Thunderbolt 3 M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosures

[AdriftAtlas]

As I posed here the disconnecting stopped when I switched to another cable.

But interesting point about firmware. I'll see if I can give it a go. I hope I can trust Station Drivers.
Always a bit skeptical about downloading drivers from a third party. Seems pretty common, though. The latest AMD|Mediatek drivers I need for my Windows 11 desktop I built in the beginning of this year is offered via some individual hosting them on mega.nz. 🤷‍♂️

Do you know if I have to format the drive in the enclosure or can the firmware be updated independently?

I use an old beater machine for this kind of stuff. The firmware is less likely to be tainted, but the firmware loader is higher risk.

Flashing the enclosure does not affect the SSD inside. I flashed my two enclosures to 240417_85_00_00 without issue.

 

[chars1ub0w]

I ran the firmware updater on an old Dell laptop from 2018, which doesn't even have USB 4.0 or Thunderbolt 4, maybe only Thunderbolt 3, but I don't think that matters. I downloaded it from the Zike website. The Zike connected fine at USB 3.0. The updater saw it. Back on the M1 Max MacBook Pro, I am now seeing 52ºC when it's not busy after starting at 47ºC. I'm relieved the controller wasn't bricked. Lower temperatures are a bonus.

 

[chars1ub0w]

This is what it looks like on my Dell. It says USB 2.0, not even 3.0, still I guess the updater worked.

 

[AdriftAtlas]

This is what it looks like on my Dell. It says USB 2.0, not even 3.0, still I guess the updater worked.

Yeah, it doesn't care what version of USB is used for firmware updates. I use an old ThinkPad X220 from 2011 running Windows 11.

 

[star-affinity]

This is what it looks like on my Dell. It says USB 2.0, not even 3.0, still I guess the updater worked. View attachment 2413920

In your screen shoot it says ”230810…” doen't that mean you're on the old firmware if ”240417” is available?
Or is the screenshot from before running the firmware update?

Just so I don't break anything – how did you run the firmware update? I just open the ASM24xMPTool and then what? I load the INI file that's also there among the downloads from Station Drivers and then press the blue ”Start” button in the lower left corner?

OK, found instructions on how to do it.
I managed to select the 202404… firmware and update it and it said ”passed” but it still says I have the old firmware in the FW Version column. How to verify that the new firmware is actually installed?

Edit:

Ah, when I disconnected the enclosure and inserted it again and launched the ASM24xMPTool the newer firmware version was listed. Closing the tool and opening it again wasn't enough. All good. Let's see if this helps when it comes to the unexpected disconnects.

 

[chars1ub0w]

Ah, when I disconnected the enclosure and inserted it again and launched the ASM24xMPTool the newer firmware version was listed. Closing the tool and opening it again wasn't enough. All good. Let's see if this helps when it comes to the unexpected disconnects.

Isn't the firmware version also visible in macOS? 1.87 below is not the date. But it's not the same as what I had before.

What I had before the update was:

 

[Jonmuss71]

Are you on the latest firmware? I've been using ASM2464 enclosures for over a year and this was a common problem in earlier firmware. You can download the latest firmware from station-drivers and flash it, takes only a few minutes.




Yeah, that's a firmware bug with USB4 TB3 alt mode. I've experienced the same behavior on my iMac 2020 on every single firmware version released till date.

It’s interesting that this slow write speed is the same for the Ugreen 2464 drive on my iMac 2020 thunderbolt 3 port. I have tried a wd black sn850x and the speeds are about the same! it’s interesting to note that the Acasis 401 and 405 has very good write speeds around 2700. does that mean that we just have to wait for a firmware that will fix the bug with the USB4 TB3 alt mode?

 

[star-affinity]

I got a disconnect with my drive WHILE USING IT!
Not very heavily even (browsing some photos and videos on it), but the case was really hot – I couldn't even keep my hand on it. Maybe that's why it disconnects?

So the firmware update didn't seem to help me.

Sucks. Disappointed in my enclosure and will try to look for another. I was thinking the drive wouldn't get so warm simply because its full bandwidth is limited by the enclosure, but that is obviously not true (or the case… ha!) at all.

