It doesn't matter to me that no drives are fast enough to saturate TB5, but it's nice to have a fast enclosure so the SSD is the bottleneck instead of the enclosure/interface for future-proofing.
Which TB enclosure are you using?
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OWC's Thunderbolt 5 External SSD for Latest Macs is Impressively Fast
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Which TB enclosure are you using?
You would think at the RRP price, an extra bit of build cost for a TB5 port so you could replace the cable would be negligible.
Hopefully that means thunderbolt four device prices will start dropping.
Jeez, I could use something like that but $$$$$. I just bought an OWC Express 1M2 ($$$) and put a 4Tb Samsung 990 SSD in it. Wow it's fast, this enclosure is advertised as USB4 rather than Thunderbolt 4. It reaches close to the peak advertised speeds, over 3000Mb/sec but this SSD is rated at over 7000Mb/sec.
There is serious action in all-SSD storage RAID arrays lately, like the Flashstor 16 or the Terramaster F8-SSD. OWC has some new all-SSD RAID units that are not available barebones, so that makes them particularly expensive at high capacities, since you can't BYO storage SSDs. Unfortunately even one SSD can deliver data faster than Firewire or even 10Gb networking can move it, let alone an high speed RAID. Current consumer grade SSDs are not even close to the durability or speed of expensive Enterprise-grade U.2 SSDs, but those will eventually be available at desktop level, inexpensively.
There is serious action in all-SSD storage RAID arrays lately, like the Flashstor 16 or the Terramaster F8-SSD. OWC has some new all-SSD RAID units that are not available barebones, so that makes them particularly expensive at high capacities, since you can't BYO storage SSDs. Unfortunately even one SSD can deliver data faster than Firewire or even 10Gb networking can move it, let alone an high speed RAID. Current consumer grade SSDs are not even close to the durability or speed of expensive Enterprise-grade U.2 SSDs, but those will eventually be available at desktop level, inexpensively.
Satechi's USB4 enclosure is about $100 and gets 3GB/sec. It's the best performing enclosure that I have found. Better than any other single drive enclosure.
$300 is a little steep for the enclosure but its the first one that supports TB5 $300 is not that steep.
I've been thinking about the TERRAMASTER D8 Hybrid... 10 GB/sec thunderbolt, Upto 4 24TB SATA drives, plus upto 4 8TB M.2 NVMe drives. Seems like I'd be able to add my old drives, and new fast NVMe drives, all in one box.
But I've not been following storage close enough to know why this may be a bad option, other than not actually being TB4/5 speed... but then it's also only US$299, instead of the thousands you're talking about.
I like to see a real benchmark for this one On MBP M4 Pro with Thunderbolt 5. OWC specifies over 6000 mb/s twice of the typical Thunderbolt 4. Yes it is not impressive if you have a computer with the proper M.2 interface capable of about 7000 mb/s BUT this is external!
I was planning to use this one a lower spec’d MBP M4 Pro. Too bad the thunderbolt 5mis only available with the M4 Pro. I Plan to upgrade the MBP sooner and reuse the external storage. I use it for massive photos and videos to be always available.
I was planning to use this one a lower spec’d MBP M4 Pro. Too bad the thunderbolt 5mis only available with the M4 Pro. I Plan to upgrade the MBP sooner and reuse the external storage. I use it for massive photos and videos to be always available.
OWC_Tal from reddit who is an engineer at OWC:
Envoy Ultra is the first TB5 SSD to be certified. It is the only TB5 certified SSD I'm aware of as well. It should be shipping in the next days to customers. https://www.owc.com/solutions/envoy-ultra
Due to power constraints, a 0GB bus powered solution cannot be certified/made by any company. We of course will have higher capacity solutions available in the future but those are still a ways out for any manufacturer including us.
Another great option is the Express 1m2 if you are looking for something DIY or a bit less expensive: https://www.owc.com/solutions/express-1m2 It offers incredible speeds and really great thermals.
Obviously not an official statement from OWC
Envoy Ultra is the first TB5 SSD to be certified. It is the only TB5 certified SSD I'm aware of as well. It should be shipping in the next days to customers. https://www.owc.com/solutions/envoy-ultra
Due to power constraints, a 0GB bus powered solution cannot be certified/made by any company. We of course will have higher capacity solutions available in the future but those are still a ways out for any manufacturer including us.
Another great option is the Express 1m2 if you are looking for something DIY or a bit less expensive: https://www.owc.com/solutions/express-1m2 It offers incredible speeds and really great thermals.
Obviously not an official statement from OWC
BlackMagic Design Multidock is a great option. Rackmountable, no fans, no power button, no drivers. Just add SATA SSD's.
Sorry to rain on your parade, but this is hardly faster than PCIe 4.0. Apple and its accessory-makers have a LOOOOOONG way to go...
My research led me to the same conclusion. For mission critical applications 4tb and up, I wouldn’t chance anything but a full OWC solution or similar.
Lots of drives and chipsets are not playing well together and heat is a major issue still.
i was about to write a strong rebuttal, but then I did some research and I see that 4TB drives in 2014 (10 years ago) still only cost $150.00. Granted, they were slower 7200rpm drives, but $600 today is indeed quite a high price comparatively.
The article isn't very specific, it does suggest that the drive can handle the 6GB/second transfer speeds. Is that for reading *and* for writing, though? Maybe it has a large enough buffer than it can handle it?
It's not really that expensive though.
$150 - 2TB SSD that isn't a turd
$120 - TB4 NVMe enclosure that (possibly) isn't a turd (that isn't even TB5)
So that's $270. Now they actually integrated / test / warranty on top of that which is not something you get with either of the two things above. And importantly it contains your data which is worth something no? Not worth taking a $130 saving IMHO.
$600 is however too expensive.
Good for you.
Other people, on the other hand, won’t have to pay the extortion prices apple asks for ssd upgrades and still get the speed required for certain workflows. Those people may find this product sensibly priced, and are the intended target market for this drive.