Thunderbolt 3 M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosures

[EugW]

Thanks. I did think this would be the advice. Could I ask another question before I buy? I'm leaning towards buying a 2TB Fanxiang S500 Pro PCIe 3.0 (amazing xmas offer of £80 and with TB3 I doubt I'll benefit much from a faster PCIe 4.0).

One thing is concerning me a bit: I see some of these NVMe drives labelled as internal or external. Some also have an OS specified (usually Windows). Should these things be a consideration? I thought the whole concept of NVMe is it was originally designed for internal and now people are DIY'ing for external. Also, I hadn't thought of the OS. I'd just assumed I would format it for Mac and there wouldn't be a problem.

Really glad I read this thread. I went for an Orico enclosure and based on the comments here, I've chosen one with a fan. Thanks!

There are external drives but they aren’t bare NVMe. Some may be NVMe in an external USB housing, but others have a different design.

Generally the ones where they specify the OS are external drives which are preformatted for that OS. However, you are correct that OS doesn’t matter because you can simply reformat it to whatever OS you wish to use. However, the internal NVMe drives are generally not preformatted.

There are also NVMe drives with or without heatsinks. You want one without the heatsink.

 

[PaulD-UK]

@Han1 ”I see some of these NVMe drives labelled as internal or external. Some also have an OS specified (usually Windows). Should these things be a consideration? I thought the whole concept of NVMe is it was originally designed for internal and now people are DIY'ing for external.”

Fanxiang are different because they also make blade SSDs that have Apple’s unique internal interface, so not M.2.

They won’t work in external enclosures , or in Windows PCs.

You need an ‘external’ M.2 NVMe to go inside an enclosure.

 

[Han1]

Thanks very much. I suppose it would have been a lot easier to link to the drive in question: https://www.fanxiangssd.com/product...ang-s500-nvme-ssd-pcle?variant=45220228399421

£80 today if anybody is interested (via their eBay store and a couple of codes coupons). They are offering the same discounts on the faster PCIe 4.0 variant.

Thanks for all your help. I've spent days wrestling with utilising my existing set-up (dock and drives) and then finding something new that's compatible and makes the most of what I already have. It's a minefield. I would never have got there without the help of this forum. Thanks again @PaulD-UK and @EugW

 

[EugW]

Thanks very much. I suppose it would have been a lot easier to link to the drive in question: https://www.fanxiangssd.com/product...ang-s500-nvme-ssd-pcle?variant=45220228399421

£80 today if anybody is interested (via their eBay store and a couple of codes coupons). They are offering the same discounts on the faster PCIe 4.0 variant.

Thanks for all your help. I've spent days wrestling with utilising my existing set-up (dock and drives) and then finding something new that's compatible and makes the most of what I already have. It's a minefield. I would never have got there without the help of this forum. Thanks again @PaulD-UK and @EugW

I believe those drives use YMTC flash.

I don't know for sure, but while the higher end more recent YMTC drives seem to be OK so far, there were reports of premature death of the some of the older lower end YMTC drives. You might want to look into it, or perhaps others here can comment.

That Fanxiang is a lower end drive. BTW, it also does not have DRAM, which may or may not matter depending upon your usage.

 

[Han1]

Okay, thanks. It looks like I'll just go with S880, which is Fanxiang's high-end with all the largest theoreticals, plus DRAM and no heatsink. (The heatsink one surprised me because intuitively, I thought it would be good to have. I'm guessing the problem arises from the space it takes up in the small enclosure and it stops ventilation, unlike when it's in a PC or laptop).

The S880 still seems good value at £92, given its spec https://www.fanxiangssd.com/product...-ssd-solid-state-drive?variant=45243164361021

Could I ask one last favour. I've just found some really bad reviews on the (edit) enclosure I was going to get. Does anybody have any suggestions for a relatively affordable one? I only need TB3, but TB4 is fine.

