late 2013 IMac with Catalina NVMe USB issue

[Triops1954]

Managed to get Catalina on my new old stick 21.5inch iMac. Very slow to boot. Thought about a solid state hard drive but my mate told me to forget getting inside it and instead boot off a NVMe stick in an enclosure attached to a rear usb port. Which he’s done before.

The stick is a 128gb m.2 sata 3 6Gbs
The enclosure is a “USB 3.2 Gen 2.M.2 NVMe SSD “enclosure.

I get under System Information a reference to RTL9210 which I think is the enclosure, this shows up whether the memory card is incompatible it or not.

On my iMac the enclosure lights up but fails to appear in Disc Utility in showing all devices .

I then tried on an early I7 pc running W10. It saw the drive but I couldn’t set up a partition or format.

I am wondering if the memory is incompatible with my computers, especially the IMac.

Should I send it all back for a refund?

Advice appreciated… thanks

Apologies as I posted in another subsection in error, will try to delete .

 

[retta283]

You say your stick is a SATA drive, but the enclosure is NVMe. I wonder if the enclosure does not support dual protocol and cannot properly access the drive. Curious that Windows will see it. If you look at Disk Management in Windows, does it show up there? What size does it report? What's the model of the SSD itself?

The enclosure will likely light up even without a drive inserted because it's still receiving power over the USB.

 

[Triops1954]

The only thing Windows reports is the realtec enclosure at Realtec 9210 which shows up whether the memory is slotted inside it or not. There is no report indicating 128gb or ability to set partitions or format. The IMac does the same thing. Recognised the enclosure but not the brand new memory inside it.

I guess I need someone who has put the OS on a USB plug in like this to tell me it will or won’t work. Then I can return the parts and start again. I used to repair and configure PCs in the MSdos/ Windows days but never played with Mac s hence my ignorance of this topic and these machines.

 

[retta283]

Most likely you have an SSD enclosure that does not support SATA SSDs. Not all of them do, unfortunately. If you have any other kit that supports an m.2 SATA SSD you could confirm this by just connecting the drive and seeing if it is recognized. There is definitely some clash of hardware at play.

I have run macOS going back as far as at least OS X Mountain Lion and as new as macOS Ventura on USB enclosures on a late 2012 iMac (very similar to what you have) without issue, so there is definitely no hard block in place against this. In my case I was using a cheap Sabrent 2.5" SATA enclosure and a 2.5" SATA SSD. I do not know if the old USB 3.0 interface on these iMacs will benefit from the newer form factor of m.2 or not.

 

[Triops1954]

I am going to return the card. My mate is sending me 2 sticks of memory so I’ll play with the caddy again. If that fails the caddy can go back as well. Yes I think it’s whether the memory and or the enclosure is compatible with late 2013 USB IMac format. Thanks for your reply. If my experiment fails I’ll try and chase down the kit you mention and have a go with that.

 

[Brian33]

The stick is a 128gb m.2 sata 3 6Gbs
The enclosure is a “USB 3.2 Gen 2.M.2 NVMe SSD “enclosure.

Assuming you have a SATA SSD "stick" and NVMe-only enclosure, as you say...

As @retta283 says above, it's likely that the SATA M.2 "stick" is not supported by the M.2 enclosure you have. M.2 SATA is not the same thing as M.2 NVMe. My understanding is that the drive (stick) can only be one or the other.

Many (I think most) M.2 enclosures do not work with SATA sticks, only with NVMe sticks. There are some that work with both, though. This one, which I have, advertises SATA and NVMe support: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08RVC6F9Y?th=1
It's been a good enclosure, but I've only used an NVMe stick in it.

So you probably need to get either an NVMe stick, OR a different enclosure that supports M.2 SATA. Hope that helps.

 

[Triops1954]

Assuming you have a SATA SSD "stick" and NVMe-only enclosure, as you say...

As @retta283 says above, it's likely that the SATA M.2 "stick" is not supported by the M.2 enclosure you have. M.2 SATA is not the same thing as M.2 NVMe. My understanding is that the drive (stick) can only be one or the other.

Many (I think most) M.2 enclosures do not work with SATA sticks, only with NVMe sticks. There are some that work with both, though. This one, which I have, advertises SATA and NVMe support: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08RVC6F9Y?th=1
It's been a good enclosure, but I've only used an NVMe stick in it.

So you probably need to get either an NVMe stick, OR a different enclosure that supports M.2 SATA. Hope that helps.

SABRENT M.2 NVMe Enclosure, Tool Free NVMe and SATA | 10Gbps External SSD Enclosure, Reusable Thermal Pad, Compatible with 2230 2242 2260 2280 (EC-SNVE) ex Amazon did the trick ex Amazon for Late 2013 iMac now running Sequoia! With the old Catalina intact on the hard drive. Thanks to a great Steampunk TV video.​