OWC Express enclosure

[jqc]

I bought the base Mac mini M4 and added a Samsung 990 Pro 4TB SSD in an OWC Express 1M2 TB4 enclosure. I copied my home folder over so effectively running off the external.

I noticed that while the Mini is asleep, the LED light on the enclosure is regularly blinking, which I assume means it is being accessed, which seems strange if the mini is asleep.

The enclosure is also pretty hot. I understand it's acting like a heat sink, but its hot enough to be uncomfortable, so I get concerned about running this thing 24/7, which it would essentially be doing.

Does anyone else have this enclosure and is notice the same things?

 

[Ray2]

I run a 1M2 with a WD SN850X which supposedly runs hotter than your Samsung. My home folder is on the internal, I never sleep my MBA, have sleep drives checked, my light blinks only when the drive is accessed or Spotlight is indexing. How long ago did you load the drive? Could be Spotlight (or TM) as it takes a while. As far as thermals, mine was slightly warm to the touch when I loaded it (1.6tb). Otherwise its cool. Note this is the second post I've seen about 990 Pro's running hot with the 1M2.

 

[waloshin]

I have a Kingston SC3000 4 TB it never goes over 40 degrees Celsius in that enclosure. My drive runs hotter than the 990 pro as well.

Download istat 7 and report back your externals temperature.

 

[pransu]

I own OWC Express 1M2 enclosure with Crucial 2TB SSD for my M2 Max Studio.
Yes, the OWC LED light is blinking even when my Studio is in sleep mode.
I also have Satechi enclosure with Samsung 990 1TB. Overall, Samsung runs hotter than Crucial even when it's idle. Past summer, it can runs up to over 50C easily. I tried to put it on OWC. It ran about 5 degree cooler.

I have been using this portable USB fan to cool off both enclosures. I'm pretty happy with it. It keeps both cooler at least 10 degree.

 

[waloshin]

I own OWC Express 1M2 enclosure with Crucial 2TB SSD for my M2 Max Studio.
Yes, the OWC LED light is blinking even when my Studio is in sleep mode.
I also have Satechi enclosure with Samsung 990 1TB. Overall, Samsung runs hotter than Crucial even when it's idle. Past summer, it can runs up to over 50C easily. I tried to put it on OWC. It ran about 5 degree cooler.

I have been using this portable USB fan to cool off both enclosures. I'm pretty happy with it. It keeps both cooler at least 10 degree.
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Interesting I would say for OP and 99% of other users that is overkill. The 1M2 was engineered very well with the whole top being an incredible heat sink meant to get warm.

50 degree is still quite low.

 

[Ifti]

Use mine with editing using FCPX - yes it does get hot but that shows the enclosure is doing what it's supposed to do. I'd rather that heat be drawn away from the SSD and to the heatsink after all.....

 

[jqc]

installed Macs Fan control and its showing the Samsung SSD at 42 degrees Celsius and internal SSD at 30.

 

[waloshin]

installed Macs Fan control and its showing the Samsung SSD at 42 degrees Celsius and internal SSD at 30.

That’s very low. On average for 99% of high performance ssds.

 

[EugW]

installed Macs Fan control and its showing the Samsung SSD at 42 degrees Celsius and internal SSD at 30.

Stop monitoring with Macs Fan Control and see if the blinking stops. It seems each software inquiry for the temperature counts as drive access, which can cause the status LED to blink. (This applies to various temperature monitoring applications.)

 

[jqc]

Stop monitoring with Macs Fan Control and see if the blinking stops. It seems each software inquiry for the temperature counts as drive access, which can cause the status LED to blink. (This applies to various temperature monitoring applications.)

I just installed fan control today. The blinking I observed after setting up last night and putting to sleep, and this morning when it was still asleep. Right now on 15 hours of time machine back up, so will observe again once this is all done.

 

[EugW]

Right now on 15 hours of time machine back up

Yikes! This is why I will be retiring my 4 TB hard drive Time Machine backup. Full backups take a very, very long time, and any access to the Time Machine drive can be excruciatingly slow.