 

[EugW]

Okay, thanks. It looks like I'll just go with S880, which is Fanxiang's high-end with all the largest theoreticals, plus DRAM and no heatsink. (The heatsink one surprised me because intuitively, I thought it would be good to have. I'm guessing the problem arises from the space it takes up in the small enclosure and it stops ventilation, unlike when it's in a PC or laptop).

Correct, there is no room inside the enclosure for an additional heatsink.

If designed correctly, the enclosure itself acts as the heatsink. You put a thermal pad on top of the drive, which thermally connects the drive to the external metal casing of the enclosure. However, some enclosures are much better designed than others.

Could I ask one last favour. I've just found some really bad reviews on the hub I was going to get. Does anybody have any suggestions for a relatively affordable one? I only need TB3, but TB4 is fine.

It depends upon where you are located, but one reasonable option appears to be the Amazon Basics Thunderbolt 4 / USB 4 hub, which is a rebadge of the Good Way hub.

https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Basics-Thunderbolt4-Docking-1xHDMI2-1/dp/B0CPT8K52Q/

I can't vouch for it myself, since I've never used it, but these seem to be a standard design. However, I see that the release of the Amazon Basics hub has caused other hubs to drop in price. For example, this Plugable hub has dropped to match the price of the Amazon Basics model. That Plugable doesn't have a USB-A port though. However, I use this Plugable (actually 2 of them), which is very similar but has a USB-A port like the Amazon Basics model.

 

[Han1]

The Amazon Basics one is a good hub. It makes my old StartTech one look very inadequate (it was very expensive 3-4 years ago). And just to make me feel even worse, I'd gone back and edited my post before you replied. Hub was a typo. It's the enclosure where I'm back at square one. I read some more reviews about the Orico one with a fan and they weren't good. Sorry about that!

 

[Han1]

I went back over many of the older pages, and essentially RTFM. It wasn't that I was being lazy when I'd been asking questions earlier. This was a bit outside my comfort zone.

In my amateurish way, it seems there are a number of things holding NVMe back at the moment if the use case is external storage with a Mac.

1. Power management needs some work (Apple? Not sure they will be forthcoming on that.) An enclosure with an on/off switch would be nice. (I know I could always yank the cable.)

2. Heat management and cooling with the enclosures is a bit hit or miss. I noticed the Acasis one gets a lot of praise, but then there were some doubts expressed about its reliability. I didn't see anyone mention Sabrent (I only went back as far as November on this thread). Sabrent seems interesting to me because they have been building their own off-the-shelf NVMe drives, so they maybe they're confident about they're own enclosure product or maybe they just see an opportunity. Hagibis and Jeyi have also caught my eye because of their popularity and price point. The fan models seem a bit of a gimmick.

3. The drives themselves really need DRAM and PCIe 4.0 to justify the investment. At this kind of spec, the theoretical performance is probably exceeding the limits of a TB3 port for normal tasks. It might be different for users with TB4, but i don't have any plans to go there in the near future.

I don't mind manually controlling the power myself and investing in an NVMe drive that's probably in excess of my needs today. It's the heat management that bothers me most. It seems like the heat's not at the levels to start a fire, but you have to wonder about potential faults occurring with the enclosures, given they're not yet in mass production by a reputable manufacturer.

I've been through a range of ideas as I read the thread. I need to buy some storage pretty much immediately. I don't like the idea of an SSD because it'll be a lot of money for something with very inferior performance and will become obsolete for me in the near future. I don't trust the latest NVMe enclosures. I'm actually thinking I might buy the high spec NVMe drive today and put it in a cheap 10Gbps enclosure until a better Thunderbolt enclosure becomes available.

Sorry if that's a TLDR without much technical value for you all. I know there's been a lot of conversation about how rapidly the market might evolve. It'll need novices like me to make that happen and I've got short-term concerns about parting with my own $ at the moment.

 

[PaulD-UK]

There are no fast Thunderbolt 4 enclosures for NVMe M.2.
The TB4 controller chip is only for docks or TB hubs with several TB4 outlets to connect monitors or TB3 fast enclosures.
TB4 only allocates 10Gbps for NVMe storage within the dock.

