Best NVMe in USB-4 enclosure for creative professionals?

[greenmike]

After having found my perfect USB 4 enclosure, I've struggled so far to find an NVMe SSD that suits my needs as a creative professional. The NVMe market nowadays is so huge, with various model and revision, it's hard to make a choice / find the necessary information to make an educated decision and therefore I'd hugely appreciate some assistance in that matter.

I will mainly use the drive with my newly acquired Mac Mini M4 to run all my projects directly off it or even possibly as the main system drive, so it has to be snappy and fast within the limits of the interface' capabilities obviously.

I'm kind of looking for a good balance of reliability and performance and therefore appreciate good efficiency since I'll be using it in an external USB 4 enclosure and heat is a concern to me, particularly because that can cause reliability issues and probably also mess with the performance.

The enclosure I'll be using is the OWC Express 1M2.

Do I necessarily need DRAM to achieve good and consistent performance and possibly pick something like the SN770 or 990 Evo Plus?

Since I'm unsure about the latter, my choices have been so far the SN850X by Western Digital and Samsung's 990 Pro, both discounted currently during black friday.

If you have other information regarding the drives and further insight that would help me with my choice, please let me know.

 

[Ray2]

I use a 1M2 with the WD SN850X. I’m happy. Speeds consistent with what people show. Temps are fine. No fan so it’s quiet.

 

[greenmike]

I use a 1M2 with the WD SN850X. I’m happy. Speeds consistent with what people show. Temps are fine. No fan so it’s quiet.

What do the temps look like under stress?

 

[EugW]

Welcome to MacRumors!

When making the comparisons, just be aware that the power draw for the various drives are different for the different sizes. So, a 2 TB SN850X would usually have lower power consumption than a 4 TB SN850X. Also, the 4 TB SN850X is double-sided, whereas the 2 TB SN850X is single-sided, which may affect heat dissipation.

Anyhow, with my last set of tests with my Qwiizlab ES40UR, my 4 TB Samsung 990 Pro idled at 43C and after 15 minutes of continuous file transfers, it got to 46C. Note however, I put thermal pads on both sides of the SSD. With just the one recommended thermal pad, it would get up to 51C after 15 minutes of file transfers. Performance was good with no slowdowns even after extended writes.

I have since ordered a second identical enclosure, this time the Hagibis MC40, and I'm hoping for a Black Friday sale on the DRAM-less 4 TB Samsung 990 EVO Plus to put in it. We’ll see if the DRAM-less drives can keep up.

 

[waloshin]

OWC 1M2 with one or the hottest NVME drives on the market 50 degrees max.

Don’t buy cheap Chinese junk from Amazon buy OWC if you want reliability .

 

[EugW]

OWC 1M2 with one or the hottest NVME drives on the market 50 degrees max.

Don’t buy cheap Chinese junk from Amazon buy OWC if you want reliability .

Meh. The OWC uses the exact same chipset, just with Thunderbolt support turned off. OWC doesn’t make chipsets of course, as they are way, way too small a company.

 

[waloshin]

Meh. The OWC uses the exact same chipset, just with Thunderbolt support turned off. OWC doesn’t make chipsets of course, as they are way, way too small a company.

They make an enclosure with proper thermal operation u like the cheap Chinese junk that overheat ssds and overheat co trollers 🥱

 

[Ifti]

I have several 1M2 drives.
Two of them - both 8TB - came prepopulated with the OWC Aura drives.
One I purchased empty and populated with my own 4TB Samsung 990 Pro.
There is no speed or temp differences between then that I notice whatsoever. Reliable and fast.

Generally I stay away from WD SSDs as although performance etc is great, I find them to run hotter then others. I've always stuck with Samsung 980 or 990 Pro drives.

 

[greenmike]

I have several 1M2 drives.
Two of them - both 8TB - came prepopulated with the OWC Aura drives.
One I purchased empty and populated with my own 4TB Samsung 990 Pro.
There is no speed or temp differences between then that I notice whatsoever. Reliable and fast.