I have a second SSD enclosure on order, and will put a 4 TB SSD in it when I see big sale on a good drive again.

 

[jqc]

Yikes! This is why I will be retiring my 4 TB hard drive Time Machine backup. Full backups take a very, very long time, and any access to the Time Machine drive can be excruciatingly slow.

I have a second SSD enclosure on order, and will put a 4 TB SSD in it when I see big sale on a good drive again.

yes, to be fair its backing up close to 6TB of data...onto a USB 3.0 WD Mybook

 

[jqc]

quick update. Time Machine back up done. Quit the Mac Fans control app, and put Mac mini to sleep for about half and hour. The OWC turned off and didn't blink - I didn't stare at it for the entire time but I didn't see it blink at all and it certainly wasn't blinking like it was the first time I put it to sleep. The enclosure also cooled right down to room temp. If this is how the enclosure and SSD will behave while the Mac is asleep I will be happy.

Otherwise I'd just shut down the Mac to be sure, but that #@$#$% power button placement is a big issue in my set up. Not impossible, but not easy, as it the Mac is mounted on a shelf under my desk.

 

[EugW]

quick update. Time Machine back up done. Quit the Mac Fans control app, and put Mac mini to sleep for about half and hour. The OWC turned on and didn't blink - I didn't stare at it for the entire time but I didn't see it blink at all and it certainly wasn't blinking like it was the first time I put it to sleep. The enclosure also cooled right down to room temp. If this is how the enclosure and SSD will behave while the Mac is asleep I will be happy.

Otherwise I'd just shut down the Mac to be sure, but that #@$#$% power button placement is a big issue in my set up. Not impossible, but not easy, as it the Mac is mounted on a shelf under my desk.

Glad to see it resolved.

installed Macs Fan control and its showing the Samsung SSD at 42 degrees Celsius and internal SSD at 30.

My Qwiizlab (aka Colorii) enclosure appears to behave similarly. When my M4 Mac mini is awake, the Samsung 990 Pro idles around 40-42C, depending upon ambient temp in the room (usually around 20C, give or take 1 degree). During this time, the drive+enclosure continue to draw around 5-5.5 W*. Active use of the drive brings it to 7.5-8 W*. When the Mac mini goes to sleep, the drive+enclosure will continue to draw around 1-1.5 W*, and it will cool down to about 27-29C. Obviously if the machine is completely off, the draw is 0 W, and it will cool down to room temperature.

*My USB 4 Watt meter appears only to display in 0.5 W increments, hence those numbers. I do have a more precise one, but it doesn't support USB 4 transfer speeds so I can't use it for testing the enclosure.

 

[ThailandToo]

I bought a Thunderbolt 4 enclosure from Acasis; it has a fan in it which makes an incredible difference. I had lost data in my external SSD drive before using USB. To me it has to have a fan to ensure it stays cool enough at these performance levels. Since I bought the Acasis TB enclosure with a 4TB Western Digital Black drive, had no issues and almost no heat. Much better experience. I would trust it to run a Mac mini or any desktop computer. For my MacBook Pro, I find it’s great but I only use it at the desk. If I am working away from a desk, I don’t dare connect it as seems like from USB that just a bump or accidental unplugging of drive leads to data loss. In addition, in Sequoia, I always get an error when trying to eject an external drive. Says the drive is in use even when activity monitor says it’s not being accessed with all apps closed. Only way to ensure I don’t lose data is to shutdown the computer. It’s a problem wouldn’t have with a Mac mini.

Good luck.

 

[EugW]

I bought a Thunderbolt 4 enclosure from Acasis; it has a fan in it which makes an incredible difference. I had lost data in my external SSD drive before using USB. To me it has to have a fan to ensure it stays cool enough at these performance levels. Since I bought the Acasis TB enclosure with a 4TB Western Digital Black drive, had no issues and almost no heat.

No, it doesn't have to have a fan. However, if you buy a fanless enclosure, it has to have a good design. A lot of fanless enclosures out there aren't properly designed for modern hot SSDs. However, some are.

