Thunderbolt 3 M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosures

[EugW]

I transferred my 665.17 GB Photos Library from my Samsung T7 Shield to the new USB 4 Samsung 990 Pro. It took 29'45" for the complete process, or 29'11" for the actual transfer (since it took 34" for the transfer to be prepared). So that means a transfer speed of 373 MB/s or 380 MB/s depending upon how you calculate it. However, the speeds and behaviour really ranged, probably because of the types of files transferred inside that library. Here are the various transfer speeds at different points in time during the transfer. The graph shows the variability in the transfer speed.















Temperature peaked at 51 C.

The second file transfer was a directory full of subfolders of various photos and stuff. It was for 477.4 GB and took about 15 minutes including preparation time, so probably around 530-550 MB/s transfer depending upon whether or not you include the preparation time. Then I did yet another file transfer of about 60 GB. At the end of all this it had peaked at 55 C. It was in a more cramped spot though so I've since moved it to a somewhat more open area to see if that affects the temperatures. Currently idling at 42 C.

BTW, now Photos loads instantaneously on the 990 Pro. With the old T7 Shield, sometimes at first launch there would be a delay of a few seconds. I'm not sure why, but I'm wondering it was asleep and takes a couple of seconds to wake up.

At 55 C the Qwiizlab enclosure was very warm, but not super hot. The T7 Shield also got warm, but significantly less warm than the Qwiizlab enclosure.

 

[EugW]

According to my Hagibis USB 4 power tester, the drive & enclosure combined use 5.5 Watts at idle and 8 Watts during writes in Black Magic Speed Test.

That agrees with this reddit post for idle consumption:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/1f7olrp

Also, the term "idle" may not be accurate. The activity LED is constantly flashing, which I believe to mean it's indexing. However, I'm thinking every time I unplug it move it or to plug in the power tester, it has to start over again, and it seems 1.2 TB of data takes a very long time to index.

Actually, at reboot, the light is solid green, but once I log in it starts flashing green. (Green means USB 4, whereas white means USB 3. Flashing means drive access.)

 

[Brian33]

Actually, at reboot, the light is solid green, but once I log in it starts flashing green. ... Flashing means drive access.)

My understanding is that macOS (by default) does not mount volumes on external drives until a user logs in (and un-mounts them when the user logs out). Thus, indexing can only happen when a user is logged in.

Thanks for all the info you've been posting!

 

[EugW]

Also, the term "idle" may not be accurate. The activity LED is constantly flashing, which I believe to mean it's indexing. However, I'm thinking every time I unplug it move it or to plug in the power tester, it has to start over again, and it seems 1.2 TB of data takes a very long time to index.

Actually, at reboot, the light is solid green, but once I log in it starts flashing green. (Green means USB 4, whereas white means USB 3. Flashing means drive access.)

Out of interest's sake, I wiped the drive and started over again, just to see if it was truly indexing. The md_worker service wasn't active in Activity Monitor so it likely wasn't Spotlight indexing, and nothing seemed to be accessing the drive, yet the light continually flashed, even after wiping it to turn it into an empty drive. OTOH, if I plugged it into my iPad Pro M4, there was no flashing. BTW, my 2017 12" MacBook (with its single 5 Gbps USB-C port) does not seem to be able to mount this drive. I wonder if it's because it can't supply enough power.

Well, the culprit was Macs Fan Control that I had installed on the Mac mini in order to monitor the temperature. It appears monitoring the temperature of the drive is registered as drive access. If I exit Macs Fan Control or if I just turn off the temperature monitoring feature, the LED flashing stops. Lesson learned - after wasting a couple of hours of my time.

On a more pleasant note...

The Hagibis enclosure is identical to the Qwiizlabs with the same chassis and same chipset (but with a stated 4 TB limitation) and is sold on AliExpress, but the pricing has been fluctuating during Black Friday. I hadn't planned on buying this, but I just happened to see it ~CA$20 lower than recent sale pricing and managed to snag one with the LED power readout cable and USB-C to USB-A adapter (USB 3) for CA$65 shipped, which is only US$47. Unfortunately, the price is closer to US$60 now, but that's still a decent deal.

