Thunderbolt 3 M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosures

nadja75 · Mar 29, 2024

Good evening everyone, I'm a new user of this fantastic forum, and I've been the owner of a 256Gb MAC Air M2 for a few months.
Today I purchased yet another hdd case with the ASMedia ASM2464 chip on board, I'll include the link at the end of the post. As soon as I turned it on I proceeded to update the firmware to version AS_USB4_240129_85_00_00.bin.
Since the MPTool utility does not have backup functions for the old firmware and the configuration, I proceeded to take some screenshots, where the configuration is shown in a hex table.
Originally I had the firmware version AS_USB4_231005_85_02_03, which I believe is just a variant, perhaps not even real, of the firmware that can be found online AS_USB4_231005_85_00_00 which is mounted on the JEYI models
As expected immediately after the update, the case status LED began to not work properly.
For example, if connected to the TB4 port, it does not light up blue and remains only green as if it were connected to a USB 3.0 port.
During reading/writing, this does not flash as it should and remains lit steadily.
By modifying the ini file in the [PCIE_USB_Config] parameter - two_leds_enable=1 I managed to obtain the flashing during the reading phase but when connected to a USB 3.0 port, while if I connect it to a TB4 port, the LED turns on for a moment to green and then turns off.
Do you have any idea how to proceed to resolve the situation.
Thank you.

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whodiini · Apr 15, 2024

I purchased a Blueendless ASM2462 based enclosure and received it today. Mechanically, it is mediocre. There is a very beefy aluminum extruded enclosure and a plastic NVMe holder that slides into the aluminum. It includes a thermal strip, which has to slide to make contact with the enclosure, so contact is not very good. It also includes a fan that can be turned on or off. The worse part is that the USB socket is recessed and only accepts cables that are the small oval size. I have many cables that are rectangular and they dont fit. It came with the c18 firmware probably the same as the Jeyi one mentioned earlier in these posts. I inserted a SN850X and a few strange issues arose. System report shows a link width of x2 and a link speed of 16.0GT/s This seems strange as I thought each link was 4GT/s. This is with a Studio Max M1. Running BlackMagic, I get the same speed as when I had the NVMe in a Acasis TB3 enclosure. I thought there might be a difference. Edit - I now connected it directly to the Studio Max. It is about 7% faster than the Intel chips. I added a 2mm thermal pad instead of using the included 1mm pad. The fan switch is labeled in reverse. On means off and off means on. I had to use a dremel and open up the area around the recessed USB socket to fit a standard rectangular plug. So mediocre construction, but I wanted something cheap to test the ASM2464 chip.

Even though it is cheap ~ $40, I would rather get the OWC 1M2 if I wanted something of quality to put a 4TB SN850X $$.

joevt · Apr 17, 2024

whodiini said:
I purchased a Blueendless ASM2462 based enclosure and received it today. Mechanically, it is mediocre. There is a very beefy aluminum extruded enclosure and a plastic NVMe holder that slides into the aluminum. It includes a thermal strip, which has to slide to make contact with the enclosure, so contact is not very good. It also includes a fan that can be turned on or off. The worse part is that the USB socket is recessed and only accepts cables that are the small oval size. I have many cables that are rectangular and they dont fit. It came with the c18 firmware probably the same as the Jeyi one mentioned earlier in these posts. I inserted a SN850X and a few strange issues arose. System report shows a link width of x2 and a link speed of 16.0GT/s This seems strange as I thought each link was 4GT/s. This is with a Studio Max M1. Running BlackMagic, I get the same speed as when I had the NVMe in a Acasis TB3 enclosure. I thought there might be a difference. Edit - I now connected it directly to the Studio Max. It is about 7% faster than the Intel chips. I added a 2mm thermal pad instead of using the included 1mm pad. The fan switch is labeled in reverse. On means off and off means on. I had to use a dremel and open up the area around the recessed USB socket to fit a standard rectangular plug. So mediocre construction, but I wanted something cheap to test the ASM2464 chip.

