Which Portable SSD to take advantage of lightning port speed 40gps?

[redsquash]

I require a portable SSD for an imac 24 that can take full advantage of the lightning ports speed.

However I would also need this for 2013 imac, appreciating I wont get anywhere near maximum speeds.
I am looking at a Samsung T9 4TB, but that will not be able to transfer at the maximum speed the Imac can offer.


I am currently in the process of a catastrophic storage failure, so an SSD with a long warranty and lots of reliability is somewhat important.
Thanks

 

[chabig]

You're confusing Lightning (old iPhone connector) with Thunderbolt (high speed data transport protocol available on Macs), which is understandable. That said, there is no SSD that will transfer data at 40Gbps. Data throughput is limited by the speed of the SSD circuitry, not the port. The Samsung T9 SSD is a fast USB drive but it won't come close to saturating a Thunderbolt port.

In general, the faster you go, the more you pay. I don't think you'll notice the difference between a T9 and anything faster. But here is an article listing some of the fastest SSDs.

Fastest external SSD of 2024

We're on the hunt for the fastest external SSDs

www.techradar.com

 

[MarkC426]

Why not clone your drive and replace the failing component in the iMac....?
If it's an iMac, why does it need to be portable?

 

[Fishrrman]

Samsung t9 or Crucial x-9 will do the job.
On both.

 

[cthompson94]

what about something like this? OWC

I personally have one and it has been great so far. I don't think there are too many things on the market to fully utilize the speeds especially standard consumer SSDs.

edit: Adding that you can just buy the enclosure which is what I did and I use a Samsung 980 Pro M.2 (either that or 990 can't remember at the moment) in it 4TB. So far Heat has held up well especially with the whole enclosure being a heat sink.

Also I am pretty sure with the T9 the Macs don't take advantage of the USB 3.2 2x2 so if you want a portable SSD like those you are better off with at most the T7 as the T9 speeds you will not got.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

Similar to @cthompson94 I use an external TB4 enclosure from Acasis with a seperatly bought NVMe m.2 SSD for my cloned backups. The previously mentioned enclosure from OWC will be coming my way as soon as they're available again.

Edit: That OWC enclosure. Been waiting months for availability, called OWC from the EU, emailed OWC EU and US, no time frame. A dealer in my country even refunded my full payment as their projected supply dates kept getting extended by months without guarantee. Yesterday OWC US site showed 8 days, now it shows 26 days, not the first time and likely not the last time. An absolute shambles and sorry about the rant (just venting).

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I am currently in the process of a catastrophic storage failure, so an SSD with a long warranty and lots of reliability is somewhat important.

Warranty, fine.

Reliability - storage is only reliable until it's not. The way to protect against data failure, is backups.

 

[redsquash]

You're confusing Lightning (old iPhone connector) with Thunderbolt (high speed data transport protocol available on Macs), which is understandable. That said, there is no SSD that will transfer data at 40Gbps. Data throughput is limited by the speed of the SSD circuitry, not the port. The Samsung T9 SSD is a fast USB drive but it won't come close to saturating a Thunderbolt port.

In general, the faster you go, the more you pay. I don't think you'll notice the difference between a T9 and anything faster. But here is an article listing some of the fastest SSDs.

Fastest external SSD of 2024

We're on the hunt for the fastest external SSDs

www.techradar.com

Thanks chabig,
you opened a plethora of information to help me make a more informed choice.There were several aspects I was unaware o, or misinformed about.Each link within the link has made me more informed. 10/10 to you

 

[redsquash]

Warranty, fine.

Reliability - storage is only reliable until it's not. The way to protect against data failure, is backups.

In my mind toshiba and samsung seemed the more reliable suppliers of SSD products but you seem to be implying there is no difference?

 

[ewitte]

TB4 enclosures can get about 3GB/s (24Gbit). I think there is a USB4 one now that is slightly faster. A lot of time the chips in the enclosure only support PCIe 3.0 which is 32Gbit minus overhead.