 

[octoviaa]

Out of interest's sake, I wiped the drive and started over again, just to see if it was truly indexing. The md_worker service wasn't active in Activity Monitor so it likely wasn't Spotlight indexing, and nothing seemed to be accessing the drive, yet the light continually flashed, even after wiping it to turn it into an empty drive. OTOH, if I plugged it into my iPad Pro M4, there was no flashing. BTW, my 2017 12" MacBook (with its single 5 Gbps USB-C port) does not seem to be able to mount this drive. I wonder if it's because it can't supply enough power.

Well, the culprit was Macs Fan Control that I had installed on the Mac mini in order to monitor the temperature. It appears monitoring the temperature of the drive is registered as drive access. If I exit Macs Fan Control or if I just turn off the temperature monitoring feature, the LED flashing stops. Lesson learned - after wasting a couple of hours of my time.

On a more pleasant note...

The Hagibis enclosure is identical to the Qwiizlabs with the same chassis and same chipset (but with a stated 4 TB limitation) and is sold on AliExpress, but the pricing has been fluctuating during Black Friday. I hadn't planned on buying this, but I just happened to see it ~CA$20 lower than recent sale pricing and managed to snag one with the LED power readout cable and USB-C to USB-A adapter (USB 3) for CA$65 shipped, which is only US$47. Unfortunately, the price is closer to US$60 now, but that's still a decent deal.

View attachment 2454895

After no using Mac Fan Control, does the temperature drop or still high / hot?
Have you tried to update the firmware to the latest available in station driver 2024 Oct:

ASM-2464 NVMe/USB 4.x Controller (40Gbps)

ASM-2464 NVMe/USB 4.x Controller (40Gbps)

www.station-drivers.com

 

[EugW]

After no using Mac Fan Control, does the temperature drop or still high / hot?

I don't think Macs Fan Control has a significant impact on the idle temp. It still likes to idle around 42-ish C, although I'd have to test it out more to confirm. (I have to reload Macs Fan Control in order to check the temp and then remember to quit it each time so it doesn't continue to access the drive.)

Have you tried to update the firmware to the latest available in station driver 2024 Oct:

ASM-2464 NVMe/USB 4.x Controller (40Gbps)

ASM-2464 NVMe/USB 4.x Controller (40Gbps)

www.station-drivers.com

I was going to say I don't have a Windows machine, but I just remembered I have an old 2008 Mac Pro in storage with Windows 10 on it.

However, I can't tell what my firmware corresponds with compared to the driver revision numbers. Can someone help decipher this?



It states firmware 47.3, but that doesn't seem to match anything I've seen in the driver descriptions.

It's a lot more recent than the 35.25 in this post from December 2023 though.

It seems the Zike drive is actually a Satechi. From my M1 Max MacBook Pro.
So one could buy that instead.

USB4 NVMe SSD Pro Enclosure | Satechi - Apple and PC Accessories

satechi.net

 

[Black Diesel]

Amazon black friday deals on SN850X is on:
8TB $550
4TB $250
2TB $125

In the space of a month or two, the 8TB went from $750 to $650, to $600, and now $550, lol.

Does anyone think the 8TB will drop below $550?

 

[EugW]

Does anyone think the 8TB will drop below $550?

I believe US$550 is an all time low in the US, then again, Black Friday is still a week away.

The 8 TB SN850X currently $835 in Canada, which is also an all time low. That's US$600, but I'm not really interested at anywhere near those prices, because I was considering 8 TB only for a Time Machine drive, and I was not really keen on a hot dual-sided drive. I think I will go single-sided DRAM-less 4 TB for my Time Machine drive. I'm waiting to see what the Lexar NM790 and Samsung 990 EVO Plus do for pricing in the next week. I am not optimistic for the Samsung 990 EVO Plus but I'm hopeful the 4 TB Lexar NM790 will drop below CA$300 / US$215. Even better would be CA$280 / US$200.

 

[Black Diesel]

I believe US$550 is an all time low in the US, then again, Black Friday is still a week away.

The 8 TB SN850X currently $835 in Canada, which is also an all time low. That's US$600, but I'm not really interested at anywhere near those prices, because I was considering 8 TB only for a Time Machine drive, and I was not really keen on a hot dual-sided drive. I think I will go single-sided DRAM-less 4 TB for my Time Machine drive. I'm waiting to see what the Lexar NM790 and Samsung 990 EVO Plus do for pricing in the next week. I am not optimistic for the Samsung 990 EVO Plus but I'm hopeful the 4 TB Lexar NM790 will drop below CA$300 / US$215. Even better would be CA$280 / US$200.

