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

Fastest NVME external enclosure with M1?

megastuff999 said:
I have a 2TB Silicon Power SSD (PCIe M.2 NVMe) in a SSK SHE-C325 enclosure and I can't even access it on my M1 mac (fine on Intel iMac)!

Seems plausible that there is an issue with either the enclosure or the SSD, compatibility wise that could be causing it?

Anyone have either that enclosure or Silicon Power SSD and confirm if either works with their M1?
Click to expand...
You are not alone. Check the 1-star reviews at Amazon. Several people even claim that the enclosure bricked several of their SSD drives. https://www.amazon.com/SSK-Aluminum...ll_reviews&filterByStar=one_star&pageNumber=1
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
  • Love
Reactions: norwaypianoman
Peter118 said:
@Heatboy

I own a Mac Mini M1 16GB/512GB. I use a Jeyi Thunderbolt 3 M.2 NVME enclosure with a 1TB Samsung EVO m.2 SSD. Speeds are constant and are Read:3100MB/s - Write: 2100MB/s. Temps around 50 degrees celcius.

I also considered the WD SN550 but my computer supplier told me that they are not compatible with the M1.
Click to expand...
Hi Peter118

which model of the evo did u use for this setup?
 
adonis3k said:
Hi guys,

I have 2 NVME I want to use as backup drives/extra storage, what is the fastest enclosure which work with an NVME?

I currently have the below but it only connects are 5gbps (in the USB socket, connecting in TB wont recognise), are there any which do the supposedly 10gig?

www.amazon.co.uk

FIDECO M.2 NVME SATA SSD Enclosure, PCIe USB 3.2, Gen 2, 10Gbps, SSD Enclosure Adapter for 2230 2242 2260 2280 M.2 NVME/SATA SSD of M-Key or M+B Key, Support UASP

FIDECO M.2 NVME External SSD Enclosure - Turn your SSD into an ultra-portable hard drive! Slim and exquisite size for on-the-go!
www.amazon.co.uk

Cheers
Click to expand...
OK Here's a setup that I have confirmed to produce 10gb bandwidth with respectable speeds on an M1 MBP 13

Enclosure:
www.amazon.com

ORICO M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure, USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) to NVMe PCI-E M.2 SSD Case Support UASP for NVMe SSD Size 2230/2242/2260/2280(up to 4TB) (M.2 NVMe)

Turn your NVME SSD into a portable external hard drive! ORICO USB 3.1 Type C Gen 2 10Gbps NVMe M.2 SSD enclosure based on PCI-E NVME with UASP. When connecting it to USB 3.1 port, you can get a read/write speed 900+ MB/s. Specifications: Model: ORICO M2PV-C3 Color: Black Material: Aluminum Alloy+...
www.amazon.com

SSD:
www.amazon.com

Western Digital 1TB WD Blue SN550 NVMe Internal SSD - Gen3 x4 PCIe 8Gb/s, M.2 2280, 3D NAND, Up to 2,400 MB/s - WDS100T2B0C, olid State Hard Drive

Put NVMe power at the heart of your PC for lightning-fast, ultra-responsive performance. The WD Blue SN550 NVMe SSD can deliver over 4 times the speed of our best SATA SSDs. Whether you're working, creating, casual gaming or processing large amounts of data, take advantage of this powerful intern...
www.amazon.com

Straightforward installation. If you're butterfingered, get your sister, mother, or a friend to help.

Some people complained about the thermal pad positioning, saying that there's a gap between the pad and the lid. Mine doesn't have that problem; heat is conducted to the metal lid just fine. If you're pretty anal about this and want a safety precaution, just crumple up / fold a tiny piece of paper or cigarette pack thick enough to be placed underneath the SSD. This paper will act as a springboard / suspension to push the SSD up against the lid, ensuring maximum thermal pad contact. As i said, you don't need to do this if your installation is good enough.

Feel free to use other SSDs with that enclosure. I'm sure there are faster ones out there.
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
  • Like
Reactions: tagumcity, DeepIn2U and wdhpgx
@write2daman you must of missed this massive thread where i tested a whole bunch of 10gps drives along with other people.

forums.macrumors.com

USB on M1 Macs isn't actually 10Gb/s? (Also definitely not USB4)

After quite a bit of testing, I have concluded that the USB bus on at least my Mac mini M1 does not actually support "USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10Gb/s)" as listed on the Tech Specs page. I have a Samsung T5 USB-C SSD. It supports "USB 3.1 Gen 2 10Gb/s" (Gawd, I hate USB 3.1+ naming conventions...†)...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com

In the end I went with this one which smokes all the others.

forums.macrumors.com

Fastest NVME external enclosure with M1?

