Most cost effective enclosure for best performance for Samsung 990 Pro NVMe M.2?

[Feek]

I know there are various discussions about SSDs and enclosures but my question is quite simple.

What's the most cost effective (ie least expensive) enclosure that will give me the best available performance for a Samsung 990 Pro NVMe M.2 2Tb SSD?

I'm using a generic USB3.2 GEN2 Type-C enclosure (10Gbps) which is giving me around 950-980 MB/s but it would be nice to take advantage of the potential faster speed of the SSD. I'm using a Mac Studio Ultra with TB4 ports.

Ideally something readily available in the UK.

Thanks.

 

[ovbacon]

I know there are various discussions about SSDs and enclosures but my question is quite simple.

What's the most cost effective (ie cheapest) enclosure that will give me the best available performance for a Samsung 990 Pro NVMe M.2 2Tb SSD?

I'm using a generic USB3.2 GEN2 Type-C enclosure (10Gbps) which is giving me around 950-980 MB/s but it would be nice to take advantage of the potential faster speed of the SSD. I'm using a Mac Studio with TB4 ports.

Ideally something readily available in the UK.

Thanks.

What do you think is cheap?

The speeds you are now getting seem pretty fine and I'm going to guess that any enclose that is 40Gbps is not going to be as cheap as you'd like and if you can find one cheap I would question its quality.

 

[Feek]

What do you think is cheap?

I'm not defining cheap. Perhaps I should have said 'least expensive' (so I will edit my post). I know it's going to cost a lot more than a 10Gbps enclosure and that's fine.

 

[ovbacon]

I love my Acasis and I hear good things about Orico. But as you said there are multiple threads on external ssd/enclosures so I would just look through them and see what people are saying.

 

[Feek]

But as you said there are multiple threads on external ssd/enclosures so I would just look through them and see what people are saying.

I have looked but the random ones I've picked seem to be largely talking about enclosures running multiple devices, discussing RAID etc. That's far more than I want, I just want a single, cost effective enclosure that works with a single SSD.

 

[Feek]

I love my Acasis

Is this the one you've got?

ACASIS 40Gbps M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure,PCIe to USB-C External Hard Drive Enclosure,Support Size 2280 M&B+M-Key,Compatible with Thunderbolt 3/4,USB4/3.2/3.1/3.0,Type-C Aluminum SSD Case Up to 2700MB/s

M.2 NVMeSSD Enclosure

www.amazon.co.uk

 

[ovbacon]

Is this the one you've got?

ACASIS 40Gbps M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure,PCIe to USB-C External Hard Drive Enclosure,Support Size 2280 M&B+M-Key,Compatible with Thunderbolt 3/4,USB4/3.2/3.1/3.0,Type-C Aluminum SSD Case Up to 2700MB/s

M.2 NVMeSSD Enclosure

www.amazon.co.uk

Yup, that's the one. I use it with a 2 TB Samsung 980 Pro attached to a mini M2

 

[ovbacon]

I use it for my photo/video libraries and Photoshop/Illustrator files and it has no problem keeping up. I don't even notice any difference between files on the external ssd or the internal. Now I do not know if I would have the same experience with a external ssd that would "only" get 900-1000 MB/s as I have not tried it with a 10Gbps enclosure.

 

[Feek]

Yup, that's the one. I use it with a 2 TB Samsung 980 Pro attached to a mini M2

Perfect, thanks. That’s exactly the info I needed to confirm I’m going to get something that will work.

 

[Feek]

Yup, that's the one. I use it with a 2 TB Samsung 980 Pro attached to a mini M2

Arrived and fitted. That's better.

Exactly what I wanted @ovbacon, thank you. It got quite hot on an initial copy of about 1.25Tb but that's a once off and at around fifteen minutes was super speedy.

 

[ovbacon]

Arrived and fitted. That's better.

Exactly what I wanted @ovbacon, thank you. It got quite hot on an initial copy of about 1.25Tb but that's a once off and at around fifteen minutes was super speedy.

Just make sure the thermalpad(s) touches the case so that the heat can dissipate. You want the ssd to be pretty snug in there. The case should get warm since samsung ssds tend to run pretty hot.

 

[Feek]

Just make sure the thermalpad(s) touches the case so that the heat can dissipate.

Aye, it does. I used the thicker of the two pads and it's definitely touching the case - It's a very snug fit.

 

[Feek]

During a large copy, it gets proper hot (and yes, I do have the thermal pad making contact with both the drive and the case). At idle, it feels quite warm.

So at 01:30 this morning, I ordered this heatsink. It said Sunday delivery when I ordered but it turned up at 14:00 today. Superb service by Amazon.

I've fixed it to the enclosure nice and tightly with just a couple of cable ties, I don't have any thermal pad between them.

My Studio is mounted under my desk and the drive is plugged into the back and sitting on some stuff stacked up under my desk. It's not visible.

