OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual mini Raid 0 on SATA SSDs?

[InuNacho]

I'm looking at a nice 1TB external SSD as a mobile work drive between my 2018 Mac Mini and Samsung Galaxy Book Pro. Both devices have Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1 Gen 2 but reputable 1TB drives are around $150ish.
I have 2x 500GB Samsung 850 EVOs and I was thinking of using that as a cheap 1TB with the cost of the enclosure only $75 vs $150 for a dedicated 1TB.

Does anyone have any real world experience with this setup? My main real world applications would be 1GB+ Affinity Photo files and a shared Lightroom catalog between both computers.

 

[joevt]

I've used the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual mini Raid 0. It worked well, but I've switch to USB-NVMe enclosures which are smaller and slightly faster. USB NVMe enclosures can be had for like $30.
https://www.amazon.com/ORICO-Transparent-Enclosure-Converter-TCM2-Blue/dp/B08QTPFG95

NVMe drives are little bit more expensive, but you don't need a fast NVMe to do 10 Gbps (1000 MB/s).
https://www.amazon.com/Intel-660p-1-0TB-80mm-978350/dp/B07GCL6BR4

 

[InuNacho]

Thanks for your response! I already have the 500GB SSDs so I was trying my best to utilize them in a meaningful way.

 

[d.steve]

Yeah, I'm also using an OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual mini Raid 0 to put a couple of SATA SSDs to use. Works fine.

New drives are NVMe in a TB3 enclosure, though the enclosures are a lot pricier than USB3.1gen2.

 

[InuNacho]

Yeah, I'm also using an OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual mini Raid 0 to put a couple of SATA SSDs to use. Works fine.

New drives are NVMe in a TB3 enclosure, though the enclosures are a lot pricier than USB3.1gen2.

Whats your Read and Write like? I actually just yesterday found a very good priced NIB Samsung T7 1TB locally and the OWC is still in my shopping cart. Regardless I'm still going to order it and use it but I'm just curious what to expect.

I might retool its purpose as a small video editing drive on my Mini.

 

[d.steve]

The OWC isn't going to be a stellar performer given that it's adapting SATA SSDs to start with. I ran a quick black magic disk test and got 484MB/s read, 84MB/s write. Might as well use USB3.1gen2 than TB3 for adapting SATA, really.

EDIT: oops, I forgot it's USB3.1gen2 and not TB3 in the first place!

 

[InuNacho]

Whoa thats weird for write! My 850 EVOs by themselves hit 450 mark.

 

[d.steve]

They're ancient SATA SSDs that weren't the highest performers way back when I first got them. IIRC, they're 2x500GB Crucial M500 SSDs, some of the earliest not-crazy-expensive 500GB SSDs out there. No idea what your 850 EVOs would do in comparison, sorry.

 

[joevt]

745 MB/s read, 674.6 MB/s write, MacPro3,1 with ASM1142 (which is limited to 8 Gbps). The Mac mini can do full 9.7 Gbps (up to 1060 MB/s) but I don't think the dual mini can do more than 800 MB/s.