Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

mathemabeat

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 1, 2009
92
52
Cincinnati, OH
Heya guys

So I ordered one of the MyDigitalSSD M2X NVME USB-C enclosures.
https://amzn.to/2Dy0gjB

I want to pick out a 1TB NVME drive for it. I was thinking Crucial P1 or maybe Intel 660P.

However I know there has been some posts lately about some drives dismounting during use.

Thoughts on this? Is there certain models/memory chipsets to avoid?

I plan to use it as a FCPX project scratch drive.

Thanks!
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
If you're worried about the problems that one of the posters has been having with the NVMe-USB-C enclosures, I couldn't say what the issue is. You may have seen that another poster stopped having problems when they switched to HFS+ from APFS. I think you also have to be aware of possible power issues in selecting the SSD you use for these enclosures. From what I've seen, a 1TB P1/660P would be a good candidate for an NVMe-USB-C enclosure because they're pretty good from a power standpoint.

The possible issue with the Crucial P1/Intel 660P (they are pretty similar in the parts they use) is that they use QLC NAND, meaning that the endurance is less. The 1TB P1 has endurance of 200 TBW, in contrast the Crucial SATA MX500 1TB is 360 TBW. Now, 200 TBW is over 100GB/day over 5 years which for most applications won't be an issue but with video maybe it does write this amount of data - it would depend on the program used and your usage. You may say, well, that's OK because if it dies in, say, 3 years, I'll just get another, better SSD surely to be available then. That's fine, but these QLC SSD's also use SLC for cache and once it's filled, performance drops until it's dumped to the QLC NAND. So again, for typical usage, that may not be an issue but with what you want to use the drive for (video work disk), it may be. In which case, the performance difference between USB 3.1 Gen 2 and Gen 1 could be negated and maybe a traditional USB 3 external SSD would be better because something like a Crucial MX500 with TLC is better equipped to handle situations where the SLC cache overflows. If you look at forums devoted to FCP, you'll probably get a better idea for how the intermediate work files are used. Note that I'm not saying that these will be issues in your case, just something that could be an issue and you should be aware of.

Maybe you've seen these, but if you haven't, they're good to read and have more details on the power issue and QLC. The first and last section of the SSD reviews are the most important, the MyDigitalSSD review only has 3 sections. Of note is that there were no major issues with the MyDigitalSSD with the SSD they used (they also use Windows) and it looks like the Crucial is a better choice than the Intel and I see that the price isn't much different today on Amazon.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13078/the-intel-ssd-660p-ssd-review-qlc-nand-arrives

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13512/the-crucial-p1-1tb-ssd-review

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13510/mydigitalssd-m2x-usb-to-nvme-storage-bridge-review
 
Heya guys

So I ordered one of the MyDigitalSSD M2X NVME USB-C enclosures.
https://amzn.to/2Dy0gjB

I want to pick out a 1TB NVME drive for it. I was thinking Crucial P1 or maybe Intel 660P.

However I know there has been some posts lately about some drives dismounting during use.

Thoughts on this? Is there certain models/memory chipsets to avoid?

I plan to use it as a FCPX project scratch drive.

Thanks!

forget about getting those enclosures

Get the LaCie Bolt3 TB3 2TB NVME drive for 599.00 at B&H. it has it's own power supply which solves the power stability issue
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
If you're worried about the problems that one of the posters has been having with the NVMe-USB-C enclosures, I couldn't say what the issue is. You may have seen that another poster stopped having problems when they switched to HFS+ from APFS. I think you also have to be aware of possible power issues in selecting the SSD you use for these enclosures. From what I've seen, a 1TB P1/660P would be a good candidate for an NVMe-USB-C enclosure because they're pretty good from a power standpoint.

The possible issue with the Crucial P1/Intel 660P (they are pretty similar in the parts they use) is that they use QLC NAND, meaning that the endurance is less. The 1TB P1 has endurance of 200 TBW, in contrast the Crucial SATA MX500 1TB is 360 TBW. Now, 200 TBW is over 100GB/day over 5 years which for most applications won't be an issue but with video maybe it does write this amount of data - it would depend on the program used and your usage. You may say, well, that's OK because if it dies in, say, 3 years, I'll just get another, better SSD surely to be available then. That's fine, but these QLC SSD's also use SLC for cache and once it's filled, performance drops until it's dumped to the QLC NAND. So again, for typical usage, that may not be an issue but with what you want to use the drive for (video work disk), it may be. In which case, the performance difference between USB 3.1 Gen 2 and Gen 1 could be negated and maybe a traditional USB 3 external SSD would be better because something like a Crucial MX500 with TLC is better equipped to handle situations where the SLC cache overflows. If you look at forums devoted to FCP, you'll probably get a better idea for how the intermediate work files are used. Note that I'm not saying that these will be issues in your case, just something that could be an issue and you should be aware of.

Maybe you've seen these, but if you haven't, they're good to read and have more details on the power issue and QLC. The first and last section of the SSD reviews are the most important, the MyDigitalSSD review only has 3 sections. Of note is that there were no major issues with the MyDigitalSSD with the SSD they used (they also use Windows) and it looks like the Crucial is a better choice than the Intel and I see that the price isn't much different today on Amazon.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13078/the-intel-ssd-660p-ssd-review-qlc-nand-arrives

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13512/the-crucial-p1-1tb-ssd-review

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13510/mydigitalssd-m2x-usb-to-nvme-storage-bridge-review

Thanks for the links and your thoughts on it. I have been leaning towards the Crucial drive and I think this might really nail it down for me.



forget about getting those enclosures

Get the LaCie Bolt3 TB3 2TB NVME drive for 599.00 at B&H. it has it's own power supply which solves the power stability issue

That's triple the price of my 1TB solution. A whole heck of a lot more money.
 
i'm the same enclouser but with 500gb adata nvme drive.

no problem so far. but haven't used it extensively yet
 
So this is interesting. Have you used an external scratch drive with Final Cut in the past? If so, was Final Cut on an internal SSD and what benefit do you think you're getting from the scratch drive?

Thanks

Final Cut is installed on the internal drive and I use the external drive as project storage space. I currently use a 500gb Sata SSD in a usb-c enclosure.

Some of my video projects have anywhere between 100GB to 400 or 500GB of data per project. So my Mini’s poor little 256GB internal drive isn’t enough space. So I’m looking to move from the 500GB drive into something a little roomier and also going from a Sata drive to nvme for some extra performance.

Once a project is completed (or a couple if they are smaller), I move them off the ssd to larger spinning disks for archive purposes.

Been doing that for a couple years.
 
  • Like
Reactions: F-Train
"However I know there has been some posts lately about some drives dismounting during use.
Thoughts on this? Is there certain models/memory chipsets to avoid?"


If there are "dismounting" issues, they are probably with the enclosure/controller board itself, and NOT with any particular brand of drive.

You already have the enclosure "ordered and coming".
I'd pick either of the drives you listed and give it a try.

Please save this thread and come back and report with your experiences...
 
I picked up a USB-C cage with the Crucial P1 very impressed with performance.
Im currently looking for future storage options, since my Thunderbolt 2 raid 5 array has been running for over 4 years now. With cloud storage and backup doesn't make sense to invest in local storage as it once was.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.