Until TB5 is available, the fastest NVMe enclosures are USB4, which works like TB3, except that it doesn’t require certification - so Apple hasn’t been motivated to ensure compatibility with all the different devices.

There are no USB4 cables longer than 0.8 metres that work with NVMe storage enclosures.
You have to use an Active TB4 cable to get this functionality.

For the best compatibility with Macs stick to TB3, and going forward TB5.

 

[Han1]

Thanks Paul. My mistake - I'd been reading USB4 and TB4 as the same thing. (good news when all I have is TB3 ;-))

I'm still not convinced it's worth buying one of the TB3 enclosures for the time being. I've been looking all day and I'm yet to find one where I can genuinely say, 'that's the one everybody says is the way forward'.

I'm tempted to just take a gamble on Sabrent. Hagibis seems the most popular. Acasis doesn't interest me at the current price point. Jeyi might be an option.

I might just go with the 10Gbps USB-C option for the time being and upgrade it when things have settled down.

 

[EugW]

Thanks Paul. My mistake - I'd been reading USB4 and TB4 as the same thing. (good news when all I have is TB3 ;-))

I'm still not convinced it's worth buying one of the TB3 enclosures for the time being. I've been looking all day and I'm yet to find one where I can genuinely say, 'that's the one everybody says is the way forward'.

I'm tempted to just take a gamble on Sabrent. Hagibis seems the most popular. Acasis doesn't interest me at the current price point. Jeyi might be an option.

I might just go with the 10Gbps USB-C option for the time being and upgrade it when things have settled down.

I've had excellent results with USB 4, as have many in this thread. I get exactly zero of the issues I had with 10 Gbps USB 3.

 

[EugW]

Qwiizlab on right, Hagibis on left



Identical firmware info: Qwiizlab on top, Hagibis on bottom


Yet for some reason, Hagibis still says their enclosure only supports 4 TB, while Qwiizlab says 8 TB.

Both are recognized by MacsFanControl at the same time. This is shortly after a reboot, but note that I haven't installed the thermal pad yet on my Kioxia drive yet. It's just a bare drive. Without that thermal pad, it hit 60 C pretty quickly while doing benchmarks.


Benches of the Hagibis with Kioxia XG8 (without a thermal pad), attached to a Thunderbolt 4 port of the M4 Mac mini.





This Kioxia is a used drive BTW. I got it cheap on eBay. I don't think it's available for retail, and is only sold to OEMs. It's a double-sided 4 TB TLC drive with DRAM.

Performance is similar to my Samsung 990 Pro.





Note that when these drives are plugged directly into the Mac mini, the green LED status light shuts off during sleep. However, when plugged into the Thunderbolt hub, the light stays on (white, indicating it isn't a USB 4 connection). However, power draw during sleep is the same whether that light is on or off, at about 1 Watt.

EDIT:

It looks like I lucked out with this used drive. There are only 3 hours of power on time, including the one hour I've used it.

 

[Idgit]

Finally got a WD Black SN850X 2TB to go with my Maiwo K1717 USB 4 enclosure. I have a few questions since this is my first external NVME drive:

1) What software should I use to check and--if necessary--update the firmware?

2) Is "sudo trimforce enable" sufficient to enable TRIM on the external drive?

3) I'm seeing temperatures higher than what others have posted here. iStat Menus reports temperatures between 58°C and 63°C during file copying while connected to my M1 Mac Mini. Temperature reached 67°C during the BlackMagic Disk Speed Test. It's well within the "safe" operating temperatures (max 85°C) of the drive but still seems high to me. Is iStat Menus accurate for external drive temperatures or should I be using something else?

 

[EugW]

Finally got a WD Black SN850X 2TB to go with my Maiwo K1717 USB 4 enclosure. I have a few questions since this is my first external NVME drive:

1) What software should I use to check and--if necessary--update the firmware?

Windows... to check and update the firmware.