Hy do you need a fast drive for a Time Machine backup drive? and When you say hot, are these hotter than other drives? I’m planning to use as a daily driver all day

 

[EugW]

Hy do you need a fast drive for a Time Machine backup drive? and When you say hot, are these hotter than other drives? I’m planning to use as a daily driver all day

I've been using a 4 TB portable hard drive for my Time Machine backup but it's so slow. If I try to access Time Machine directories, it takes a long time to wake up and the times I've tried to restore from Time Machine it just took forever. I mean the data is still there, but it can be very painful trying to actually access it. A desktop hard drive would be faster, but I don't want a desktop hard drive on my desk, and it's come to the point now where you can get a DRAM-less 4 TB NVMe SSD for under US$200. I figure I may as well get a cooler and faster model, if perhaps on Black Friday it's only say $25 more than a hotter, slower model.

Actually, I was going to use my USB 3 enclosure which isn't a great design for cooling, so a cooler drive would have been advantageous, but it turns out I was able to order this Hagibis enclosure for <US$50 yesterday, so a hotter drive would actually be fine too.

The 4 TB and 8 TB SN850X drives are very fast, but they run a bit warmer than the Samsung 990 Pro according to reviews. They are also double-sided. Some enclosures will not work with double-sided drives, although several of the popular ones here will. Also, some claim double-sided drives theoretically may be harder to cool than single-sided although I'm not sure how true that is in the real world. More of the heat is probably generated by the controller and not the actual NAND, and the controller is always on the top side, the same side as the NAND on single-sided NVMe SSDs.

 

[Black Diesel]

I was planning on running to 8TB SNX850’s inside two Maiwo 1717’s and I want to use them for daily drivers (all day). Will they last or is this heat issue going to give them a short life?

Do they stay hot even when the Mac is asleep and not in use?

 

[Black Diesel]

Might be due to the user not following the instructions, see below, though this graphic is not in the box, but on the website. The Maiwo includes 3 heat pads, 1 Silicone on the under side with another silicone one on the top, then the aluminum pad on top of that. My K1717 has been just great for 10 months, running 8 hours or more per day and remains cool.

Can you comment on my post above? Do I need to worry about heat for a daily driver? Does it stay hot when computer is not in use?

 

[EugW]

I was planning on running to 8TB SNX850’s inside two Maiwo 1717’s and I want to use them for daily drivers (all day). Will they last or is this heat issue going to give them a short life?

Do they stay hot even when the Mac is asleep and not in use?

When my computer slept overnight, my drive temp dropped to 29C. Normally it idles at around 42C to 43C when the Mac is awake.

This thread talks about the Maiwo K1717 and the Hagibis.

He reports an idle temp of 42C in Windows and 55-65C (!) in macOS with the Samsung 990 Pro. The post was from September 2024. Idle power usage in those tests was 3.2 W for Windows and 5.5 W for macOS. I'm not completely sure which enclosure he is talking about here, but I think it was the Maiwo. However, even though my Qwiizlab is also drawing 5.5 W at idle, I'm getting 42C idle in macOS with that same 990 Pro. I don't have the Maiwo for comparison.

Normal operating temps for SSDs in general are said to be 0C to 50C, with spikes of another 20C up as expected under heavy load. To put it another way, the way I read this is idle should probably be between 25C and 50C, and peak should be below 70C. Above 70C is when the drives will throttle. The actual throttle temp may vary from model to model, but I'd be uncomfortable with any SSD setup that often gets close to 70C.

For my 990 Pro in the Qwiizlab enclosure with continuous writes, I've never seen it get above 56C, and that's after close to an hour, split into 3 stages with a short pause in between. However, the writes were not at maximum speed because they were a lot of small files, so average write speed was more like 400-500 MB/s. As mentioned, my 990 Pro idles at 42C to 43C. (The Apple drive idles at around 28C.)

It'd be good to get some temp readings from more people here with the Maiwo K1717, with the SN850X. However, it's still my belief that for ASM2464PD enclosures, the Qwiizlab / Hagibis / Colorii and the OWC 1M2 have the best chassis designs.

Note that both Hagibis and Colorii state that the enclosures are limited to 4 TB (and I confirmed that with Hagibis last week), but both Qwiizlab and OWC state that 8 TB is supported. (I wonder if the 4 TB limitation might have been due to an older ASM2464PD firmware, but I don't know.)