 

[ewitte]

In my mind toshiba and samsung seemed the more reliable suppliers of SSD products but you seem to be implying there is no difference?

Any drive regardless of how often they TYPICALLY fail can fail at any moment including right out of the box.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

Your best but not cheapest option would be to go with NVMe SSD's with a 40 Gbps enclosure. This will be the most reliable tech and a huge improvement of any SATA QLC or TLC drives. In the Samsung lineup these usually have 5 year warranties vs 3 years. I've had internal SATA drives fail albeit they were one of the first generation SSD's.

Having said that, even quite expensive drives can fail. I've bought some 990 Pro's and as there was quite some information of their 980 and 990 Pro's potentially running into premature failure, the fix was to update the firmware to prevent (not reverse) further degradation.

 

[MacCheetah3]

what about something like this? OWC

I personally have one and it has been great so far. I don't think there are too many things on the market to fully utilize the speeds especially standard consumer SSDs.

edit: Adding that you can just buy the enclosure which is what I did and I use a Samsung 980 Pro M.2 (either that or 990 can't remember at the moment) in it 4TB. So far Heat has held up well especially with the whole enclosure being a heat sink.

Also I am pretty sure with the T9 the Macs don't take advantage of the USB 3.2 2x2 so if you want a portable SSD like those you are better off with at most the T7 as the T9 speeds you will not got.

Similar to @cthompson94 I use an external TB4 enclosure from Acasis with a seperatly bought NVMe m.2 SSD for my cloned backups. The previously mentioned enclosure from OWC will be coming my way as soon as they're available again.

Edit: That OWC enclosure. Been waiting months for availability, called OWC from the EU, emailed OWC EU and US, no time frame. A dealer in my country even refunded my full payment as their projected supply dates kept getting extended by months without guarantee. Yesterday OWC US site showed 8 days, now it shows 26 days, not the first time and likely not the last time. An absolute shambles and sorry about the rant (just venting).

The Express 1M2 is a good option. So far, it has (indeed) done well with thermals and has good performance.

There is a footnote:

Don’t Get Fooled​

Because we’re widely considered the Thunderbolt experts and work very closely with Intel, we know all the little details that others overlook. While specific OWC solutions are certified for full speed on Thunderbolt, we (and everyone else) are limited to half that speed with DIY enclosures. USB4 unleashes the Express 1M2 performance capabilities so you can build the drive of your dreams. Unlike budget brand pretenders that do not follow Intel specifications – and will leave you feeling fooled and disappointed in far lower speeds – the Express 1M2’s USB4 connectivity assures you of the maximum speed and reliability you count on and expect from every OWC solution.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

The Express 1M2 is a good option. So far, it has (indeed) done well with thermals and has good performance.

There is a footnote:

Yeah that's what I'm banking on IF it ever becomes available/ is in stock again. I'm happy with the Acasis for cloning as they take less than two minutes, in other words don't even have a chance to get warm. The 1m2 is planned to be used for TM, for its use not for speed but rather for the cooling (as even idling) the 990 Pro's do generate quite some heat.

 

[OWC_TAL]

More coming soon! Shipping end of the month.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

More coming soon! Shipping end of the month.

Thank you, but that remains to be seen.

 

[OWC_TAL]

Thank you, but that remains to be seen.

More coming at the end of the month is directly from my supply chain folks, so it should be pretty accurate. There will be units available in the US, EU and Asia. Apologies for the limited stock- each batch that has come in has sold out rather quickly. The next batch is the largest quantity yet. If you want, you are welcome to order ahead of time to secure your place in line. But also totally welcome to just wait till they are available.

I'll make a comment on the forum once they are

 

[Alpha Centauri]

More coming at the end of the month is directly from my supply chain folks, so it should be pretty accurate. There will be units available in the US, EU and Asia. Apologies for the limited stock- each batch that has come in has sold out rather quickly. The next batch is the largest quantity yet. If you want, you are welcome to order ahead of time to secure your place in line. But also totally welcome to just wait till they are available.

