What external storage solutions are you going to use with the Mac Studio

[datagov63]

Thanks to the information on this thread I have by now tried three NVME enclosures with my Studio M2 Max and the results are all great.

This is a SK Hynix Platinum P41 in an Acasis TBU405Pro M1

This is a Samsung 980 Pro in Maewoo k1719

The Samsung runs hotter (48C) in the Maewoo without the fan running. The P41 runs at 41C in the TBU405Pro M1 without the fan on, and below 40C with the fan. I have also connected a TBU405 and had no problem running all three external enclosures at the same time, after multiple shut downs and reboots. At these speeds I see no difference between the Apple internal drives and these external SSDs.

The Acasis was 100 euros and the Maewoo about 55 shipped.

 

[Fravin]

My Samsung 980 Pro runs a bit hotter than my other SSDs. It's heck fast, but runs hot.

 

[Melbourne Park]

Guys, thanks for the thread.

Does it make sense for me to put my PCI Raid card (which has 4TB init at the moment via two NVME 2TB sticks in it) from my Mac Classic 5,1, into a PCI enclosure and use it on a Mac Studio? The card is a Highpoint Technologies SSD7101A-1 NVMe RAID Controller PCI bus card.

I might be able to sell it and just buy an external setup like you guys have been talking about. I am unsure if a silicon mac would also work well with the card setup in RAID, despite its own controller. If the card is worth something, it might be better to sell it.

 

[datagov63]

Unfortunately, Mac Studio Thunderbolt 4 ports use PCIE 3.0 controllers which limits maximum bandwidth. It seems the best sequential read and write times depend on the external drive's PCIE controller, which is why there is so much variance in the throughput.

No way of knowing how your PCI Raid Card will perform until you test it and tell us. But if it beats the Maewo k1719, you will be our hero and we will try to emulate your solution.

 

[rb2112]

Just got two of these enclosures and put two of the below 1tb SSD into them. instead of paying Apple £600 to replace the base 512gb with 2tb, I’ve saved £140 and will now have a total of 2.5tb. I know the speed on the external ports is less than internal, but just ran the speed test on one of the drives using my M1 13” MBP and i think this will be fine for my use.

USB4.0 Mobile M.2 Nvme Enclosure... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08X9YTWJC?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
View attachment 1974128


Samsung (MZ-V8V1T0B/AM) 980 SSD... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08V83JZH4?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
View attachment 1974129

View attachment 1974130

I got the same enclosure and 2TB size of that drive, using in base M2 Max Studio/512GB. Extremely happy with the $ savings and performance.

 

[rb2112]

I got the same enclosure and 2TB size of that drive, using in base M2 Max Studio/512GB. Extremely happy with the $ savings and performance.

Oops, sorry I got the Acasis enclosure, not the Anyoyo from the previous poster...

ACASIS 40Gbps M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure, USB-C Aluminum External Hard Drive Enclosure, for M1 Pro/Max Mac, Support 2280 B+M M-Key PCIe, Compatible with USB4/3.2/3.1/3.0/2.0

ACASIS 40Gbps M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure, USB-C Aluminum External Hard Drive Enclosure, for M1 Pro/Max Mac, Support 2280 B+M M-Key PCIe, Compatible with USB4/3.2/3.1/3.0/2.0

www.amazon.com

 

[umbilical]

Anyone have the SABRENT 5 BAY DS-SC5B ?

I don't care about RAID (I can use Carbon Copy Cloner to make some mirror), so I like the concept but,

• Fan is too loud? I know is possible replace it but I don't have the skills.
• A Synology NAS 5 bay is more silence?
• It's disconnect a lot?
• I can live it 24/7 without power off and just the disks can go on Sleep? I don't want constanly power on/off.

I think I prefer the 5bay due don't have a power brick, also have an extra bay and extra hub to connect another USB-C device.

Anything that I should know before buy it? its $279 right now.

 

[Pezimak]

I’ll get a 1TB model and then I just have a Samsung T7 SSD 1TB drive for Time Machine.

 

[lowendlinux]

I use an old Mac Pro as a file server plus 4TB of TB and USB direct attached storage.

 

[whgmkeller]

I reached out to Larry from OW to ask for an update on the OWC Ministack Studio that is supposed to have 6 NVMW M.2 drives in. it. After hearing nothing back from him for a VERY long time, he sent me a message in late June.

I'm not sure if this is the answer that I wanted, but it looks as if they (OWC) are waiting for the upcoming Thunderbolt 5.

See his message below:

i apologize for not replying - I need to be more attentive here.
That said - going to finally see a few products into this direction with Thunderbolt 5. The intent was ahead of the technology... And now the technology that makes sense is upon is. TB5 solutions will work on all Mac Studios - and the enablements let us really deliver to intent. First solution will be a little boring - but the original concept has life+.