 

[Black Diesel]

When my computer slept overnight, my drive temp dropped to 29C. Normally it idles at around 42C to 43C when the Mac is awake.

This thread talks about the Maiwo K1717 and the Hagibis.

He reports an idle temp of 42C in Windows and 55-65C (!) in macOS with the Samsung 990 Pro. The post was from September 2024. Idle power usage in those tests was 3.2 W for Windows and 5.5 W for macOS. I'm not completely sure which enclosure he is talking about here, but I think it was the Maiwo. However, even though my Qwiizlab is also drawing 5.5 W at idle, I'm getting 42C idle in macOS with that same 990 Pro. I don't have the Maiwo for comparison.

Normal operating temps for SSDs in general are said to be 0C to 50C, with spikes of another 20C up as expected under heavy load. To put it another way, the way I read this is idle should probably be between 25C and 50C, and peak should be below 70C. Above 70C is when the drives will throttle. The actual throttle temp may vary from model to model, but I'd be uncomfortable with any SSD setup that often gets close to 70C.

For my 990 Pro in the Qwiizlab enclosure with continuous writes, I've never seen it get above 56C, and that's after close to an hour, split into 3 stages with a short pause in between. However, the writes were not at maximum speed because they were a lot of small files, so average write speed was more like 400-500 MB/s. As mentioned, my 990 Pro idles at 42C to 43C. (The Apple drive idles at around 28C.)

It'd be good to get some temp readings from more people here with the Maiwo K1717, with the SN850X. However, it's still my belief that for ASM2464PD enclosures, the Qwiizlab / Hagibis / Colorii and the OWC 1M2 have the best chassis designs.

Note that both Hagibis and Colorii state that the enclosures are limited to 4 TB (and I confirmed that with Hagibis last week), but both Qwiizlab and OWC state that 8 TB is supported. (I wonder if the 4 TB limitation might have been due to an older ASM2464PD firmware, but I don't know.)

Hmmm, well I guess I will wait until someone can confirm. You say the WD runs hotter than the Samsung, which would mean 65+ based on your reference above.

 

[octoviaa]

I don't think Macs Fan Control has a significant impact on the idle temp. It still likes to idle around 42-ish C, although I'd have to test it out more to confirm. (I have to reload Macs Fan Control in order to check the temp and then remember to quit it each time so it doesn't continue to access the drive.)


I was going to say I don't have a Windows machine, but I just remembered I have an old 2008 Mac Pro in storage with Windows 10 on it.

However, I can't tell what my firmware corresponds with compared to the driver revision numbers. Can someone help decipher this?

View attachment 2455020

It states firmware 47.3, but that doesn't seem to match anything I've seen in the driver descriptions.

It's a lot more recent than the 35.25 in this post from December 2023 though.

Hi EugW,

I think your driver version is 2024-07-03 (47.3 means year 2024 month 7 and day 3).

I use reddit post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/1bt10ue

Where driver 20231005 become: 3a.5 and 20240129 become 41.29 then I figure out seems those could be translated into date. The first digit looks like a year while the second seems month in hexadecimal.

That also means you're just 1 version older than the latest:

Asmedia ASM2464 NVME/USB 4.x Controller Firmware Version 240703_85_00​

​

Asmedia ASM2464 NVME/USB 4.x Controller Firmware Version 2409013.85_00​

If someone with Qwiizlab / OWC could confirm their firmware we would have more information regarding 4TB vs 8TB support.

Thanks.

 

[SpecFoto]

I was planning on running to 8TB SNX850’s inside two Maiwo 1717’s and I want to use them for daily drivers (all day). Will they last or is this heat issue going to give them a short life?

Do they stay hot even when the Mac is asleep and not in use?

I have been using the K1717 with a 4TB SN850X since January as my daily startup drive with zero issues. It rests on the top of my M2 Studio Max and right now, after being on for about an hour with me mostly surfing the web, it is 38C, and this is pretty consistent. Last week I was transcoding some Blu Ray Mkv files into MP4, via Handbrake for 9 hours, and it was still relatively cool to the touch not hot at all. Sorry I did not take a temp reading.

I plan on upgrading this week to the 8TB SN850X, it is at an excellent price of $549 (no tax with Payboo CC) at B&H Photo.