Generally I stay away from WD SSDs as although performance etc is great, I find them to run hotter then others. I've always stuck with Samsung 980 or 990 Pro drives.

The SN850X in 2TB runs significantly hotter than the 990 Pro? I can get the WD for 125 and the 990 for 145.

 

[greenmike]

Meh. The OWC uses the exact same chipset, just with Thunderbolt support turned off. OWC doesn’t make chipsets of course, as they are way, way too small a company.

Deactivating Thunderbolt will actually give you more bandwidth and I frankly don't care about backwards compatibility with old devices since my PC and rest of the hardware isn't older than 2021.

Most of these cheaper chinese brands aren't tested properly compared to the OWC and the way the heatsink of the OWC connects with the drive looks to be more thought-out and better.

Also, the price difference isn't worth going with cheaper ones, which also already run you close to 100 vs the OWC for 130.

It'd be a different story if they were significantly cheaper, like 45 bucks or something.

You're basically saving something like 30 buck over the OWC for an untested and likely inferior design.


YouTubers are also so uneducated and recommend to you crap like the Satechi USB 4 enclosure which has a flawed hear dissipation design and still costs 95 besides the advantage of its toolless design. If I want to have an external USB-4 drive, it needs to be reliable.

 

[greenmike]

OWC 1M2 with one or the hottest NVME drives on the market 50 degrees max.

Don’t buy cheap Chinese junk from Amazon buy OWC if you want reliability .

Which drive are you talking about? 🤔 The hottest on the market?

 

[EugW]

Deactivating Thunderbolt will actually give you more bandwidth and I frankly don't care about backwards compatibility with old devices since my PC and rest of the hardware isn't older than 2021.

There is nothing wrong with buying the OWC, but deactivating Thunderbolt will not provide more bandwidth. That statement is simply incorrect. USB 4 in USB 4 mode will run at full speed, regardless if the enclosure can support Thunderbolt 3 or not.

Most of these cheaper chinese brands aren't tested properly compared to the OWC and the way the heatsink of the OWC connects with the drive looks to be more thought-out and better.

Many yes, but some are excellent. ie. Don't buy a crappy Chinese enclosure. Buy a good Chinese one.

Also, the price difference isn't worth going with cheaper ones, which also already run you close to 100 vs the OWC for 130.

It'd be a different story if they were significantly cheaper, like 45 bucks or something.

That is also incorrect, depending upon where you purchase and how long you are willing to wait. For example, some of the good ones are available for as low as $50-55 during the current Black Friday sale. The drawback is that shipping takes a week or three, and returns are a pain or else just not worth it.

The one I bought was from Amazon Canada, and it was CA$112.50 (which is about US$80). After my experience with it, I just ordered another identical one from a different brand from AliExpress for less than US$50, but that flash sale is now over as they are sold out.

You're basically saving something like 30 buck over the OWC for an untested and likely inferior design.

The one I have been using is designed as a giant heatsink like the OWC as well. It's been excellent with zero disconnects, and temps under load (Samsung 990 Pro) of well under 50C.

The main differences are:

1) The LED status light is located on the same end as the USB port. That means if you are running a desktop with the USB cable hidden at the back, you can't see the LED status light. In contrast, the OWC has the status light on the opposite end, so you can still see the light if the USB cable is hidden at the back.
2) It's not colour matched to the Mac mini. It's space grey or something similar. The OWC is silver aluminum, an excellent match to the Mac mini and the Apple Studio Display.
3) The OWC is a bit bigger. The weight of the OWC is 260 g and the weight of the one I'm using is 250 g, so it's not as if they've skimped on the metal. I'm not sure which one has more surface area in the fins, but if I were to guess I'd say the OWC has a bit more surface area.

Anyhow, if you want the OWC, that's great, and I was considering that one too when it was on sale a couple of weeks ago (although not now at current prices in Canada), because it indeed is a very good design. However, it is incorrect to paint all the other enclosures out there with the same brush. There are lots of poorly designed ones out there to be sure, but there also some excellent designs out there too, some with very decent pricing.

