Since I have the basic version of the M4 mac mini. 256 GB is already almost full. I am now considering purchasing an external storage media. This Corsair EX400U has USB4 and Thunderbolt 4 support, which my Mac has so that will be an advantage. But I would like to hear your opinion on Corsair in general in terms of speed, quality and reliability? I have long, good experiences with Samsung and Crucial, but neither of them offer USB4/Thunderbolt 4.
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Corsair EX400U as external SSD for M4 Mac mini?
- Thread starter acizko92
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Interesting option that I hadn't seen previously. It appears to use an integrated USB4/SSD controller from Phison rather than a TB3/USB4/TB4/TB5 bridge + NVMe SSD. There's probably some efficiency advantage to this but also means the enclosure is not reusable nor could the SSD be moved to another enclosure if the enclosure failed.
Performance seems good to very good depending on who you ask. One issue with the new/alternate controller is that it may be less proven (especially on the Mac) than more conventional SSD. I see relatively few reviews from Mac people and the ones that do have mentioned 'Eject disk before disconnecting' the issue when waking from sleep:
Discussion - Corsair EX400U USB4 external SSD disk speed test results
For anyone interested, I took delivery of the new Corsair EX400U external SSD today, which claims data speeds of up to 4,000MB/sec sequential read and up to 3,600MB/sec sequential write. I don't need oodles of space, so opted for the 1TB model. Using it on a MBP M4 Pro 14, I formatted it APFS...
forums.tomshardware.com
That issue is limited to that drive (and there are posts on this board that argue the issue is in macOS and has been there across multiple recent versions), but it sounds like that poster experiences it frequently when waking from sleep.
Also, the drive has a relatively low TeraBytes Written (TBW) rating of 250 TBW/TB capacity. Though it is unlikely you will hit that limit (e.g. 1000 TBW for the 4TB capacity model) in 3 years typical use, I take that as a proxy for quality. These days I look for a 5 year warranty and 600 TBW/TB (and ideally 1000+ but that's becoming rare).
Otherwise afraid I have no first hand experience with this drive (nor off-the-shelf alternatives) but it doesn't appear anyone else here does either...
Interesting option that I hadn't seen previously. It appears to use an integrated USB4/SSD controller from Phison rather than a TB3/USB4/TB4/TB5 bridge + NVMe SSD. There's probably some efficiency advantage to this but also means the enclosure is not reusable nor could the SSD be moved to another enclosure if the enclosure failed.
Performance seems good to very good depending on who you ask. One issue with the new/alternate controller is that it may be less proven (especially on the Mac) than more conventional SSD. I see relatively few reviews from Mac people and the ones that do have mentioned 'Eject disk before disconnecting' the issue when waking from sleep:
Discussion - Corsair EX400U USB4 external SSD disk speed test results
For anyone interested, I took delivery of the new Corsair EX400U external SSD today, which claims data speeds of up to 4,000MB/sec sequential read and up to 3,600MB/sec sequential write. I don't need oodles of space, so opted for the 1TB model. Using it on a MBP M4 Pro 14, I formatted it APFS...
That issue is limited to that drive (and there are posts on this board that argue the issue is in macOS and has been there across multiple recent versions), but it sounds like that poster experiences it frequently when waking from sleep.
Also, the drive has a relatively low TeraBytes Written (TBW) rating of 250 TBW/TB capacity. Though it is unlikely you will hit that limit (e.g. 1000 TBW for the 4TB capacity model) in 3 years typical use, I take that as a proxy for quality. These days I look for a 5 year warranty and 600 TBW/TB (and ideally 1000+ but that's becoming rare).
Otherwise afraid I have no first hand experience with this drive (nor off-the-shelf alternatives) but it doesn't appear anyone else here does either...
Thanks for your opinion. I have ordered a 1TB version and am waiting for the package to arrive so I can test it. I'm also going to format it to APFS. If the test goes as well as expected, this disk will be permanently placed next to the Mac, and used for heavy programs, games, videos etc..
I agree I think worth a try. Run it through some sanity tests when you first get it and of course maintain backups. Will be great if you can share back your experiences after a week or so.