You are looking at the PCI tab in System Information.app? 16 GT/s is the PCIe gen 4 link width per lane. A Thunderbolt enclosure using an Intel Thunderbolt controller would have PCIe gen 3 link max (8 GT/s). Normally there should be 4 PCIe lanes.

I don't know of anything that would report 4GT/s. PCIe gen 2 is 5 GT/s and gen 1 is 2.5 GT/s.

In the Thunderbolt tab in System Information.app, I think it should report "Speed: Up to 40 Gbps x1" and "Current Link Width: 0x2" which means 20 Gbps per lane (2 Thunderbolt/USB4 lanes).

whodiini · Apr 24, 2024

joevt said:
You are looking at the PCI tab in System Information.app? 16 GT/s is the PCIe gen 4 link width per lane. A Thunderbolt enclosure using an Intel Thunderbolt controller would have PCIe gen 3 link max (8 GT/s). Normally there should be 4 PCIe lanes.

I don't know of anything that would report 4GT/s. PCIe gen 2 is 5 GT/s and gen 1 is 2.5 GT/s.

In the Thunderbolt tab in System Information.app, I think it should report "Speed: Up to 40 Gbps x1" and "Current Link Width: 0x2" which means 20 Gbps per lane (2 Thunderbolt/USB4 lanes).

Yes. Under PCI tab in System Information. pci1987,5016: Link Width: x2 Link Speed: 16.0GT/s
Tested with M1 Studio Max and with Intel Macbook Pro. Both say the same.
Also under Thunderbolt/USB4: Link Width: 0x2 Speed: Up to 40 Gb/s x 1
Also under NVMExpress: Link Speed x2 Link Speed: 16.0GT/s

Since this is a ASM controller, then 16GT/s makes sense (8GT/s x 2)?

joevt · Apr 24, 2024

whodiini said:
Since this is a ASM controller, then 16GT/s makes sense (8GT/s x 2)?

Correct. ASM USB4 controllers support PCIe gen 4 = 16 GT/s.
You said ASM2462 which I guess is the two PCIe lane version of the ASM2464PD which has 4 PCIe lanes.

haitho1996 · Friday at 10:51 PM

Hi everyone, I am quite new to this forum but have done quite an experiment in this field, and I have encountered a problem that needs some of your knowledge.

1. I bought 2 HyperDrive USB4 Enclosure HD5001GL & combine with 2 SSD Acer Predator Gm7000 4TB Gen 4, using with 2 Orico TB4/USB4 cable.

2. When using the above combo separately, I have no issues, speed meets 2700 - 3200 MB/s on bold read/write

3. But when using the above combo together, like plugged-in two enclosures simultaneously (I'm using MBP 16 inch M3 Max 48GB RAM) & copying quite a large bunch of files (let's say, 400 - 800 GB), after copy completion or get back to work after some time of idling, one of them will auto-eject randomly without any reason.

4. After all of that, when I bought another pair of Orico USB 4 Enclosure to test, all issues disappeared, noted that the cable of Orico works fine in any circumstance cause I used it a lot with many drives before, and all enclosures are updated today firmware in ASmedia website

So my question is, which SSD brand & model works perfectly with Hyperdrive HD5001GL enclosure, does my combo have any faulty setup?

Jimmons7 · Saturday at 2:04 PM

About how much faster will it be with one of the recommended enclosures and a pci 4 nvme drive compared to something like the Samsung t7 on a 2020 MacBook Pro m1 ?

Loco Sock · Saturday at 2:10 PM

Deleted.

Loco Sock · 2024-05-07T07:30:48-0700

Just received the Satechi USB4 NVME SSD Pro enclosure.. waiting on the 4TB 990 Pro to get here. Seems like a very sturdy case from the unboxing and looking forward to see how it performs.

Loco Sock · 2024-05-07T16:14:56-0700

Looking good so far... The enclosure itself feels well built and is totally tool-less. I'll be doing some capturing and editing later on today and tomorrow, we'll see how it performs. If anyone wants further info on it, let me know.