runs fine for me.

 

[amartinez1660]

I have the same enclosure (also bought as part of the pre-order) with an Inland Premium 2TB NVME SSD (Micro Center house brand) in it and have had no issues. This drive currently houses my on-prem photos library. Other than the top speed (1580 read) being well below that speed of the Inland drive, it runs fine for me.

Thanks for the reply and suggestion.
I went ahead and ordered a 2TB Samsung 970 EVO+, forums say that Samsung doesn't even suggests putting heatsinks on them since that would void the warranty and it has top of the line temperature and power management controllers.

Glad to hear that the enclosure does work, I was worried that it was maybe busting drives left and right.

The read speed might be related to that, being in a small enclosure maybe it needs to throttle a bit to be under normal temperature conditions.
1580 MB/s read speed would be PLENTY for me .

 

[datran248]

Hi. I have the same exact problem. I bought the enclosure to use with my 2TB Sabrent Rocket NVMe SSD. It worked for like a day, and the morning that I was on set of a commercial. And then it never pop up again in Finder. I tried looking at System Information on my MacBook Pro, the enclosure actually shows up, but not the drive, I guess.

Now I have a redundant enclosure and an SSD stick that I cannot use. I don't think there will be a solution for this since the enclosure is quite cheap compared to the much better Trebleet TB3 enclosure which works with virtually any NVMe SSD except the Samsung EVOs. Still, it's a wrong decision from me for buying this enclosure. It looks neat though.

 

[amartinez1660]

Hi. I have the same exact problem. I bought the enclosure to use with my 2TB Sabrent Rocket NVMe SSD. It worked for like a day, and the morning that I was on set of a commercial. And then it never pop up again in Finder. I tried looking at System Information on my MacBook Pro, the enclosure actually shows up, but not the drive, I guess.

Now I have a redundant enclosure and an SSD stick that I cannot use. I don't think there will be a solution for this since the enclosure is quite cheap compared to the much better Trebleet TB3 enclosure which works with virtually any NVMe SSD except the Samsung EVOs. Still, it's a wrong decision from me for buying this enclosure. It looks neat though.

Sad to hear, thanks for chiming in.
I think there’s something going on between SOME combinations between enclosures and drives that just won’t work or will make it stop working. Even with “TB certifications” and whatnot something is not quite right or maybe needs ironing out.
I did send a lot of back and forth between the mentioned companies, however they each kinda blame the other, naturally.

I can say that at least we have here several combinations that work:
- OWC Envoy Express + Samsung 970 EVO+ (close to three weeks with it, zero issues so far)
- OWC Envoy Express + Inland Premium 2TB NVME (first post reply)
- Trebleet TB3 + Sabrent Rocket? Did that work alright on your side?

 

[datran248]

Sad to hear, thanks for chiming in.
I think there’s something going on between SOME combinations between enclosures and drives that just won’t work or will make it stop working. Even with “TB certifications” and whatnot something is not quite right or maybe needs ironing out.
I did send a lot of back and forth between the mentioned companies, however they each kinda blame the other, naturally.

I can say that at least we have here several combinations that work:
- OWC Envoy Express + Samsung 970 EVO+ (close to three weeks with it, zero issues so far)
- OWC Envoy Express + Inland Premium 2TB NVME (first post reply)
- Trebleet TB3 + Sabrent Rocket? Did that work alright on your side?

You do the right thing. There must be a clearer "TB certification" out there for us pro-sumer.

Trebleet seems to be very transparent about what drives work best with their enclosure. You can check their site and scroll down to see compatible drives. Very helpful. https://www.trebleet.com/product-pa...o-nvme-m-2-2280-hard-drive-case-ssd-enclosure

As for me, I am using the Trebleet TB3 + both the Sabrent 2TB and 4TB and it works flawlessly without any failure. And my usage is heavy, to be honest. I transcode ARRIRAW footage directly from my drive to another 2.5" SSD everyday. With this OWC Envoy Express, I just wanna have a good backup drive.

 

[inmnbob]

I purchased two Envoy Express units but have had no luck with using it. I wanted to use one with my myt Sabrent 2TB drive but the drive never worked with the Express and the drive wouldn't show up. The drive works well with a non TB enclosure. Next i tried a 4TB Inland card. This time the card was recognized and I was able to format the drive. I started to move some music plug-ins over to the card and after about 20 gb of transfers the card ejected and from then did not work. I returned to card to the retailer and exchanged it for another one and that two was found by the system and was able to format drive. This time I decided to try and move file one folder at a time-- each folder was about 8GB and after 3 folders were copied the Express and Card stopped working and was unable to work after that--just like the first one.

A lot of variables: Was it a bad NVME? Is it a bad Envoy Express? Is the combination unable to transfer large files? Is it a Big Sur problem? I tried the drives on 2018 Mac mini and 2018 MacBook Pro as well as the 2020 M1 MacBook pro with no luck!

Any ideas?