Help!
What enclosure should I get for the NVMe drive I have?! 🤪

 

[star-affinity]

OK, I now moved over to one of these:

Acasis 40Gbps Tool-free M.2 NVMe Thunderbolt 3/4 USB 4 SSD Enclosure

TBU405 VS TBU405ProM1TBU405 is base version (Tool-free Installation), while TBU405ProM1 (Tool-free Installation + Built-in Silent Fan) is an upgraded version of TBU405. The main difference is that TBU405ProM1 is additionally equipped with a built-in silent cooling fan. According to tests...

www.acasis.com

The temperature difference to the previous enclosure with the Asmedia chipset is huge – much cooler now.
No unexpected disconnect yet, but will not make any conclusions so soon. But bodes well I think.

Edit:
OK, it can get pretty warm, but not as bad as the other enclosure. And no disconnect so far!

 

[mogens]

i wonder if the new thunderbolt 4 ports on the M4 imac can perform at full speed with my Samsung t7 shield ssd and my jeyi 2464 enclosure.
Has the hassle with usb 3.1 gen 2 finally been solved?

 

[steve123]

Has the hassle with usb 3.1 gen 2 finally been solved?

What is the "hassle" you are referring to?

 

[Pressure]

What is the "hassle" you are referring to?

It didn't support 20Gbps but only 10Gbps.

 

[steve123]

It didn't support 20Gbps but only 10Gbps.

IIRC, I believe the 20 Gbps spec is USB 3.2 Gen2x2. No idea if the Macs support it yet. This is one of those issues where technically there is no reason to not support it. It is purely a marketing decision to not enable the compatibility in the firmware and macOS.

New Pro Mac's have Thunderbolt 5 now which provides bandwidth up to 120 Gbps.

 

[Pressure]

IIRC, I believe the 20 Gbps spec is USB 3.2 Gen2x2. No idea if the Macs support it yet. This is one of those issues where technically there is no reason to not support it. It is purely a marketing decision to not enable the compatibility in the firmware and macOS.

Right you are 😅

 

[EugW]

Are you guys and gals with the Samsung 990 Pro (and other Samsung drives) putting the drives in Power Saving Mode, with Samsung Magician?

 

[Pressure]

Are you guys and gals with the Samsung 990 Pro (and other Samsung drives) putting the drives in Power Saving Mode, with Samsung Magician?

The macOS version of Samsung "Magician" doesn't allow me to do **** 😂

All features are just "not supported in this OS".

 

[EugW]

All this talk of high chipset power utilization and overheating enclosures makes me think I should stick with 10 GBPs drives like the Samsung T7 Shield or Crucial X9 Pro.

The macOS version of Samsung "Magician" doesn't allow me to do **** 😂

All features are just "not supported in this OS".

Damn. That’s too bad. What’s the default mode then?

 

[EugW]

I see a lot of people getting the Western Digital SN850X or the Samsung 990 Pro. Would anyone consider getting the Samsung 990 EVO Plus? No DRAM but uses TLC not QLC.

Samsung 990 EVO Plus SSD review: The real EVO drive is here

Samsung fixes what was broken with the original 990 EVO.

www.tomshardware.com

 

[drrich2]

Considering a Thunderbolt dock with included internal SSD slot for backup. When I look at internal SSD options online, there is often a choice between the SSD alone, or SSD + heat sink.

I assume the heat sink must add some volume to it. How do you know whether, for example, a Samsung SSD with heat sink will fit into a Sonnettech Echo 20 Thunderbolt 4 Super Dock?

Any thoughts on how risky it is to buy the one without the heat sink? Are they assuming you supply your own then?

 

[EugW]

Considering a Thunderbolt dock with included internal SSD slot for backup. When I look at internal SSD options online, there is often a choice between the SSD alone, or SSD + heat sink.

I assume the heat sink must add some volume to it. How do you know whether, for example, a Samsung SSD with heat sink will fit into a Sonnettech Echo 20 Thunderbolt 4 Super Dock?

Any thoughts on how risky it is to buy the one without the heat sink? Are they assuming you supply your own then?

Some of the smaller enclosures include their own thermal pads, to be used with SSDs without a heatsink. In fact, those SSDs with heatsinks would probably not even fit inside those enclosures anyway.

BTW, the picture of the Sonnettech Echo 20 Thunderbolt 4 Super Dock suggests a third party heatsink would not fit inside. Also, there doesn't seem to be much design consideration given to cooling. It's just a flat metal plate. Will it dissipate enough heat of the faster drives? Mind you, that dock only supports up to 800 MB/s anyway, so you could run a slower drive that produces less heat.