ORICO Thunderbolt 3 SSD.
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
 
  • Like
Reactions: wdhpgx and dabotsonline
adonis3k said:
@write2daman you must of missed this massive thread where i tested a whole bunch of 10gps drives along with other people.

forums.macrumors.com

USB on M1 Macs isn't actually 10Gb/s? (Also definitely not USB4)

After quite a bit of testing, I have concluded that the USB bus on at least my Mac mini M1 does not actually support "USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10Gb/s)" as listed on the Tech Specs page. I have a Samsung T5 USB-C SSD. It supports "USB 3.1 Gen 2 10Gb/s" (Gawd, I hate USB 3.1+ naming conventions...†)...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com

In the end I went with this one which smokes all the others.

forums.macrumors.com

Fastest NVME external enclosure with M1?

ORICO Thunderbolt 3 SSD.
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
Click to expand...
i guess i did. thanks!
 
  • Like
Reactions: adonis3k
adonis3k said:
@write2daman you must of missed this massive thread where i tested a whole bunch of 10gps drives along with other people.

forums.macrumors.com

USB on M1 Macs isn't actually 10Gb/s? (Also definitely not USB4)

After quite a bit of testing, I have concluded that the USB bus on at least my Mac mini M1 does not actually support "USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10Gb/s)" as listed on the Tech Specs page. I have a Samsung T5 USB-C SSD. It supports "USB 3.1 Gen 2 10Gb/s" (Gawd, I hate USB 3.1+ naming conventions...†)...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com

In the end I went with this one which smokes all the others.

forums.macrumors.com

Fastest NVME external enclosure with M1?

ORICO Thunderbolt 3 SSD.
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
Click to expand...
Adonis, I clicked the link there and it led me to a search result page on Amazon. Not quite sure which one I should be looking at. I know it should have Thunderbolt 3 in the title but it's nowhere to be seen on my end.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DeepIn2U
write2daman said:
Adonis, I clicked the link there and it led me to a search result page on Amazon. Not quite sure which one I should be looking at. I know it should have Thunderbolt 3 in the title but it's nowhere to be seen on my end.
Click to expand...

This one

www.amazon.de

ORICO Thunderbolt 3 SSD Gehäuse Werkzeugfrei NVME Externes Gehäuse bis zu 40Gbit/s für Nur M.2 PCIe M-Key 2280 SSD, Intel Zertifiziert, Schwarz

ORICO Thunderbolt 3 SSD Gehäuse Werkzeugfrei NVME Externes Gehäuse bis zu 40Gbit/s für Nur M.2 PCIe M-Key 2280 SSD, Intel Zertifiziert, Schwarz
www.amazon.de

ORICO TCM2T3-G40-BK-BP
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
  • Like
Reactions: wdhpgx
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
norwaypianoman said:
I think I will just in the end go for the 2TB "Samsung X5" as an alternative. But wait until summer 2022, when a good update has come. The present version has:

- First-ever NVMe-based portable SSD from Samsung featuring Thunderbolt 3 technology
- Sequential read and write performance levels of up to 2,800MB/s and 2,300MB/s respectively

Amazon.com: Samsung X5 Portable SSD - 2TB - Thunderbolt 3 External SSD (MU-PB2T0B/AM) Gray/Red : Electronics
Click to expand...

Expensive that drive, mine setup cost alot less than that, but if you need the "extra" speed....

 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.

Attachments

  • SN550 in Orico 40gbps.jpg
    SN550 in Orico 40gbps.jpg
    227.6 KB · Views: 557
  • Like
Reactions: adonis3k
Just wanted to add another data point - I bought the 2TB P31 Gold NVMe during the Thanksgiving / BF sales and am happy to report that with the ORICO Thunderbolt enclosure mentioned above, I got very nice speeds on a 2020 27" iMac (Intel)

1638452687708.png

The only odd thing is that it tends to start out slow for writes (100-500MB/s) before suddenly ramping up. I'm not sure what's causing that behavior but it settles at high write speeds (2000MB/s) in around a minute.

I also did tests using AJA System Test Lite on a 64GB Test file - I'm unsure if it was a caching issue but I'm pretty satisfied at the moment.

1638452891897.png
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
adonis3k said:
@write2daman you must of missed this massive thread where i tested a whole bunch of 10gps drives along with other people.

forums.macrumors.com

USB on M1 Macs isn't actually 10Gb/s? (Also definitely not USB4)

After quite a bit of testing, I have concluded that the USB bus on at least my Mac mini M1 does not actually support "USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10Gb/s)" as listed on the Tech Specs page. I have a Samsung T5 USB-C SSD. It supports "USB 3.1 Gen 2 10Gb/s" (Gawd, I hate USB 3.1+ naming conventions...†)...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com

In the end I went with this one which smokes all the others.

forums.macrumors.com

Fastest NVME external enclosure with M1?

ORICO Thunderbolt 3 SSD.
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
Click to expand...
Will this work with Big Sur?
 
I am wondering about the new M processor Mac Mini, coming soon, maybe.

I have a 5,1 classic mac with a PCIe Raid card in it - a Highpoint SSD7101A-1 card - which uses NVME m.2 SSD drives. Its running raid 0, and the raid is run by the operating system. Although the card can run its raid itself.