 

[greenmike]

There is nothing wrong with buying the OWC, but deactivating Thunderbolt will not provide more bandwidth. That statement is simply incorrect. USB 4 in USB 4 mode will run at full speed, regardless if the enclosure can support Thunderbolt 3 or not.


Many yes, but some are excellent. ie. Don't buy a crappy Chinese enclosure. Buy a good Chinese one.


That is also incorrect, depending upon where you purchase and how long you are willing to wait. For example, some of the good ones are available for as low as $50-55 during the current Black Friday sale. The drawback is that shipping takes a week or three, and returns are a pain or else just not worth it.

The one I bought was from Amazon Canada, and it was CA$112.50 (which is about US$80). After my experience with it, I just ordered another identical one from a different brand from AliExpress for less than US$50, but that flash sale is now over as they are sold out.


The one I have been using is designed as a giant heatsink like the OWC as well. It's been excellent with zero disconnects, and temps under load (Samsung 990 Pro) of well under 50C.

The main differences are:

1) The LED status light is located on the same end as the USB port. That means if you are running a desktop with the USB cable hidden at the back, you can't see the LED status light. In contrast, the OWC has the status light on the opposite end, so you can still see the light if the USB cable is hidden at the back.
2) It's not colour matched to the Mac mini. It's space grey or something similar. The OWC is silver aluminum, an excellent match to the Mac mini and the Apple Studio Display.
3) The OWC is a bit bigger. The weight of the OWC is 260 g and the weight of the one I'm using is 250 g, so it's not as if they've skimped on the metal. I'm not sure which one has more surface area in the fins, but if I were to guess I'd say the OWC has a bit more surface area.

Anyhow, if you want the OWC, that's great, and I was considering that one too when it was on sale a couple of weeks ago (although not now at current prices in Canada), because it indeed is a very good design. However, it is incorrect to paint all the other enclosures out there with the same brush. There are lots of poorly designed ones out there to be sure, but there also some excellent designs out there too, some with very decent pricing.

One of the deciding factors has also been firmware updates which the OWC provides and many other cases don't and they seem obbe reputable but I generally found the way they designed the heatsink attachment superior to the other ones because the majority of the heatsink is a single block above the NVMe instead of a disconnect front and back design which we know the backside won't do much good unless it's directly making contact with the NVMe.

I used to build PSUs myself for diy microphone preamps so I always chose a single big aluminum block over anything.

But yeah the question for me more is the NVMe itself. Does the SN850X also potentially struggle with that data loss issue?

I'd love to see how they both compare thermally and which one is the better drive for creative apps and for Pro Tools while keeping the temps in check.

From the benchmarks, both seem to trade blows and the SN850X seems to perform really well in direction storage benchmarks for games which means it's the better drive because that requires a lot of data streaming of lots of files in a short amount of time?

There's a PC Mark stress test this called drive consistency test in which the 990 Pro is vastly superior and I have no idea what the test does.

A YouTuber, who I generally have trust issues with because he has a tendency of making mistakes during his reviewing process (I remember his CPU cooler test in which the biggest / better ones were performing worse than the smaller ones to his surprise, because he forgot to remove a plastic part on the socket lever which the bigger heatsinks were touching lol and never addressed it afterwards even though plenty of people commented on it), ran the rest compared to lots of other current drives:

 

[EugW]

I'd love to see how they both compare thermally and which one is the better drive for creative apps and for Pro Tools while keeping the temps in check.

From the benchmarks, both seem to trade blows and the SN850X seems to perform really well in direction storage benchmarks for games which means it's the better drive because that requires a lot of data streaming of lots of files in a short amount of time?

There's a PC Mark stress test this called drive consistency test in which the 990 Pro is vastly superior and I have no idea what the test does.