On macOS, you can also use System Report - see below - to check the firmware revision number, although that may or may not correspond to what WD uses in its firmware updater's naming system. (I don't know for WD, but I do know for some other brands, the firmware is given a different numbering system in the updater's firmware descriptions, which makes it confusing.) However, AFAIK, there is no macOS firmware updater.

2) Is "sudo trimforce enable" sufficient to enable TRIM on the external drive?

This should be unnecessary. Is TRIM not already enabled? You can check yourself at:

Apple icon (top left corner in macOS menu bar) --> About This Mac --> More Info --> System Report --> NVMExpress

3) I'm seeing temperatures higher than what others have posted here. iStat Menus reports temperatures between 58°C and 63°C during file copying while connected to my M1 Mac Mini. It's well within the "safe" operating temperatures (max 85°C) of the drive but still seems high to me. Is iStat Menus accurate for external drive temperatures or should I be using something else?

MacsFanControl can also be used to check temps.

However, I'm guessing those temps are legit. IMHO, the Maiwo isn't really the best design for heat dissipation, but make sure you have both the included thermal pad and heatsink installed, and that heatsink is touching the top case when closed, for proper heat transfer.

 

[Idgit]

Windows... to check and update the firmware.

On macOS, you can also use System Report - see below - to check the firmware revision number, although that may or may not correspond to what WD uses in its firmware updater's naming system. (I don't know for WD, but I do know for some other brands, the firmware is given a different numbering system in the updater's firmware descriptions, which makes it confusing.)

I should've been clearer. I meant the firmware of the USB 4 enclosure. Is there a way to check that and update it if necessary?

WD Dashboard for Windows gives the firmware version as 0. And it says that "Firmware Update is not available for this device." WTF?

 

[EugW]

I should've been clearer. I meant the firmware of the USB 4 enclosure. Is there a way to check that and update it if necessary?

System Report --> Thunderbolt/USB4

I don't think you can update it through macOS, but I'm not sure.

WD Dashboard for Windows gives the firmware version as 0. And it says that "Firmware Update is not available for this device." WTF?

Maybe it doesn't work through the enclosure.

 

[Idgit]

System Report --> Thunderbolt/USB4

I don't think you can update it through macOS, but I'm not sure.


Maybe it doesn't work through the enclosure.

Yeah, that must be the case. I'll contact WD Support to confirm.

The drive temperatures under Windows 10 are 42C to 46C but that's over a USB-C 3.2 connection, not Thunderbolt/USB4.

 

[Han1]

I've had excellent results with USB 4, as have many in this thread. I get exactly zero of the issues I had with 10 Gbps USB 3.

I was thinking about it as more of a cheap, low performance and temporary workaround. I was itching to get started with NVMe.

As it happens, I've just rejigged some SSD storage. I'm going to follow this thread intently and jump in when there is a general consensus about an enclosure that works really well.

Qwiizlab on right, Hagibis on left

View attachment 2464347

Identical firmware info: Qwiizlab on top, Hagibis on bottom

View attachment 2464348
Yet for some reason, Hagibis still says their enclosure only supports 4 TB, while Qwiizlab says 8 TB.

Both are recognized by MacsFanControl at the same time. This is shortly after a reboot, but note that I haven't installed the thermal pad yet on my Kioxia drive yet. It's just a bare drive. Without that thermal pad, it hit 60 C pretty quickly while doing benchmarks.

View attachment 2464352
Benches of the Hagibis with Kioxia XG8 (without a thermal pad), attached to a Thunderbolt 4 port of the M4 Mac mini.

View attachment 2464356

View attachment 2464357

This Kioxia is a used drive BTW. I got it cheap on eBay. I don't think it's available for retail, and is only sold to OEMs. It's a double-sided 4 TB TLC drive with DRAM.

Performance is similar to my Samsung 990 Pro.

View attachment 2464359

View attachment 2464358

Note that when these drives are plugged directly into the Mac mini, the green LED status light shuts off during sleep. However, when plugged into the Thunderbolt hub, the light stays on (white, indicating it isn't a USB 4 connection). However, power draw during sleep is the same whether that light is on or off, at about 1 Watt.

