Interesting… And it makes sense after using M.2 NVMe USB enclosures, they are toasty and relatively power hungry.
And the FYI-style disclaimer on the Express 1M2 product page was helpful to make my choice:
OWC said:
Yes.
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Samsung 990Pro 4TB (PCIe4.0x4)(NVM Express 2.0) in ACASIS 80Gbps M.2 NVMe SSD enclosure for Mac Mini M4 Pro?
- Thread starter Dutch60
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And the FYI-style disclaimer on the Express 1M2 product page was helpful to make my choice:
Samsung 990 Pro and Western digital Black SN850X NVMe seem comparable in performance and reliability.
On the internet some say the WD is better for gaming and the Samsung better in some other areas (peak performance?). Some say the WD will keep its speed longer than the Samsung (which according to some has a very steep performance drop after a short time with a heavy load). Don't know if all this is true or not. And ofcourse do not know wether that would be any problem for my usage or not.
As I asked before: What should I consider / keep in mind in choosing the one over the other? Advantages/ disadvantages ( ofcourse for using in an OWC Express 1M2 and with my Mac mini M4 Pro (Thunderbolt 5 ports)?
For the Samsung I know that I should not order one with a heatsink ( for usage in the OWC Express 1M2).
Thank you all again !
On the internet some say the WD is better for gaming and the Samsung better in some other areas (peak performance?). Some say the WD will keep its speed longer than the Samsung (which according to some has a very steep performance drop after a short time with a heavy load). Don't know if all this is true or not. And ofcourse do not know wether that would be any problem for my usage or not.
As I asked before: What should I consider / keep in mind in choosing the one over the other? Advantages/ disadvantages ( ofcourse for using in an OWC Express 1M2 and with my Mac mini M4 Pro (Thunderbolt 5 ports)?
For the Samsung I know that I should not order one with a heatsink ( for usage in the OWC Express 1M2).
Thank you all again !
I have a Samsung 4tb 990 pro in a thunderbolt 4 enclosure. 40gb/s is the theoretical max speed but that does not take into account any overhead. The real world speed of 990 pro SSD in a T4 enclosure The read/write is about 3193/3099. So T5 will likely not reach the theoretical max in real world speeds.
Thnxs for your recommendation...I think 8Tb is too much for me; 4Tb will do fine.
Best price where I live (without heatsink): around €290,- (4tb)
Best price for Samsung 990 Pro (no heatsink): around €310,- (4tb)
Not an earth shattering difference, I would say.
Any other reasons to choose the WD over the Samsung?
Thnxs. How do you like the Samsung? Performing as you expected? Also under heavier loads? Heat?
I know it will not reach the theoretical speed (I think around half of it), but it’s most probably still fast enough for me and certainly many times faster than the mechanical hard disk I use now.
Maybe not going at full speed also means less heat (but about that I’m not sure).
Best external SSD I have ever owned. I use it in an OCW USB4 enclosure.
I run a 4TB Samsung 990 Pro in my 1M2, as demonstrated in the video earlier in the thread - no issues at all.
I do not use any WD Black drives in my enclosures as they generally tend to run a little hotter then the Samsung, yet provide around the same speeds - the bottleneck being the interface.
My remaining 1M2 drives came prepopulated with the 8TB OWC Aura drives - again, no issues at all.
Ive been through a fair number of drives and enclosures (YouTube reviews). My main workhorse drives are all OWC - mixture of Thunderblades (which I don't use as much TBH) and 1M2's. Never had any issues with them. I do have other enclosures used mainly for backups - Qwiizlab/Acasis - but honestly, you won't go wrong with the 1M2.
Note, I have no affiliation with OWC. All my drives are self purchased - OWC do not supply me with any drives at all. [whereas OWC, if you want to contact me, we can talk......
) lol
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Thank you! I enjoy your YouTube videos a lot . Very informative! Those OWC Aura drives are even (much) more expensive!I run a 4TB Samsung 990 Pro in my 1M2, as demonstrated in the video earlier in the thread - no issues at all.
I do not use any WD Black drives in my enclosures as they generally tend to run a little hotter then the Samsung, yet provide around the same speeds - the bottleneck being the interface.
My remaining 1M2 drives came prepopulated with the 8TB OWC Aura drives - again, no issues at all.
Ive been through a fair number of drives and enclosures (YouTube reviews). My main workhorse drives are all OWC - mixture of Thunderblades (which I don't use as much TBH) and 1M2's. Never had any issues with them. I do have other enclosures used mainly for backups - Qwiizlab/Acasis - but honestly, you won't go wrong with the 1M2.
Note, I have no affiliation with OWC. All my drives are self purchased - OWC do not supply me with any drives at all. [whereas OWC, if you want to contact me, we can talk......
I have used OWC RAM in my earlier 27” Intel iMac and also use OWC CFexpress type B cards in my camera. Cardreader also OWC. No problems at all, so good experiences with OWC.