I'm not convinced gaming benchmarks are that useful of a surrogate for you, but then again I wouldn't know since I don't use ProTools etc. Anyhow, I personally was swayed just by the fact that the 990 Pro ran a little cooler in some testing and because the 4 TB 990 Pro is single-sided, whereas the 4 TB SN850X is double-sided. Somebody with a bunch of different NVMe SSD enclosures stated that his double-sided SN850X didn't actually fit in most of his enclosures. That said, double-sided SSDs do fit in my enclosure and apparently the OWC 1M2 as well.

 

[nikitadyatko]

When it comes to choosing an SSD, I usually stick to Samsung. At this point, they're all fast, so my primary concern is reliability/longevity, and Samsung has a good track record. I don't want to loose my data. Important specs to look at: TBW and the number of warranty years.

 

[greenmike]

When it comes to choosing an SSD, I usually stick to Samsung. At this point, they're all fast, so my primary concern is reliability/longevity, and Samsung has a good track record. I don't want to loose my data. Important specs to look at: TBW and the number of warranty years.

Well yeah I've always stuck with Samsung because of my experience with them from 2016 to 2019 but they've had lots of messy press themselves, including the whole firmware debacle.

I went for the 990 Pro when I got NVMes for my desktop computer and am happy with them but it wasn't an educated but rather old behavior choice.

I just wanna know what each drive's advantages are and maybe the 850 is a better professional drive overall. You become a familiarity animal very fast even though there's no reason for it.

Any idea whether the whole data loss issue from SanDisk also applies to western digital drives such as the SN850X?

Btw, Samsung's portable lineup is getting so many sales from YouTubers promoting the T7 and T9 series, with Samsung's general good public image which you and I also have of them subconsciously still, and general recommendation to professional creators, the reality is much different.

Lots of their T5 and T7 drives fail and have random disconnects. I also got one in 2022, thinking it's the best professional choice due to marketing. So it's not all what it seems like and actually Crucial drives, especially the X9 and X10 Pro series being a much more reliable choice for creators.

On top of that, in the T7 and even in the new T9, they use the old NAND from their 870 Evo sata drives from 2019 just with a new controller and that reality really put me off from buying ready to go external drives by Samsung on top of their failure rate and general unreliability long term. Which means their regular NVMe drives in an enclosure are vastly superior to their own external drive lineup, both in reliability and efficiency and buying their overpriced T7 and T9 drives is the most unprofessional purchasing decision you can do.

Very old NAND technology on top of unreliability is a No-Go for me. I buy a drive to work with it not to just causally store data.

My T7 rugged with 2TB is dead weight now because I can't trust it and the times I use it for carrying data over somewhere is rare.

I'm not convinced gaming benchmarks are that useful of a surrogate for you, but then again I wouldn't know since I don't use ProTools etc. Anyhow, I personally was swayed just by the fact that the 990 Pro ran a little cooler in some testing and because the 4 TB 990 Pro is single-sided, whereas the 4 TB SN850X is double-sided. Somebody with a bunch of different NVMe SSD enclosures stated that his double-sided SN850X didn't actually fit in most of his enclosures. That said, double-sided SSDs do fit in my enclosure and apparently the OWC 1M2 as well.

I'll be using the 2 TB anyways so that's gonna be single sided?

 

[EugW]

I just wanna know what each drive's advantages are and maybe the 850 is a better professional drive overall. You become a familiarity animal very fast even though there's no reason for it.

If I had to guess, I would say you'd probably be hard pressed to tell the difference most of the time.

Lots of their T5 and T7 drives fail and have random disconnects. I also got one in 2022, thinking it's the best professional choice due to marketing. So it's not all what it seems like and actually Crucial drives, especially the X9 and X10 Pro series being a much more reliable choice for creators.

I could be wrong on this, but I've gotten the impression over the years that the drive disconnect issue is not limited specific brands of USB drives, but to USB 2 and USB 3 in general. At least for me, it seems to happen on USB 2/3 more (various brands) than it did for me on FireWire and now on USB 4 / Thunderbolt. Mind you I currently only have one USB 4 drive so that is limited experience, but so far it has never randomly disconnected. I hope to get a second USB 4 drive in a couple of weeks.

I'll be using the 2 TB anyways so that's gonna be single sided?