The difference is incredible, that extra heatsink means it's barely warm to the touch at idle and during a large copy, it warms up by three or four degrees, nothing more. I have an IR thermometer gun which is what I used to check the temperature.

It's not pretty but as I can't see it, I don't care. For the sake of less than six quid, this was well worth it.

 

[Surenmunoo]

During a large copy, it gets proper hot (and yes, I do have the thermal pad making contact with both the drive and the case). At idle, it feels quite warm.

So at 01:30 this morning, I ordered this heatsink. It said Sunday delivery when I ordered but it turned up at 14:00 today. Superb service by Amazon.

I've fixed it to the enclosure nice and tightly with just a couple of cable ties, I don't have any thermal pad between them.

My Studio is mounted under my desk and the drive is plugged into the back and sitting on some stuff stacked up under my desk. It's not visible.

The difference is incredible, that extra heatsink means it's barely warm to the touch at idle and during a large copy, it warms up by three or four degrees, nothing more. I have an IR thermometer gun which is what I used to check the temperature.

It's not pretty but as I can't see it, I don't care. For the sake of less than six quid, this was well worth it.

I ordered some extra thermal pads and copper heatsink after reading this

 

[Mac Hammer Fan]

I put the Acasis TBU401E enclosure upon my Mac Studio and it doesn't run hot anymore. However I can't recommend it as external boot drive, it needs several minutes to boot (even with a fast Samsung 980 Pro) and there are stability issues for some time after login.

 

[Surenmunoo]

I put the Acasis TBU401E enclosure upon my Mac Studio and it doesn't run hot anymore. However I can't recommend it as external boot drive, it needs several minutes to boot (even with a fast Samsung 980 Pro) and there are stability issues for some time after login.

I boot Sonoma and Ventura from 2 x Samsung 990 Pro with no issues with the same TBU401 enclosures. I do get a slight stall when it goes into desktop for about 10 seconds for all apps to load but 10 seconds or less is very acceptable. I get 2800mbps R/W speeds with them on the M2 Max Studio

 

[Mac Hammer Fan]

I boot Sonoma and Ventura from 2 x Samsung 990 Pro with no issues with the same TBU401 enclosures. I do get a slight stall when it goes into desktop for about 10 seconds for all apps to load but 10 seconds or less is very acceptable. I get 2800mbps R/W speeds with them on the M2 Max Studio

I changed the thunderbolt port and the problem is solved.

 

[Feek]

I boot Sonoma and Ventura from 2 x Samsung 990 Pro with no issues

Despite everything everyone has said, you're still concerned about using the internal SSD?

 

[Mac Hammer Fan]

I don't want to use beta OS on my internal SSD. Too risky.

 

[Surenmunoo]

Despite everything everyone has said, you're still concerned about using the internal SSD?

I use the internal SSD frequently actually but because of all the videos I have stored in those external SSD's it is just easier to boot from them and work from within it to do my editing. The speed difference is not noticeable at all when transferring.

 

[crowe-t]

During a large copy, it gets proper hot (and yes, I do have the thermal pad making contact with both the drive and the case). At idle, it feels quite warm.

So at 01:30 this morning, I ordered this heatsink. It said Sunday delivery when I ordered but it turned up at 14:00 today. Superb service by Amazon.

I've fixed it to the enclosure nice and tightly with just a couple of cable ties, I don't have any thermal pad between them.

My Studio is mounted under my desk and the drive is plugged into the back and sitting on some stuff stacked up under my desk. It's not visible.

The difference is incredible, that extra heatsink means it's barely warm to the touch at idle and during a large copy, it warms up by three or four degrees, nothing more. I have an IR thermometer gun which is what I used to check the temperature.

It's not pretty but as I can't see it, I don't care. For the sake of less than six quid, this was well worth it.

This is a great idea attaching the heatsink.

 

[Mac Hammer Fan]

The Samsung 980 Pro needs a firmware update to boot better in an Acasis thunderbolt enclosure under Sonoma. It doesn't work well at this moment. Boot time more than 3 minutes and beachballs after login when opening an app.

 

[Basic75]

Yup, that's the one. I use it with a 2 TB Samsung 980 Pro attached to a mini M2

Can you confirm that this is an actual Thunderbolt enclosure? The description says "compatible with Thunderbolt", but not that it is actual Thunderbolt. I'd expect it to show up under Thunderbolt devices in System Information.app, and the drive under NVMExpress. Is that the case?

 

[ovbacon]

Can you confirm that this is an actual Thunderbolt enclosure? The description says "compatible with Thunderbolt", but not that it is actual Thunderbolt. I'd expect it to show up under Thunderbolt devices in System Information.app, and the drive under NVMExpress. Is that the case?

It shows up both under NVMExpress and Thunderbolt.

 

[Golf7-R]

I got the 980 Pro and the same enclosure. Getting the same speeds when connected directly to my MacBook Pro. But only ~500mb/s when connected via the Studio Display.
Shouldn't this be higher as well since the Studio Display has 3.2 Gen2 usb-c ports (up to 10Gb/s)?