 

[PaulD-UK]

@EugW "I see a lot of people getting the Western Digital SN850X or the Samsung 990 Pro. Would anyone consider getting the Samsung 990 EVO Plus? No DRAM but uses TLC not QLC."

I can't directly answer that, but the specs for it that you quote are 'DRAM N/A (HMB)'.

Since MacOS doesn't support HMB that means the 990 EVO Plus controller has to deal with the allocation database.
Using HMB makes that faster as it's using the computer's memory to cache this database.
Having DRAM within the SSD controller means this is as fast as the computer's memory would be.

Samsung specs say that their DRAM-less blades require 64MB of HMB storage for the cache.
I would guess that not having that (under MacOS) is very likely to impact the performance of the 990 EVO Plus.

WD seem to have solved this on their DRAM-less blades by having SRAM in the controller, which allows their NVMe blades to work well with MacOS.

Quote: "Mind you, that dock (Echo 20 Thunderbolt 4 Super Dock) only supports up to 800 MB/s anyway..."

The Intel JHL 8440 'Goshen Ridge' Thunderbolt 4 controller chip in all TB4 docks only allocates 1 lane of PCIe bandwidth (~800MB/s) to internal NVMe storage, so any TB4 dock with internal NVMe enclosure has this limitation.

For use with MacOS TB3 enclosures are needed to get PCIe 4 lane performance.
Until TB5 enclosures arrive for M4Pro/Max Macs...

 

[EugW]

@EugW "I see a lot of people getting the Western Digital SN850X or the Samsung 990 Pro. Would anyone consider getting the Samsung 990 EVO Plus? No DRAM but uses TLC not QLC."

I can't directly answer that, but the specs for it that you quote are 'DRAM N/A (HMB)'.

Since MacOS doesn't support HMB that means the 990 EVO Plus controller has to deal with the allocation database.
Using HMB makes that faster as it's using the computer's memory to cache this database.
Having DRAM within the SSD controller means this is as fast as the computer's memory would be.

Samsung specs say that their DRAM-less blades require 64MB of HMB storage for the cache.
I would guess that not having that (under MacOS) is very likely to impact the performance of the 990 EVO Plus.

WD seem to have solved this on their DRAM-less blades by having SRAM in the controller, which allows their NVMe blades to work well with MacOS.

Here is a quick mini-review of the Samsung 990 EVO Plus on an Apple Silicon iMac with the Qwiizlab USB 4 enclosure:

In the video he only shows the Black Magic test and a 100 GB folder transfer test, but in the comments he said he tried transferring 500 GB and didn't get any drop off in speed, for an overall write speed of about 3000 MB/s. However, I have no idea what sizes of files were in that 500 GB.

Drawbacks (other than no DRAM, with lack of HMB support in an enclosure) is that Amazon Canada and Best Buy Canada have no stock, and the actual street pricing is currently full retail. Full retail of the 990 EVO Plus is considerably lower than full retail 990 Pro, but the Pro can be had for a lot cheaper on sale. Here's hoping that Black Friday brings actual stock and some decent pricing, because right now I'm leaning toward the EVO Plus over the Pro for the EVO Plus' much better thermal characteristics. However, it would be nice to see another review soon with more extensive testing in an enclosure.

 

[EugW]

External Thunderbolt 5 SSD from OWC:

OWC Envoy Ultra: The Fastest Thunderbolt 5 Portable SSD

Achieve transfer speeds over 6,000MB/s - 2x faster than Thunderbolt 4 or USB4. The perfect drive for M4 Pro and M4 Max MacBook Pro, and M4 Pro Mac mini.

eshop.macsales.com

Unfortunately they currently only sell a 2 TB and 4 GB option. No option for a 0 TB DIY version.

 

[Phonzoxd]

i just bought this TB 4 enclosure today after tracking it a few days i see the sale so i jumped.

Lets see how it performs.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D1STC73H?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1

 

[EugW]

IIRC, I believe the 20 Gbps spec is USB 3.2 Gen2x2. No idea if the Macs support it yet. This is one of those issues where technically there is no reason to not support it. It is purely a marketing decision to not enable the compatibility in the firmware and macOS.

New Pro Mac's have Thunderbolt 5 now which provides bandwidth up to 120 Gbps.

The new M4 series Macs do NOT support USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 20 Mbps.