 

[Melbourne Park]

Unfortunately, Mac Studio Thunderbolt 4 ports use PCIE 3.0 controllers which limits maximum bandwidth. It seems the best sequential read and write times depend on the external drive's PCIE controller, which is why there is so much variance in the throughput.

No way of knowing how your PCI Raid Card will perform until you test it and tell us. But if it beats the Maewo k1719, you will be our hero and we will try to emulate your solution.

I contacted Highpoint. Incidentally, their price for one external T-3 PCI device, their RS6661A, is $US250 at the moment.

They said:

2. SSD7101A-1 can be used in the RS6661A, but performance is limited by Thunderbolt to around 2000MB/s.

In my Mac Pro 5,1, the Black magic records 4112 for read and write, not running striped, just running as 4TB. Would be quicker if running as RAID 0. I guess around 6,000. So the external halves the speed R-1 speed (combined two 2 TB drives into 1 4TB drive). These speeds are faster than the speeds discussed here. However - thunderbolt reduces those speeds, because T3-4 is a bottleneck compared to available drive speeds. IMO there is not point talking about the speed of a drive itself unless its internal.

It's really about effective speeds. And Highpoint say effectively, no matter how fast the drive itself, its bottlenecked to an effective 2000 MB/s with T-3 (4 is the same for data).

We need a mac with Thunderbolt 5. Some PC notebooks ship with T-5 now. I'm not aware of external devices that do though. Such as one with a PCI slot.

It might be worth it for me, but compared to external devices with what sounds like over 3,000 and cheaply, the option of a PCI based RAID card doesn't seem sensible. Currently I have 2x 2 TB = 4 TB. I have WD Black 750 M.2 drives, I am not sure if I could mix those with 770 ones. The 750s in 2TB are not available I think.
2 TB 770s cost $US130 (not shopping around either). 4x2 = 8 TB @$520
2 TB Crucial cost $98 (not shopping around either). 4x2 = 8 TB @$392
4TB Crucial $238 (not shopping around either). 2x2 = 8 TB @$478. 16 TB @$ 956.
So such a setup would cost $250 for the external PCI T-3 device (T-4 is not quicker), and for 8 TB, I guess $520 = $770 if one already has a RAID card, or $630 for cheaper memory cards.
Apple would charge $2,400 for 8 TB. $1,200 for 4 TB.

I guess if Apple introduces Thunderbolt 5, then they won't expect to sell big internal drives. I wonder if the next Studio will have T-5, as it would achieve I presume 4,000 MB/s.

 

[dimme]

Any recommendations for a SSD to use for Time Machine backups.

 

[MarkC426]

Any recommendations for a SSD to use for Time Machine backups.

There are not many powered SSD’s available (at a reasonable cost/size).
I previously had a Samsung T7 for TM, but found problems with accessing backups (from the TM gui) with bus-powered drives, so changed to a powered LaCie D2 HDD.

 

[Daydog]

Recommend

WD Black SN7100 M.2 Awesome not had any problems at all for 4 months.​

 

[theorist9]

There are not many powered SSD’s available (at a reasonable cost/size).
I previously had a Samsung T7 for TM, but found problems with accessing backups (from the TM gui) with bus-powered drives, so changed to a powered LaCie D2 HDD.

Interesting--I'd also experienced repeated problems with TM after upgrading to external bus-powered SSD's.

For me, the optimum cost-no-object solution would be to have an 8 TB internal drive, and partition 4 GB for TM.

Since the TM partition would be on the same SSD as the primary, it wouldn't qualify as a backup. But then I've never used TM for backups. Its complexity makes it less robust, so my backups are on external SSDs using CCC. Thus I use TM purely for what I find it does best—to act as a versioning system to recover files I've deleted.

 

[theorist9]

There are not many powered SSD’s available (at a reasonable cost/size).

BTW, I've seen compact A/C-powered SSD enclosures for ≈$100 (from Acasis; and a less compact one from OWC), and AZ has 4 TB SSD's starting at $220, totalling ≈$320. That's not that much more than you'd pay for a 4 TB bus-powered SSD.

 

[dimme]

WD Black SN7100 M.2

What enclosure do you use?

 

[Daydog]

What enclosure do you use?

Yottamaster USB 4 M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure.No disconnects No overheating very reliable.

 

[pshufd]

Unfortunately, Mac Studio Thunderbolt 4 ports use PCIE 3.0 controllers which limits maximum bandwidth. It seems the best sequential read and write times depend on the external drive's PCIE controller, which is why there is so much variance in the throughput.