Yes, the 2 TB SN850X is single sided. The 4 TB is double sided.

 

[greenmike]

If I had to guess, I would say you'd probably be hard pressed to tell the difference most of the time.


I could be wrong on this, but I've gotten the impression over the years that the drive disconnect issue is not limited specific brands of USB drives, but to USB 2 and USB 3 in general. At least for me, it seems to happen on USB 2/3 more (various brands) than it did for me on FireWire and now on USB 4 / Thunderbolt. Mind you I currently only have one USB 4 drive so that is limited experience, but so far it has never randomly disconnected. I hope to get a second USB 4 drive in a couple of weeks.


Yes, the 2 TB SN850X is single sided. The 4 TB is double sided.

Yeah, USB drives "can" have it happen, since the platform wasn't originally designed to be a system drive replacement the way Mac users and modern Laptop users use these drives nowadays, however, it happens a lot with Samsung T7 and T9 drives and on top of that, when they disconnect, you can lose all your data on it. With the Crucial I got temporarily till the OWC arrived, I had 0 disconnects.

So yeah the T7 and T9 drives use old NAND from 2019, cost a lot and are really unreliable to be used professionally. Worst false advertising ever I've experienced with a storage product. You're better off with a random 3.2 NVMe enclosure and an internal drive in terms of reliability.

Since USB-4 drives run via PCI-Express, it should just be the same as running a drive internally, just the cable and cooling being it's only possible weak link. Although cooling can be equally the same problem even on motherboards inside PCs depending on the brand and the heatsink you're using. OWC's heatsink is probably 4 times better than the ones on my Z790 Proart motherboard in which I run 2 X 990 Pros and 2 x 970 Evo plus drives and they can get hot.

 

[brokenarrow1976]

I read some online reports of MacOS having issues with Samsung 900 series NVME drives TRIM function, I gathered that it is not outright failure but bit more wear over time if TRIM is enabled in MacOS (other brand drive no issues), bit of bummer as TRIM is supposed to protect from wear, so is this issues resolved with latest MacOS + latest Samsung firmware.

 

[greenmike]

I read some online reports of MacOS having issues with Samsung 900 series NVME drives TRIM function, I gathered that it is not outright failure but bit more wear over time if TRIM is enabled in MacOS (other brand drive no issues), bit of bummer as TRIM is supposed to protect from wear, so is this issues resolved with latest MacOS + latest Samsung firmware.

Really? So I guess I'll have to go with western digital....

You got a link to an article?

 

[definitive]

If you need a NVME, then just get the Samsung 990 Pro. It's one of the top performing everyday drives. Otherwise look for some commercial quality drives. Those will cost more.

 

[brokenarrow1976]

Really? So I guess I'll have to go with western digital....

You got a link to an article?

SSD hall of fame needs new entries · Issue #192 · dortania/bugtracker

Guide Anti-Hackintosh Buyers Guide (link) After our discovery of a severe bug in the TRIM implementation of practically all Samsung SSDs we spent time investigating which SSDs are affected by all k...

github.com

https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/comments/usz5dm/is_trim_broken_on_samsung_nvme_980_pro_256_gb_on

https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/comments/ti6zk5/is_samsung_980_pro_250gb_error_free_supported

https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/comments/s4pal7/samsung_evo_980_pro_250gb_support_on_big_sur

There are few other posts in ha?kint*sh forum, not sure if allowed to post here.

Having said that I am not sure the issue exist in 990 pro drives, or if the issue occurs when using the nvme in a enclosure.

 

[brokenarrow1976]

One reason I liked the 990 Pro, it is the only nvme which is 4tb single sided, most other 4tbs are double sided so more heat (ok in PC but maybe not in enclosure), so am really hoping the TRIM issue is resolved or doesnt not effect the 990 Pro, expert folks please chime in.

 

[greenmike]

Has anyone gotten to try out let's say a Samsung T7 vs a USB4 drive when it comes to working with a DAW such as Pro Tools or Logic Pro, basically running sessions from the drive? Does it make a difference?