EDIT:

It looks like I lucked out with this used drive. There are only 3 hours of power on time, including the one hour I've used it.

View attachment 2464378

I'm getting sorely tempted again after seeing it look so neat and tidy on your desktop. Is that a stone plate underneath for cooling.

My biggest concern is thermals and power management with TB. I don't mind it running hot to an acceptable temperature, but only when it's in use.

 

[shoarthing2]

. . . . . My biggest concern is thermals and power management with TB. I don't mind it running hot to an acceptable temperature, but only when it's in use.

Han1 - Hi - I share your caution re: quoted temperatures & so on - you're never quite sure whether the report is coming from Iceland, or Cairo; nor exactly *what* temperature/sensor is being measured. Here's a lab-quality thermocouple thermometer measuring (T1) the temperature between the fins of a Hagibis USB4 enclosure, containing a Samsung 990 Pro 4TB M2 NVME (there's a high-quality thermal pad between the NVME & the casing of the Hagibis); and (T2) the ambient temperature in this room. You'll see the difference - 'delta' - is about 15 degrees. That difference will stay nearly the same - given the same load on the NVME - wherever you might be. The other temperature of interest is the difference between idle & full-load - that is a bit more difficult to quantify. With this enclosure/NVME it is again about or less than another 15C

 

[EugW]

I'm getting sorely tempted again after seeing it look so neat and tidy on your desktop. Is that a stone plate underneath for cooling.

My biggest concern is thermals and power management with TB. I don't mind it running hot to an acceptable temperature, but only when it's in use.

It’s a ceramic floor tile. It dropped the temps about 2C. The 990 Pro idles at 41C and stays below 50 C under load.

The room temp is 19-21 C.

 

[EugW]

I was thinking about it as more of a cheap, low performance and temporary workaround. I was itching to get started with NVMe.

As it happens, I've just rejigged some SSD storage. I'm going to follow this thread intently and jump in when there is a general consensus about an enclosure that works really well.

Aside from the moderate power draw, there is already consensus that the ASM2464PD USB 4 enclosures work very well. The main issue is enclosure design for heat dissipation, but enclosures like the OWC 1M2 and the Colorii MC40 / Qwiizlab ES40UR / Hagibis MC40 have excellent heatsink type designs for fanless heat dissipation.

I paid roughly US$80 US for the Qwiizlab through Amazon Canada, but then paid well under US$50 for the Hagibis during a Black Friday flash sale on AliExpress. After Black Friday, it seems recently the typical price for the Colorii / Qwiizlab / Hagibis has fluctuated around US$60-65. That's quite a reasonable price IMO. It's not the $20 you'll pay for a USB 3 enclosure, but generally those suck, especially on macOS. (I have the Orico M2PV-C3 USB 3.2 enclosure, and would never recommend that with a modern high performance NVMe SSD.)

 

[Idgit]

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.

View attachment 2416198

What I had before the update was:

View attachment 2416199

I updated the firmware on my MAIWO

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.

View attachment 2416198

What I had before the update was:

View attachment 2416199

Same thing happened to me when I updated the firmware on my Maiwo k1717. The format of the firmware version changed. The stock firmware version looked like your old one and after updating the firmware to the latest, it now shows version 1.87. Odd.

 

[EugW]

Both are recognized by MacsFanControl at the same time. This is shortly after a reboot, but note that I haven't installed the thermal pad yet on my Kioxia drive yet. It's just a bare drive. Without that thermal pad, it hit 60 C pretty quickly while doing benchmarks.

View attachment 2464352

Benches of the Hagibis with Kioxia XG8 (without a thermal pad), attached to a Thunderbolt 4 port of the M4 Mac mini.

View attachment 2464356

View attachment 2464357

Through the Thunderbolt 4 / USB 4 hub, the Kioxia runs a tad slower than when directly connected to the M4 Mac mini.



With my modified thermal pad install method* (see below), the Kioxia XG8 runs pretty cool. After sleep, the temp for the Kioxia slowly rises, and eventually idles at about 36-37 C.