 

[amartinez1660]

I purchased two Envoy Express units but have had no luck with using it. I wanted to use one with my myt Sabrent 2TB drive but the drive never worked with the Express and the drive wouldn't show up. The drive works well with a non TB enclosure. Next i tried a 4TB Inland card. This time the card was recognized and I was able to format the drive. I started to move some music plug-ins over to the card and after about 20 gb of transfers the card ejected and from then did not work. I returned to card to the retailer and exchanged it for another one and that two was found by the system and was able to format drive. This time I decided to try and move file one folder at a time-- each folder was about 8GB and after 3 folders were copied the Express and Card stopped working and was unable to work after that--just like the first one.

A lot of variables: Was it a bad NVME? Is it a bad Envoy Express? Is the combination unable to transfer large files? Is it a Big Sur problem? I tried the drives on 2018 Mac mini and 2018 MacBook Pro as well as the 2020 M1 MacBook pro with no luck!

Any ideas?

Call OWC tech support whenever you can, seems to me their thing is definitely not working properly with quite a few drives. Unlikely to get so many lemons one after another.
After I changed to a Samsung EVO+ NVMe with the Envoy Express I haven’t had any issues, but I worry that the enclosure might be limiting the lifetime now.
I would look for drives that explicitly state To not use heatsinks like that Evo+ (in fact, that would void warranty).
In any case, for a sure fire compatibility, use one of the enclosures suggested above by @datran248

 

[mdgm]

OWC sells OWC Aura P12 SSDs for their enclosure. I got one and it's working fine for me so far (it has been less than a week though). I'm using it via an OWC TB3 dock with a 2011 Mac Mini. I need the dock as the bi-directional Apple TB2 to TB3 adapter doesn't transfer power.

 

[inmnbob]

OWC said that a lot of mvne drives don’t work in Tb enclosures. Which is not what the marketing materials say. They took the units back

 

[tyc0746]

They also use a relatively slow interface, so you’ll never get the full capability of TB3 anyway, so might as well stick to USB3.

To be fair to OWC, they do state their enclosure only supports up to about 1500MBps vs the full 5000MBps TB3 can support.

Mine has a 1TB WD Blue SN550 (used for quick transfers between 2019 iMac and Intel NUC), and I've had no issues in the 2 months I’ve had it.

 

[inmnbob]

I was okay with the speed- if it was over 1000 it is still 2xs faster than my SSD drive.. Can't trust it because it killed two of my NMVE drives ---

 

[Joestanxx]

Hi, hope this is the right way to do this (saw similar posts but related to double sided vs single sided stick on another enclosure).
I have received the OWC Envoy Express (pre-oredered when it appeared around here on macrumors) and a Sabrent 2TB Rocket NVMe stick.

Summary of the issue:
- Installed it and it worked fine for about 2 days, after that it stopped working, it just stops showing on Finder (System Report does show the TB3 OWC enclosure though).
- After a week and a half of troubleshooting with Sabrent just returned it and get a new one, assuming it was a faulty one.
- I did receive a new one and it worked, for about a week, then once again it has stopped showing on Finder, Disk Utility doesn't show it, etc.

Is anybody aware of serious OWC Envoy Express enclosure issues? I find it unlikely that I have received two faulty SSD sticks one after the other.
Also, I can't remember clearly, but it might be possible that it stops showing after a desktop restart (or several restarts).

Any pointers?
Would be greatly appreciated.

Troubleshooting steps done on the first drive:
- Make sure the enclosure is detected (it always is, this hasn't been an issue yet)
- Tried USB-C cable swap on the enclosure (doesn't work, the macOS sends a notification that it needs to be connected with a TB cable).
- Connected to a windows PC that has USB-C (the enclosure is detected to be connected on the hardware listing but the SSD isn't).
- Was asked to connect it directly to a motherboard (have no way of testing this as of now).
- Several other things that I can't remember.

The only thing that worked was getting a new stick, installing that and then it works all fine, until it doesn't.

SYSTEM:
- iMac 2020 8-core 16GB GPU option 2TB internal SSD
- 4 USB3 connected enclosure (an Orico 4 drives bay)
- macOS Catalina latest (10.15.7)
- OWC Envoy Express enclosure with Sabrent 2TB SSD: formatted to APFS when asked to be initialized with Disk Utility.

-------------
UPDATE #1: was on the phone this time with OWC tech support and they seem to have quite a few similar cases with these drives being on any external enclosure. Probably still anecdotal evidence but something to watch out for. Same issue from several customers, it works for some days until it doesn't.

I got mine when they first came out. Using it with a wd black sn750 1 tb with no problems.

 

[Nazwisko]

I have no advice for you. But my experience with Envoy/Sabrent combo was not a happy one.

I tried using Envoy with Sabrent 8TB Rocket NVMe but without success. Worked like a charm for about 5 hours then disconnected and no longer seen as an external disc. I connected it to the second MBP, same thing. Third MBP, same thing. The main comp was M1 Mini running Big Sur, the second MBP 2019 model, running High Sierra, third MBP 2019 running Catalina.