My friend used a T3 Razor with a GPU in it - he upgraded to Macbook Pro Max. He sold the GPU for a profit - he's offered me his Razor X. I am thinking could the M mac mini's OS handle the Highpoint's RAID setup? If not, I suspect I could still get good performance even without RAID (I currently run two 2 TB drives)..

I don't have an M Mac Mini to test this out?
 
Melbourne Park said:
My friend used a T3 Razor with a GPU in it - he upgraded to Macbook Pro Max. He sold the GPU for a profit - he's offered me his Razor X. I am thinking could the M mac mini's OS handle the Highpoint's RAID setup? If not, I suspect I could still get good performance even without RAID (I currently run two 2 TB drives)..
Click to expand...
The software raid should continue to work. There is a possibility it might not work if the EFI or BIOS firmware is required to set up the PCIe bridges. The only computer with PCIe that I have that doesn't have EFI or BIOS is a Power Mac G5. I tried a HighPoint SSD7505 in there and can detect the PCIe bridges but not the NVMe and it disabled Ethernet for some reason. But the G5 is from 2005 (older than an M1 Mac) and the SSD7505 is PCIe gen 4 (newer than your SSD7101).

The hardware raid might work. There is a possibility it might not work if the EFI or BIOS firmware is required to set it up.

The HighPoint web page says it has universal compatibility (works with M1 Macs) so I don't think you need to worry about firmware. And it says it works in a Thunderbolt enclosure.
https://www.highpoint-tech.com/ssd/ssd710x-overview

In any case, Thunderbolt will limit the raid to Thunderbolt speed ≈2700 MB/s.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Melbourne Park
joevt said:
....

The HighPoint web page says it has universal compatibility (works with M1 Macs) so I don't think you need to worry about firmware. And it says it works in a Thunderbolt enclosure.
https://www.highpoint-tech.com/ssd/ssd710x-overview

In any case, Thunderbolt will limit the raid to Thunderbolt speed ≈2700 MB/s.
Click to expand...

Thanks very much for your assistance. Good to know.

For my financial tightness, I'd be happy to loose some speed of the drives, in order to avoid paying Apple huge amounts for their soldered to the motherboard disk capacity. Which is how I presume a Mac Mini Pro or Mac Mini Pro Max would be made. Unfortunately the same policy will be followed with RAM, and there is no way to get around than, which is not surprising, considering the unified memory.

In Australia, to go from an M1 Mac Mini with 256Gb drive, to get a 1 TB drive, costs $Au600 (in $US that is about $420 including sales taxes). To get 2 GB costs another $Au600. So to go from a 256 GB drive on a Mac Mini to a 2TB drive, costs $Au1,200, or in $US800 or so dollars inc tax. A 2 TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus costs here in tax, $Au300, or about $US200 to $210 inc tax. Its annoying that Apple charges 4 times the price for their disk capacity, when it is not upgradeable ...

Yes the newer Highpoints are quicker in the right environment. I was lucky to be able to buy a discounted 7101A-1. Strangely the sale seemed to be an unusual discount for Australian Amazon Prime. I now suspect the "5" stock level in Australia triggered a large discount being applied, it has not re-appeared, and I've been looking daily, for a fellow in the UK who wanted a lower price solution.

While I'd prefer an M1 Pro or M1 Pro Max with a PCI slot for replacement to my 5,1 CMP, I suspect I'll have to wait a long time for one and who knows how costly it might be ... I wish Apple would at least tell us what they're going to do. But even if Apple did, they'd never announce its price until it would be almost shipping ...

I think I will tell my friend to eBay his T3 dock ... if I need one I'll buy it when I need it. I would have taken it off him though, for my 2017 15.4" Macbook Pro but for the current outrageous cost of GPUs at the moment.
 
Last edited:
Pressure said:
ORICO Thunderbolt 3 SSD.
Click to expand...

From the most recent review on that link

Mac Mini TB3 2300MB/s write/2500 MB/s read, 7GB in 3.64 seconds, NVME.2 can be screwed easily. Housing is made of plastic, insufficient cooling, housing gets mega hot, I am several times back to the PC to check if it doesn't start burning. The case should turn off after 10 minutes which I find basically cool, because it is otherwise constantly warmer, even if the Mac is in standby. However, the hard drive was cooled, after 30 minutes the again was pretty hot (without any operation). However, the Oberhammer is the completely cracked mega bright green LED. Looks like strong glowing kryptonite, the entire room is shrouded in a glowing green light.
Click to expand...

Not liking the heat aspect. Looks nice like those old OWC sata drive enclosures of old.
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
DeepIn2U said:
From the most recent review on that link



Not liking the heat aspect. Looks nice like those old OWC sata drive enclosures of old.
Click to expand...
It was one of the better options 456 days ago when I originally posted that.

You can get better TB3 / TB4 / USB4 enclosures now but they are still expensive.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DeepIn2U
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back