I’m convinced, that a OWC Express 1M2 / Samsung 990 Pro combination will serve me very well. Your information / shared experience added much to this decision. Thank you again!
What’s the current bottleneck on those TB5 external SSDs? The enclosure/logic board? Or is it the NVMe you put inside? some Samsung NVMe claim up to 7.000MB/s.
By the way, while having TB5 ports is nice, especially looking a few years into the future, I really don’t need them and it’s not a deciding factor for me. All my external SSDs are either T5s or T7s so they don’t even saturate the front USB 3.2 ports. And after the investment I made over the years in this drives, I’m not interested in replacing them anytime soon. They work wonderfully and are very compact and lightweight.
Hey, nice channel! The guy on the logo is a cartoon of yourself?
I thought the OWC case was a TB5 case, not a TB4 one… anyway the speed matches those of the internal drive. At least in the regular M4 Mac mini, the storage in the M4 Pro is faster.
I have a few questions regarding this enclosure. The first one is regarding the chipset, the ASMEDIA ASM2464PD. I’ve read on the internet, don’t remember exactly where, that this chip gets very, very hot. Is it true? Sure, in case of failure, we can always put the NVMe in another case and we wouldn’t lose our stored data, right?
Next, regarding the NVMe itself, I’ve read that there are ones that get extremely hot when used with a Mac because of the way macOS handles it with constant access to the drive. I think there are two kinds of NVMe, those with DRAM and those with an SLC caché (DRAM-less). Which ones get less hot when used with macOS? Is the type of NVMe we use conditioned by the ASM2464 chipset?
Thank you.
It's possible that some NVMe controllers/firmware that work well under Windows don't work well on the Mac due to lack of testing with the later. I am sure all sides would say they are following the standards. SNAFU. Are there some confirmed cases with specific drives (i.e. not just one bad drive or in a bad enclosure, etc)?
There are those with DRAM and without (DRAM-less) but I believe that is independent of the SLC cache. DRAM-less NVMe are typically designed to use the system's RAM (Host Memory Buffer or HMB) for cache as opposed to having RAM on chip. These seem to run slightly cooler but are not supported by macOS when internal or by most external controllers. However, people seem to report they (e.g. WD Black SN770) work fine. My understanding is that when the host (either when internal or in an enclosure) doesn't offer HMB, the drive operates in a fallback mode.
Then there's pseudo-SLC. This is when a portion of the TLC/QLC NAMD flash operates in a SLC-like mode. TLC/QLC has 3/4x the density of SLC but is slower all else being equal and much fewer P/E cycles. The consumer/prosumer SSD market has gone to TLC/QLC NAMD flash with the ability to operate portions of the flash in pSLC mode. The portion operating in pSLC behaves like SLC in speed, endurance, and density. During heavy writes, the SSD receives incoming data to the portion operating pSLC. This is fast. But since the density is lower, writes can exceed the pSLC allocation even when there's still room left on the drive. Then the drive has to copy this data into a TLC section (aka "cache folding"). This is slow. You'll see in proper SSD drive reviews a cliff graph where performance is extremely high and then goes off a cliff once enough data is written to the drive. Speed after the cliff is referred to as the cache folding speed and can be 1/10th of peak speed.
As an example, both the WD SN770 and SN850 use pSLC/SLC write cache while the SN850 also has a DRAM cache.
FYI, I've found this database very helpful for gathering specs on SSD:
TechPowerUp
Solid-state-drive database with specifications for products launched in recent years. Includes specs, photos, and technical details.
It's not perfect -- there are inconsientences in some of the data -- but very helpful for narrowing down the options and identifying potential hidden gems. Among other options you can filter by are peak, average, and idle watts (i.e. heat generation).
Wow, thanks for so much information. I would lean towards NVMe with DRAM, personally. I’ll take a look at this list.It's possible that some NVMe controllers/firmware that work well under Windows don't work well on the Mac due to lack of testing with the later. I am sure all sides would say they are following the standards. SNAFU. Are there some confirmed cases with specific drives (i.e. not just one bad drive or in a bad enclosure, etc)?
There are those with DRAM and without (DRAM-less) but I believe that is independent of the SLC cache. DRAM-less NVMe are typically designed to use the system's RAM (Host Memory Buffer or HMB) for cache as opposed to having RAM on chip. These seem to run slightly cooler but are not supported by macOS when internal or by most external controllers. However, people seem to report they (e.g. WD Black SN770) work fine. My understanding is that when the host (either when internal or in an enclosure) doesn't offer HMB, the drive operates in a fallback mode.