I returned enclosure and now I'm using Sabrent enclosure for about a month now with no problems. So far.

 

[amartinez1660]

I have no advice for you. But my experience with Envoy/Sabrent combo was not a happy one.

I tried using Envoy with Sabrent 8TB Rocket NVMe but without success. Worked like a charm for about 5 hours then disconnected and no longer seen as an external disc. I connected it to the second MBP, same thing. Third MBP, same thing. The main comp was M1 Mini running Big Sur, the second MBP 2019 model, running High Sierra, third MBP 2019 running Catalina.

I returned enclosure and now I'm using Sabrent enclosure for about a month now with no problems. So far.

Sabrent had TB enclosures? I would have stuck with same brand had I researched better.
Just to clarify, you could connect the drive with the OWC enclosure to different machines, just that it would stop working on that specific machine after some time, is that correct? i.e the drive didn’t die just sort of “blacklisted” the specific machine.

 

[inmnbob]

Tried on 3 different machines and none would mount the drive after the first time. I think the drive got trashed. Support said I should have reset system PRAm but I didn’t since I tried a different machine

 

[amartinez1660]

Tried on 3 different machines and none would mount the drive after the first time. I think the drive got trashed. Support said I should have reset system PRAm but I didn’t since I tried a different machine

Ok, that makes more sense to me as it was my experience.
To expand on this, I did try all that... PRAM/NVRAM reset, SMC reset, I tried connecting by swapping the enclosure to an usbc cable (to make it not be TB), I tried plugging the thing on a usbc windows pc (also to try to force it usbc mode) and nothing would make the drive appear. So, yes, I think they just get trashed. And I believe it’s because of heat controller issues... the Samsung I got right after this ordeal has been working amazingly well since my last update on my first post. About a month so far.

 

[inmnbob]

I did the same as you including trying a windows machine and different enclosure. Nothing worked.

 

[Nazwisko]

Sabrent had TB enclosures? I would have stuck with same brand had I researched better.
Just to clarify, you could connect the drive with the OWC enclosure to different machines, just that it would stop working on that specific machine after some time, is that correct? i.e the drive didn’t die just sort of “blacklisted” the specific machine.

Correct. Each machine was blacklisted and could not see the drive anymore. The drive itself was fine.
And in all honesty I did not try any of the usual 'resets' to see if the problems persisted, mostly because I could not imagine having the same problem on multiple, differently used machines.

 

[gnomeisland]

Man I wish I'd found this thread sooner. I have the same issue with a 2TB Rocket and an Envoy Express. It worked for a while and then quit suddenly. Now I get nothing. The drive worked find since March in my old nMP via the Angleshark adapter.

 

[EchoSierra]

Reading the reviews on similar enclosures such as the Trebleet, I think it might be heat that's killing the drives. The enclosures run at ~1500MB/s to try to keep the heat down (since the TB3 spec and the NVMe spec are both faster), but otherwise, since there's no active cooling or heat spreader, it might be a heat issue. It seems like the drives that do work are the ones that aren't designed to be used with heatsinks (and have onboard thermal performance throttling).

 

[mdgm]

My OWC Aura P12 SSD that I’ve been using in the Envoy Express as a boot drive for a 2011 Mini Server running nearly 24x7 for nearly a month now is working fine.

 

[EchoSierra]

Actually, here’s another thing that I’ve noticed:

The drives that didn’t work are DRAMless. (Sabrent Rocket, HP EX950)

The drives that DO work (Samsung, Inland Premium, OWC Aura) all have DRAM caches.

Could be related, but hopefully not

 

[BrandonChang]

Actually, here’s another thing that I’ve noticed:

The drives that didn’t work are DRAMless. (Sabrent Rocket, HP EX950)

The drives that DO work (Samsung, Inland Premium, OWC Aura) all have DRAM caches.

Could be related, but hopefully not

This enclosure has killed two 4TB SSDs in my case and both do have DRAMs.
Sabrent Rocket Q 4TB
Corsair MP400 4TB
On the other hand, it works just fine with Sabrent Rocket Q4 4TB.

Before I realized the enclosure would be the problem, I ordered another one from B&H. The original one I ordered from OWC is REV 0.8, while the one from B&H is REV 1.0. Main differences between 0.8 and 1.0 are,
1. 1.0 has the LED installed, while 0.8 only has a placeholder.
2. 1.0 has better grounding of the circuit board, while 0.8 has coating on the screw sittings preventing the circuit board from being electronically connected to the metal case.
Nevertheless, I didn't get a chance to try the newer revision with a 4TB SSD model that previously died on the older revision. I'm not in the mood of getting myself banned from Amazon...

 

[EchoSierra]

Interesting. I hope we get more data points. I’m looking to get one of these and want to avoid issues.

Was your rev 0.8 preordered from OWC or did you order it after they became available? I’d like to get one from OWC since their support has been great, but I also don’t want to get the older version if that’s what they’re shipping out.