As mentioned, my top-of-the-line DRAM-endowed Samsung 990 Pro SSD peaks under heavy load below 50C, and idles much, much lower, in a fanless enclosure. However, the enclosure looks like a big heatsink... because that's actually what it is, all 250 g of it.

 

[jqc]

As another update, I put the mini into sleep 3 times over the last few hours. no Mac fans, made sure "wake for network access" option is checked. The OWC did not generally stay "off".

The light would start blinking for short periods of time, and case heat didn't go materially like it did this morning, so it was definitely being accessed. Strange this happens during sleep.

 

[Che Castro]

I see everyone buying 40gbps enclosures for the m4 mini and I’m still using a 4TB 2.5 SSD external
All I use it for is a “Download” folder , torrents and such
Will I see any benefit getting a thunderbolt 4 enclosure and 4TB nvme gen 4 SSD ?

I have regular 3.5 drives for storage

 

[EugW]

I see everyone buying 40gbps enclosures for the m4 mini and I’m still using a 4TB 2.5 SSD external
All I use it for is a “Download” folder , torrents and such
Will I see any benefit getting a thunderbolt 4 enclosure and 4TB nvme gen 4 SSD ?

No.

I have regular 3.5 drives for storage

Well, the SSDs would be much, much faster than these, smaller, and quieter. I don't know if that matters to you.

For these reasons, I've pretty much moved away from 3.5" hard drives, although I've kept a few of my larger ones as secondary backup drives stored off-site.

 

[Che Castro]

No.


Well, the SSDs would be much, much faster than these, smaller, and quieter. I don't know if that matters to you.

For these reasons, I've pretty much moved away from 3.5" hard drives, although I've kept a few of my larger ones as secondary backup drives stored off-site.

I need 20tb for media storage
I don’t think I can get nvme that size or 2.5 SSD

 

[EugW]

I need 20tb for media storage
I don’t think I can get nvme that size or 2.5 SSD

You can buy a 100 TB SSD for only $40000. But yeah for consumer SSDs, to get 20 TB would mean buying at least 3 SSDs, because the max size is 8 TB. It should be noted that you can get 4-drive enclosures for SSDs that will work as either individual disks or RAID, but all that together would be prohibitively expensive, of course.

 

[drrich2]

I bought a Thunderbolt 4 enclosure from Acasis; it has a fan in it which makes an incredible difference.

Do you hear the fan? People have gotten used to largely silent Macs and some work in quiet environments and get annoyed easily by noise.

 

[Ifti]

Do you hear the fan? People have gotten used to largely silent Macs and some work in quiet environments and get annoyed easily by noise.

Fan noise can be heard here - it's noticeable, but not overly annoying IMO:

 

[ThailandToo]

Do you hear the fan? People have gotten used to largely silent Macs and some work in quiet environments and get annoyed easily by noise.

Well, I have to put it to my ear to tell it’s running by sound and fan breeze coming out of it. Unless one works in a silent room, it’s not going to bother them. It’s not like coil whine or anything like that. In my opinion, one would have to have bionic ears to hear it on the desk next to them without putting it to their ear. Cheers

Also, I don’t have that model. I have the 450TBU Pro is the name I think. Or 450Pro TBU? Something like that.

 

[tomkin583]

I bought the base Mac mini M4 and added a Samsung 990 Pro 4TB SSD in an OWC Express 1M2 TB4 enclosure. I copied my home folder over so effectively running off the external.

I noticed that while the Mini is asleep, the LED light on the enclosure is regularly blinking, which I assume means it is being accessed, which seems strange if the mini is asleep.

The enclosure is also pretty hot. I understand it's acting like a heat sink, but its hot enough to be uncomfortable, so I get concerned about running this thing 24/7, which it would essentially be doing.

Does anyone else have this enclosure and is notice the same things?

As someone who just ordered the same enclosure (have yet to receive it) and plans to use it in the same fashion--booting from the internal but moving my user folders to the external drive--I'm curious to see what the cause of the problem is in case I run into the same issue. I noticed in one of your posts, you checked the "wake for network access" option. Could this be the source of the blinking lights/activity on your external SSD? Do you have inbound or outbound connections from or to other computers on your network while your M4 is asleep?