I ran Black Magic Speed Test continuously and got the Kioxia up to 44 C at 10 minutes and 45 C at 11 minutes. My Samsung 990 Pro idles at 41 C and gets to 46 C after about 5 minutes of Black Magic Speed Test.

*The Kioxia SSD is double-sided and the NAND chips on the right leave just under 0.5 mm clearance to the motherboard. Below is what the motherboard looks like, and the underside of the SSD.



The unit comes with two thermal pads for the ASM2464PD chip, and two thermal pads for the SSD. I believe the SSD thermal pads are 1.5 mm and 2 mm. I cut the included 2 mm thermal pad to go under the bare area where the Kioxia's SSD controller and DRAM lie. I also spent ~US$4 and bought a 0.5 mm thermal pad and cut it to size for the space below the NAND chips on the back.



Then I installed the SSD, and put the other intact thermal pad on top of the SSD, creating an SSD sandwich.



I used this method because of my results with my Samsung 990 Pro. It ran cooler with this method. Without the thermal pad underneath the SSD, I could get it to exceed 55 C on very extended heavy loads and above 50 C on shorter heavy loads.

Considering the 990 Pro never reached 60 C with just the thermal pad on top, it was well within its operating specifications (which is above 80 C), but nonetheless I wanted to keep it as cool as possible.

It was easier to do with the Samsung 990 Pro though, because it's a single-sided SSD. I just used one intact full length thermal pad underneath the SSD and one intact full length thermal pad on top of the SSD. It was slightly more complicated with the Kioxia XG8 because it's a double-sided SSD.

 

[EugW]

Immediately after a reboot, after the machine had been off for a little while, the temps of all the drives are close to room temp (which I believe is 20 C).



15 minutes after reboot, the USB 4 drives still haven't yet risen to their usual idle temps (Kioxia 36 C, Samsung 41 C).



Over half an hour after reboot, but neither drive has yet risen to usual idle temp, despite both having seen a little bit of usage.



45 minutes after reboot and the Samsung drive is close to its usual idle temp. The Kioxia still has a couple of degrees to go yet.



One hour after reboot and both drives are within a degree of the idle temps I was seeing yesterday.



The Samsung drive hit its 41 C idle temp at the 62 minute mark, and the Kioxia hit 36 C somewhere around the 75 minute mark. Then I stopped monitoring.

Yesterday I transferred close to 2.5 TB to the Kioxia drive, so effectively a stress test for the Kioxia, and about 2.3 TB of that was from the Samsung drive. About halfway through I started monitoring the temps, and the temps of the Kioxia fluctuated by a few degrees up and down, but peaked at 49 C. Note that the Samsung had a lower temp, presumably because there were no writes on the Samsung, only reads. All the write activity was on the Kioxia.



Overall, I'm quite pleased with the two drives, and the two Colorii / Qwiizlab / Hagibis enclosures. However, if I had known in advance how these drives would perform temperature-wise, I would have bought two of the used Kioxia XG8 drives instead of one Samsung 990 Pro and one Kioxia. The Kioxia was significantly cheaper (but now is sold out), and runs cooler in this type of setup. Too bad that Kioxia doesn't sell these in the retail market.

I wonder what is the thermal conductivity of the thermal pads provided, and if higher end thermal pads would make any difference for the Samsung drive, but at this point I'm satisfied with the temps so I have no incentive to disassemble these enclosures again.

 

[shoarthing2]

. . . . I wonder what is the thermal conductivity of the thermal pads provided, and if higher end thermal pads would make any difference for the Samsung drive, but at this point I'm satisfied with the temps so I have no incentive to disassemble these enclosures again.

Quite so - disassembly of these NVME/thermal pad/enclosure sandwiches ain't appealing. I had some 1.5mm Arctic TP-3 tucked away, so used that between a 4TB 990 Pro & the board & case of a Hagibis MC40. Higher-end pads make some difference; but their strongest suit is softness/gap-filling, so avoiding local hot-spots if components aren't on the same level.