I'll make a comment on the forum once they are

Cheers. I looked at pre ordering from the US as the price+VAT+freight would be equal to buying from within the EU (the typical high product prices in the EU) but with open and ever changing restocking dates I rather wanted to hang onto my money in the meantime. Another consideration was the logistics, should warranty issue arise. I did also call a plethora of dealers in Germany from your web site just in case there was shelf stock from the first batch but many listed sellers are no longer OWC dealers, so it could be an idea to update that information.

The German dealer who I originally ordered with has the supply date of end April also, so this seems accurate now based of your comment here. Well, less than a month to go then hopefully.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Mac users will have to wait for a little more to achieve the max speed of nVME SSDs, which I got from 2021 (not very early, actually) on my PC.

 

[OWC_TAL]

Another consideration was the logistics, should warranty issue arise. I did also call a plethora of dealers in Germany from your web site just in case there was shelf stock from the first batch but many listed sellers are no longer OWC dealers, so it could be an idea to update that information.

I'm not an expert in EU sales. But this is what I was told by our head of EU:

"Our warehouse for Europe is located in Belgium. If you drop a message @ sales@owc.eu and tell them were you are located, they will help you to get OWC gear. Also for Europe we have dedicated support that can be reached on support@owc.eu"

Warranty/Support should happen within the EU. I'm not sure if the next batch will hit other dealers right away. But I know that there is a sizable chunk heading that direction. Hopefully someone can help you by email if you'd like.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

I'm not an expert in EU sales. But this is what I was told by our head of EU:

"Our warehouse for Europe is located in Belgium. If you drop a message @ sales@owc.eu and tell them were you are located, they will help you to get OWC gear. Also for Europe we have dedicated support that can be reached on support@owc.eu"

Warranty/Support should happen within the EU. I'm not sure if the next batch will hit other dealers right away. But I know that there is a sizable chunk heading that direction. Hopefully someone can help you by email if you'd like.

Cheers, I've been trying to gauge availability since mid December 2023. I had in fact been in touch with OWC US (emails and ph calls) but also Belgium (in February) and their indication was that they'll have stock in the EU mid to end March. Tbh it's been frustrating, as promised timelines slip into more and more months with no further explanation. As mentioned, a retailer in DE returned my complete order as supply wasn't potentially (and correctly) for yet another 2 months. They were also quite frustrated with the process, taking orders but not being able to supply the product to customers. As an example, the US OWC (pre) order page often shows 8 days for an entire week, then jumps to 28 days as recently seen. Perhaps you can now understand why I originally wrote what a shambles this has been for the last 3 1/2 months.

Appreciate you trying to help on here. Thank you.

Edit: Yeah, I learned recently that Samsung EU only provides support of their SSD's if they're purchased in that region so have become more attuned to warranty limitations.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

In my mind toshiba and samsung seemed the more reliable suppliers of SSD products but you seem to be implying there is no difference?

I'll take a "less reliable" SSD with a 5-year warranty, over a "more reliable" with a 2-year warranty.

Neither is LIKELY to fail. If it does, I just don't want to have to pay for it.

 

[cthompson94]

I'll take a "less reliable" SSD with a 5-year warranty, over a "more reliable" with a 2-year warranty.

Neither is LIKELY to fail. If it does, I just don't want to have to pay for it.

I am 50/50 on this take as some companies customer service is awful especially when it comes to warranties.

 

[masotime]

Check out this thread - https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/thunderbolt-3-m-2-nvme-ssd-enclosures.2027925/

 

[Alpha Centauri]

I am 50/50 on this take as some companies customer service is awful especially when it comes to warranties.

I do need to comment that I did have a positive experience with Samsung EU recently. Having bought three 990 Pro's and there being documented premature wear if not updated with the latest firmware, their support company in NL did act promptly. As I wasn't able to update the firmware myself, they generated an RMA and covered all shipment, updated for me and sent all back within two weeks. One of the NVMe's didn't pass a test of theirs and was also replaced with a new item.