 

[EugW]

I have been using the K1717 with a 4TB SN850X since January as my daily startup drive with zero issues. It rests on the top of my M2 Studio Max and right now, after being on for about an hour with me mostly surfing the web, it is 38C, and this is pretty consistent. Last week I was transcoding some Blu Ray Mkv files into MP4, via Handbrake for 9 hours, and it was still relatively cool to the touch not hot at all. Sorry I did not take a temp reading.

I plan on upgrading this week to the 8TB SN850X, it is at an excellent price of $549 (no tax with Payboo CC) at B&H Photo.

Ah yes, you are using the Mac Studio as a heatsink.

 

[SpecFoto]

Ah yes, you are using the Mac Studio as a heatsink.

It does make quite a difference. My M2 Studio Max has now been on for 2 hours and the K1717 enclosure is 39C. @splifingate in his test showed a 12-13C drop in temperature when the 2 enclosures were directly on top of the Studio Max versus the drives with insulating pads also on the top. Link: #1,679

Maybe give it test on your M4 Mac mini?

 

[Black Diesel]

I have been using the K1717 with a 4TB SN850X since January as my daily startup drive with zero issues. It rests on the top of my M2 Studio Max and right now, after being on for about an hour with me mostly surfing the web, it is 38C, and this is pretty consistent. Last week I was transcoding some Blu Ray Mkv files into MP4, via Handbrake for 9 hours, and it was still relatively cool to the touch not hot at all. Sorry I did not take a temp reading.

I plan on upgrading this week to the 8TB SN850X, it is at an excellent price of $549 (no tax with Payboo CC) at B&H Photo.

Nice! I have never bought and assembled an ssd like this so if I buy two of these will they should last several years and I could eventually move them to an 80gb enclosure and use with TB5 correct? Is an ssd like this like a computer where much faster/better stuff comes out every year or are there much slower upgrade cycles with this typr of ssd?

 

[SpecFoto]

Nice! I have never bought and assembled an ssd like this so if I buy two of these will they should last several years and I could eventually move them to an 80gb enclosure and use with TB5 correct? Is an ssd like this like a computer where much faster/better stuff comes out every year or are there much slower upgrade cycles with this typr of ssd?

Yes you can move these (WD Black SN850x NVMe) to faster enclosures in the future. The WD Black SN850X (PCI-e 4) is actually rated for around 7,000 MB/s, about the same speed as the internal 1TB or larger SSD's inside current M4 Macs and close to what TB5 is supposed to bring. The current USB4 or TB 3/4 external enclosures for Mac are limiting the WD Black and other NVMe's to at best about half of that, so getting a high quality and fast MVMe now will mean that you can move to a faster enclosure in the future and still be up to speed. The WD Black is rated for 1.75 million hours MTTF (mean time to failure) and warranted for 5 years. FYI, my 4TB WD Black that I have had for 11 months has been on for 4,800 hours or 6 months and 20 days.....

Regarding upgrade cycles, the NVMe's use the PCI-express interface to transfer data between the Motherboard and the SSD, and the interface is upgraded every few years. When I got my 1st 40Gb/s USB4 enclosure almost 3 years ago all of the NVMe's were mostly PCI-e 3, though the PCI-e 4 interface had actually been announced a couple years before. The WD Black 850X is PCI-e 4, but now we are just starting to see PCI-e 5 SSD's appear (at double the cost initially). The PCI-e 6 interface is out there too and though each increment is rated twice as fast for transfer speeds, it takes the chip manufacturers a while to actually implement those speeds and get them to market.

 

[EugW]

It does make quite a difference. My M2 Studio Max has now been on for 2 hours and is 39C. @splifingate in his test showed a 12-13C drop in temperature when the 2 enclosures were directly on top of the Studio Max versus the drives with insulating pads also on the top. Link: #1,679

Maybe give it test on your M4 Mac mini?

Yes, your results made me curious. I opened up the drive again and redid the thermal pads.

1) It was clear from the imprint on the casing, the thermal pad was only partially contacting the casing.
2) I read that thermal pads have better thermal conductivity when partially compressed, but it seemed my thermal pad wasn't being compressed much.
3) Some companies suggest putting thermal pads on both sides of the SSD, even if it's single-sided.

The enclosure came with two thermal pads for the SSD and two thermal pads for the ASM2464PD chip. The one for the ASM2464PD was not tall enough to reach the casing so I had reshaped it to reach at the initial assembly. This time however, I decided to use both controller thermal pads and both SSD thermal pads. For the ASM2464PD I stacked the two of them on top of each other. For the SSD, I put one underneath the SSD and one on top.