No way of knowing how your PCI Raid Card will perform until you test it and tell us. But if it beats the Maewo k1719, you will be our hero and we will try to emulate your solution.

I've been looking at doing a Windows build and the premium motherboards often have one PCIe 5.0 NVMe slot and three to four PCIe 4.0 slots. The 5.0 slots can get you 12K+ while the PCIe 4.0 slots can get you around 7K. One area where Macs are behind compared to PCs though your typical PC will only go up to 4.0. Some have 2xPCIe 5.0 NVMe slots.

 

[datagov63]

I've been looking at doing a Windows build and the premium motherboards often have one PCIe 5.0 NVMe slot and three to four PCIe 4.0 slots. The 5.0 slots can get you 12K+ while the PCIe 4.0 slots can get you around 7K. One area where Macs are behind compared to PCs though your typical PC will only go up to 4.0. Some have 2xPCIe 5.0 NVMe slots.

Maybe the M5 or M6 chip will support PCIe 5.0 controllers in TB5 external drives?

 

[pshufd]

Maybe the M5 or M6 chip will support PCIe 5.0 controllers in TB5 external drives?

I think that TB5 is the bottleneck, not the controllers used internally.

 

[whwang]

Earlier this year, I got 3 OWC 4M2 enclosures (TB4). So 12 PCIe SSD, in RAID0. They are connected to my iMacPro, which only supports TB3. The attached speed test was made on the iMacPro. Now my M3 Ultra Studio arrives, and soon I will move this array to the Studio. The speed hopefully will be even faster. We will know soon.

 

[Sharky II]

After buying the OWC enclosure, it's a breath of fresh air- finally something built 'properly' and the thermal pad actually touches both the NVMe drive and the enclosure. Using it with a WD Black 850X

After getting noisy fan versions from UGreen and Acasis, I won't be buying anything else from now on. The other two are 'well constructed' but the fans are noisy and always on and you end up needing to buy extra thermal pad to try to make sure the SSD is fully in contact. The Acasis is also slower for no particular reason - their support didn't bother responding to me. The UGreen (with the fan that doesn't turn off) is something I keep for the occasional video projects where I don't care about noise (I work in audio)

 

[theorist9]

After buying the OWC enclosure, it's a breath of fresh air- finally something built 'properly' and the thermal pad actually touches both the NVMe drive and the enclosure. Using it with a WD Black 850X

After getting noisy fan versions from UGreen and Acasis, I won't be buying anything else from now on. The other two are 'well constructed' but the fans are noisy and always on and you end up needing to buy extra thermal pad to try to make sure the SSD is fully in contact. The Acasis is also slower for no particular reason - their support didn't bother responding to me. The UGreen (with the fan that doesn't turn off) is something I keep for the occasional video projects where I don't care about noise (I work in audio)

I leery of all fan-ventilated enclosures, since I don't want any extra noise. For instance, Sonnet makes a dual-SSD enclosure+dock, which I'm sure is well-engineered, and would otherwise have worked well for me, yet I decided against it because of the fan.

My interchange with Sonnet:
Sonnet: "We've engineered the fan to be very quiet."
Me: "Can you guarantee I won't hear it?"
Sonnet: "No."

Thus I instead bought Sonnet's fanless Echo 11 dock, and combined it with fanless portable SSD's.

My preference is always that, instead of using a fan, they make the peripheral with a sufficiently large heat sink and interior volume that the SSD's heat can be dissipated fanlessly (when practical--so while they couldn't do this for, e.g., an external GPU, they can do this with external SSD's).

But the market appears to prefer small peripherals, so that design is harder to find.

 

[pshufd]

I leery of all fan-ventilated enclosures, since I don't want any extra noise. For instance, Sonnet makes a dual-SSD enclosure+dock, which I'm sure is well-engineered, and would otherwise have worked well for me, yet I decided against it because of the fan.

My interchange with Sonnet:
Sonnet: "We've engineered the fan to be very quiet."
Me: "Can you guarantee I won't hear it?"
Sonnet: "No."

Thus I instead bought Sonnet's fanless Echo 11 dock, and combined it with fanless portable SSD's.

My preference is always that, instead of using a fan, they make the peripheral with a sufficiently large heat sink and interior volume that the SSD's heat can be dissipated fanlessly (when practical--so while they couldn't do this for, e.g., an external GPU, they can do this with external SSD's).

But the market appears to prefer small peripherals, so that design is harder to find.

I think that the market for enclosures are small for laptops where space and weight are at a premium for travelers, and the big metal heatsinks for desktops where they are stationary. I love the 1M2, as a big aluminum brick that sits on my Mac Studio, quietly working away.