Then there's pseudo-SLC. This is when a portion of the TLC/QLC NAMD flash operates in a SLC-like mode. TLC/QLC has 3/4x the density of SLC but is slower all else being equal and much fewer P/E cycles. The consumer/prosumer SSD market has gone to TLC/QLC NAMD flash with the ability to operate portions of the flash in pSLC mode. The portion operating in pSLC behaves like SLC in speed, endurance, and density. During heavy writes, the SSD receives incoming data to the portion operating pSLC. This is fast. But since the density is lower, writes can exceed the pSLC allocation even when there's still room left on the drive. Then the drive has to copy this data into a TLC section (aka "cache folding"). This is slow. You'll see in proper SSD drive reviews a cliff graph where performance is extremely high and then goes off a cliff once enough data is written to the drive. Speed after the cliff is referred to as the cache folding speed and can be 1/10th of peak speed.
As an example, both the WD SN770 and SN850 use pSLC/SLC write cache while the SN850 also has a DRAM cache.
FYI, I've found this database very helpful for gathering specs on SSD:
TechPowerUp
Solid-state-drive database with specifications for products launched in recent years. Includes specs, photos, and technical details.www.techpowerup.com
It's not perfect -- there are inconsientences in some of the data -- but very helpful for narrowing down the options and identifying potential hidden gems. Among other options you can filter by are peak, average, and idle watts (i.e. heat generation).
The 1M2 is a USB4 enclosure, compatible with Thunderbolt 3/4.
The ASM2464PD chipset is a popular choice among a lot of external enclosures - not just OWC. In fact, most recent enclosures I've tested have this precise chipset in them. Naturally, it will get hot, but any good enclosure will have paste that not only creates a seal between the SSD and the enclosure surface/heatsink itself, but also for the chipset as well so that heat can dissipate to the heatsink also. It's a very reliable chipset and I've had no problems with it in any enclosure TBH.
As for the second second question, it's been very well answered above
For me, this all gets a bit too technical (and thus over my head).
Maybe I just think too simple, but OWC has a good track record with all of their Mac “accessories”. They must have tested some of the most popular SSD’s (Samsung 990 Pro and the WD Black), in their Express 1M2 and decided that this enclosure works as it should.
Also for compatibility with Mac M4/ Thunderbolt 5 ports.
Beside that I trust users like Ifti who are very pleased with such a combination.
So then…who am I to doubt?
Maybe I just think too simple, but OWC has a good track record with all of their Mac “accessories”. They must have tested some of the most popular SSD’s (Samsung 990 Pro and the WD Black), in their Express 1M2 and decided that this enclosure works as it should.
Also for compatibility with Mac M4/ Thunderbolt 5 ports.
Beside that I trust users like Ifti who are very pleased with such a combination.
So then…who am I to doubt?
And Thunderbolt 5 I presume.
The ASM2464PD chipset is a popular choice among a lot of external enclosures - not just OWC. In fact, most recent enclosures I've tested have this precise chipset in them. Naturally, it will get hot, but any good enclosure will have paste that not only creates a seal between the SSD and the enclosure surface/heatsink itself, but also for the chipset as well so that heat can dissipate to the heatsink also. It's a very reliable chipset and I've had no problems with it in any enclosure TBH.
As for the second second question, it's been very well answered above
A benchmark is only useful for direct comparisons, so 7,000 on Platform A using Benchmark Test A compared to 6,000 on Platform B using Benchmark B is not a useful comparison.
That said… You can nearly saturate a Thunderbolt 4 interface with a fast SSD. That makes TB 4 about twice as fast as the best USB 3.2, and a 2x speed is noticeable for common tasks like launching applications, opening large files, and editing video. For backup, it’s not important, of course.
I don’t know where the TB 5 speed limit comes from in this case. It could be the SSD itself or it could be the TB 5 controller or something else. But if I want two TB 4 drives attached to one port, a TB 5 hub is probably going to be better. That said, TB 5 is brand new and subject to early adopter pricing. In 12-18 months, prices will likely equal what we pay for today’s TB4 products.
It’s TB4/USB4. The OWC Envoy Ultra is TB5 certified. But, as noted earlier in the discussion, the certification means the SSD components are integrated/non-swappable.
Yeah, it’s plenty fast for the vast majority of use cases. From my earlier link:
The WD SN850X performed similarly.
I didn’t pay close attention to that spec. Nonetheless, the 64GB test in Amorphous didn’t cause any write performance drop off on the 990 Pro nor the SN850X. A recent instance had the 990 Pro's SEQ1M-QD8 at 3651 MB/s and SEQ1M-QD1 at 2944 MB/s — basically “within error” (i.e., typical test variance).
I haven’t pushed them through mid-summer heat yet, but they’re fine thus far, maxing out in the low to mid-40 Celsius.
The Apple (internal) SSD has a much lower thermal allowance, design tolerance.
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not really I guess. they offer comparable speeds. the WD is on sale quite often here in the US and its price gets really low
Afterthought. It seems there are many different opinions on formatting an external hard disk (spinner) to Extended (journaled) vs APFS. Any ideas?
Only for Time Machine.