- I did another Black Magic Speed Test for 10 minutes, the temp increased from 35C (after a period it was off) to 42C.
- After the BM Speed Test, it remained at 42C.
- Ran the BM Speed Test again for 5 minutes and the temp increased to 45C.
- On idle, it slowly settled back down to 43C.
- I then copied over a 454.23 GB directory, in 14'38" so 517 MB/s. Temp fairly quickly hit 45C, then 46C at 11 mins.
- On idle it fairly quickly dropped to 44C, but didn't get back down to 43C until ~20 minutes after that copy was done.

This 46C peak temperature after a heavy continuous writes is impressive, because before I added the extra thermal pads, although it would idle at that same 42-43C, it could hit 51C with shorter writes, and peak at 55-56C after prolonged writes. (This is with the drive sitting on its own on the table, and not on top of the Mac mini.)

I am now thinking that perhaps most of the 42-43C idle is due to the heat generated by the adjacent ASM2464PD chip, and the peak temps are more due to the SSD.

 

[Black Diesel]

Yes you can move these (WD Black SN850x NVMe) to faster enclosures in the future. The WD Black SN850X (PCI-e 4) is actually rated for around 7,000 MB/s, about the same speed as the internal 1TB or larger SSD's inside current M4 Macs and close to what TB5 is supposed to bring. The current USB4 or TB 3/4 external enclosures for Mac are limiting the WD Black and other NVMe's to at best about half of that, so getting a high quality and fast MVMe now will mean that you can move to a faster enclosure in the future and still be up to speed. The WD Black is rated for 1.75 million hours MTTF (mean time to failure) and warranted for 5 years. FYI, my 4TB WD Black that I have had for 11 months has been on for 4,800 hours or 6 months and 20 days.....

Regarding upgrade cycles, the NVMe's use the PCI-express interface to transfer data between the Motherboard and the SSD, and the interface is upgraded every few years. When I got my 1st 40Gb/s USB4 enclosure almost 3 years ago all of the NVMe's were mostly PCI-e 3, though the PCI-e 4 interface had actually been announced a couple years before. The WD Black 850X is PCI-e 4, but now we are just starting to see PCI-e 5 SSD's appear (at double the cost initially). The PCI-e 6 interface is out there too and though each increment is rated twice as fast for transfer speeds, it takes the chip manufacturers a while to actually implement those speeds and get them to market.

Thanks for this. Sounds like if I buy these they'll be good for about 5 years or more, which is all I will need them to last. And considering I'm getting less than 1k speeds now with my Sandisk SSD's a bump to 3k will be nice with the 40gb enclosure. And then this time next year I could possibly be at 5k speeds with TB5 and a Mac Studio M4. The most heavy workflow I anticipate is editing or transferring large Canon 8K Raw files and I'm pretty sure even the 3k speeds will be sufficient with the 8TB WD Black SN850X's inside the K1717 for now. Is there anything I need to know for assembly other than pop them in? Is there a manual to show how/where to install the thermal pads?

If anyone else follows the Black Friday deals and sees the 8TB WD Black SN850X's for less than $550 at B&H payboo please let me know!

 

[justmadeupname]

Occasionally the Samsung T series 8 TB drives are on sale for a bit less, but they won’t be as fast.

OTOH, the Samsung T series drives require no assembly, run significantly cooler, and are much smaller and lighter.

Good points but aren't the Samsung T series drives (USB 3.2 Gen 2) slower vs USB 4/Thunderbolt 4 for MAIWO?

 

[EugW]

Good points but aren't the Samsung T series drives slower i.e USB 3.2 Gen 2 vs USB 4/Thunderbolt 4 ?

Yes, and I did mention the Samsung T series drives would be slower. In fact, you will only get 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2x1 speeds too, not even the 20 bps Gen 2x2 speeds some of them support. However, that's good enough for many people, for the convenience and very low power usage.

This is my Samsung T7 plugged into the front USB 3 port of my M4 Mac mini.
(It might be somewhat faster with the rear ports, as I've seen with my USB 3.2 NVMe enclosure, but I didn't test that.)

 

[SpecFoto]

...... Is there anything I need to know for assembly other than pop them in? Is there a manual to show how/where to install the thermal pads?

Here is a graphic on where the pads go in the K1717. It was not included in my K1717 box at purchase, but I found it online at the Maiwo website. Pretty simple install, took less than 5 minutes.