NVME enclosure failing on me...
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JemTheWire
macrumors 6502
That's one of those things that I should have remembered to ask but yes overheating could cause disconnects. NVMe drives typically start throttling at 70-85 deg C. If it gets above that it could just turn itself off. Or at least pause in a way that the system decides it is offline anyway.
USB3/10Gbps provides a natural throttle.
I don't know the Orico but it sounds like the enclosure isn't dissipating the heat from the drive -- perhaps the drive's thermal pad isn't pressing tightly enough against the enclosure walls? Or maybe it just isn't good at dissipating the drive's heat....enclosures with fans do keep drives cooler but of course that could mean fan noise. Or course pointing an outside fan right at the enclosure might do the same thing but guessing that is suboptimal for you.
I've managed to get temperature under control, I believe. I guess I was making some mistakes myself: I had the encasing cover open (I thought it would be cooler, but I guess it's the other way round). I also put a 2nd thermal pad under the nvme (only had one on top, under the mini thermal sink).
It's now about 50º Celsius, and it will go up to 62-64ºC under load. Is this still too hot? I'm also at a warm location, about 25ºC inside the room.
But, it did disconnect tonight, when I put my mini to sleep. Maybe I'll just turn off the monitor next time, to see what happens.
It's now about 50º Celsius, and it will go up to 62-64ºC under load. Is this still too hot? I'm also at a warm location, about 25ºC inside the room.
But, it did disconnect tonight, when I put my mini to sleep. Maybe I'll just turn off the monitor next time, to see what happens.
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Cooler is always better with these things but I'd say you're now fine if it stays under 65 deg C even under full load.
You may be on to a different issue with similar symptoms. If it can go days to weeks without disconnects as long as you don't put the system to sleep then I'd say your main issue was heat which you've solved. Then the sleep-related disconnects likely a separate issue and more likely on Apple's side.
In which case you might try Sequoia 15.6 if you haven't already upgraded. There was a report that it solved the headphone output disappearing after sleep. Completely different subsystems but its repair indicates that Apple was working on bugs of that nature as late as 15.5->15.6.
MacCheetah3
macrumors 68030
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I’ve stacked thermal pads in some enclosures. It’s not as optimal, but any physical contact (with a thermal conductive material) is better than none as air doesn’t have a superb conductivity — hence the explanation to the previous.
Those temps seem much more reasonable. FYI, you should be able to see the drive’s temperature threshold (“Temperature Limit Min/Max”) in DriveDx.
Here are mine:
The TM drive runs a little warmer, most likely because the enclosure doesn’t have quite as much surface area as the OWC 1M2. Room temp varies between ~21ºC and 27ºC.
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Fishrrman
macrumors Nehalem
I'm no expert on nvme drives and enclosures.
I only have one -- a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure (don't even remember who made it) that accepts an nvme blade SSD.
But it's worth noting that the very first thing I noticed when using it is... it gets HOT under load. It also seems to "throttle back" as it heats up -- runs at slower speeds.
From other posts I've read here, nvme v. overheating seems to be a common problem. Something about this form factor just causes many (most?) blade drives to run "on the hot side".
Another issue may be the way the drive enclosures (or, the controller boards IN the enclosures) handle "sleep" on the Mac. Or, it could be the way Apple's thunderbolt (and USB) controllers deal with the presence of connected devices when initiating sleep AND later when "waking back up".
Perhaps the controller in the Mac just "shuts down" the tbolt/USB bus, without making note of "what's there". And then, when waking up, either the Mac doesn't have "a recollection" of what was there, or doesn't send out some kind of "query" to see what actually IS there. And perhaps some devices, upon the "livening up" of the bus, don't automatically resend (to the Mac) an alert to re-mount them.
Aside:
Who here remembers "SCSI Probe"?
We could use something like that for tbolt AND for USB...
As may have already been mentioned, this may have something to do with the particular controller chip in the enclosure. How many here remember back with firewire, when the "Oxford 911" (I think that was it) was the preferred chip to have in external firewire enclosures...?
Again, no expert.
Just some thoughts...
I only have one -- a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure (don't even remember who made it) that accepts an nvme blade SSD.
But it's worth noting that the very first thing I noticed when using it is... it gets HOT under load. It also seems to "throttle back" as it heats up -- runs at slower speeds.
From other posts I've read here, nvme v. overheating seems to be a common problem. Something about this form factor just causes many (most?) blade drives to run "on the hot side".
Another issue may be the way the drive enclosures (or, the controller boards IN the enclosures) handle "sleep" on the Mac. Or, it could be the way Apple's thunderbolt (and USB) controllers deal with the presence of connected devices when initiating sleep AND later when "waking back up".
Perhaps the controller in the Mac just "shuts down" the tbolt/USB bus, without making note of "what's there". And then, when waking up, either the Mac doesn't have "a recollection" of what was there, or doesn't send out some kind of "query" to see what actually IS there. And perhaps some devices, upon the "livening up" of the bus, don't automatically resend (to the Mac) an alert to re-mount them.
Aside:
Who here remembers "SCSI Probe"?
We could use something like that for tbolt AND for USB...
As may have already been mentioned, this may have something to do with the particular controller chip in the enclosure. How many here remember back with firewire, when the "Oxford 911" (I think that was it) was the preferred chip to have in external firewire enclosures...?
Again, no expert.
Just some thoughts...
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MacCheetah3
macrumors 68030
You’re not wrong. I’ve had several enclosures over the years. The latest, I’ve opted for USB4. In fact, the 1M2 and the knockoff both use a variant of the Asmedia 246 chipset.
ASMedia Technology Inc.
ASMedia Technology was founded in 2004 and went public in 2012 (stock code: 5269.TW). Headquarter is located in Taiwan. ASMedia specializes in high-speed interface technologies with strong expertise in high-speed SERDES in house development. Company strives for continual innovation and the...
As far as (USB) controller/bridge options, the household name brands are Asmedia, JMicron, Realtek, and Intel.
List of fastest USB4 ASM2464PD, JHL9480, and JHL7440 SSD enclosures (Feb 2025)
[2025/02/21 – Additional TB5 JHL9480 models] IntroductionFastest external M.2 SSD enclosuresThunderbolt 5 JHL9480 enclosuresUSB4 ASM2464PD SSD enclosuresRetail modelsODM modelsThunderbolt 3 J…
dancharblog.wordpress.com
Most definitely, they run hot. They are high performance devices, nonetheless, another problem is the physical size. Just like the heatsink, the physical size of the thing you’re trying to cool matters. Even if the heatsink itself is massive, the heat dissipation from a 1 cm squared die is not great. In other words, it’s a lot of concentrated heat to move through a tiny space. Also think about it like this, HDD are warm to the touch, and they’re substantially larger, even the 2.5-inch form factor. Tradeoffs.
P.S. The vast majority of heat is generated by the SSD’s controller chip, not the NAND modules.