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OWC's New 1M2 80G Portable SSD Brings 6,000MB/s Speeds to Thunderbolt 5 Macs
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Meanwhile, the latest non-Pro iPhone 16 has the same USB 2.0 speeds as the iPhone 1 that was relased in 2007:
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Will iPhone 14 be USB 2.0? Probably, since Cook is mediocre.
Apple computers have had USB 3.0 since mid-2012. That is 10 years ago. Despite that, Tim Cook, being the mediocre beancounter MBA suit that he is, has still not done anything to upgrade the connectivity on the latest iPhones. The latest iPhones use the same USB 2.0 connectivity that shipped with...
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On Amazon, I got a M.2 SSD to USB adapter so you can just plug in your own NVMe for $35. I like that there is no enclosure so swapping drives is easy and I can use a fan to keep it cool if I need it. For the price of the OWC enclosure of $219, I can get a brand name 4 TB drive for that price. The price of these docks and enclosures is like robbery.
I'd want to see a comparison between this and the Acasis TB501 Pro. I DO know that one big difference is the Acasis has a fan and this one does not, so thermal performance comparison is what I am looking for.
Just ordered the enclosure from a UK dealer for OWC (MegaMac). It was £119.99 including 20% tax and delivery, which is about $US135, much less than the US list price. Whatever could be behind the price difference?
Edit: duh. Just realised it’s the previous model.
Edit: duh. Just realised it’s the previous model.
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The issue with Thunderbolt vs. USB is that a Thunderbolt Drive enclosure requires a Thunderbolt controller in the enclosure (pricy) - but thunderbolt will extend the PCIe lanes from inside the Mac to the drive itself (PCIe connected NVMe directly on the SOC PCIe bus).
An USB drive has an USB controller inside (cheaper), but that will cause the Macs SOC to translate all IO to USB, and the USB controller in the drive to translate it back to Storage IOs on the Connected SATA/NVMe SSD drive. These translations and the USB overhead is whats causing USB drives to be noticably more inconsistent and with much higher average latency than Thunderbolt drives - EVEN though the NVMe inserted is the same.
An USB drive has an USB controller inside (cheaper), but that will cause the Macs SOC to translate all IO to USB, and the USB controller in the drive to translate it back to Storage IOs on the Connected SATA/NVMe SSD drive. These translations and the USB overhead is whats causing USB drives to be noticably more inconsistent and with much higher average latency than Thunderbolt drives - EVEN though the NVMe inserted is the same.
I recently bought the OWC Envoy Thunderbolt 5 drive. Since I've had my Mac Studio (two different versions) I've had a terrible time opening hard drive files. USB, lightning, Thunderbolt 3... all of them take FOREVER for the file lists to show up and I'm not sure why. Even on my old iMac, folders opened instantaneously. The OWC thunderbolt 5 is literally the first drive I've had where the folders open and I can see the files quickly.
FYI- the files are all large RAW image files, but i don't know what they're so slow to open. Anyway, I can fully recommended OWC's Thunderbolt drives and will be buying them in the largest capacity possible.
FYI- the files are all large RAW image files, but i don't know what they're so slow to open. Anyway, I can fully recommended OWC's Thunderbolt drives and will be buying them in the largest capacity possible.
For most people, a USB-C drive is fine, and has better compatibility across machines. Few need a thunderbolt enclosure.
For those that do, though, there sure are some nice options!
Even a good 7200RPM HDD is plenty good for the kind of things most people would need a lot of storage for... granted they're poor options if you also need portability and don't like noise.
The real question is how many iPhone Airs can you hold on it as a stand
No idea, but if you put tin foil over it and throw a small blob of brisket with your favorite dry rub on it, you'll get the tenderest and most flavorful roast you've ever had.
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Reminds me of Lacie's limited edition "Blade Runner" drive from ~10 years ago.
4TB was huge back then (and so was the drive!)
4TB was huge back then (and so was the drive!)
Uhhhh, maybe I'm just naive, but I think someone would have to threaten to break your legs if you don't buy that enclosure before it qualifies as extortion.
I agree but recent macOS versions dropped the setting of the sleeping time of disks, or handle them differently, and spinning disks stop quickly (very quickly) after they have been accessed; starting spinning again takes a lot of time, in addition to adding unnecessary stress on the motor. Something like Amphetamine can help but it’s not perfect (the drive never spins down until the Mac sleeps). 😞
Amazing. Definitely more than I need. I find that "only" 1000 MB/s is more than sufficient for me to work seamlessly with the photos and videos on my media drive. I'm hoping that as faster and faster drives hit the market, that will drive down the prices for slower drives so I can finally weed out the last HDD I still use for backup.
the word what is missing from the title and the post is "peak". as in "peak speed".
most - if not all - flash chips cannot sustain data transfer for a long time. flash chips are generally a lot slower than DDR cache, and once you fill it with a long sequential xfer, the speed will be throttled by the actual write speed of the flash chips. high performance enterprise SSDs can have a PCIe switch inside to distribute the write/read load onto multiple independent flash banks, allowing the sustained throughput to saturate the PCIex4 interface. but those come at a steep price.
most - if not all - flash chips cannot sustain data transfer for a long time. flash chips are generally a lot slower than DDR cache, and once you fill it with a long sequential xfer, the speed will be throttled by the actual write speed of the flash chips. high performance enterprise SSDs can have a PCIe switch inside to distribute the write/read load onto multiple independent flash banks, allowing the sustained throughput to saturate the PCIex4 interface. but those come at a steep price.