Thunderbolt 3 M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosures

[EugW]

My Thunderbolt 4 cable wasn’t long enough so I put my LG supplied 5-foot USB-C cable there instead. (They don’t say what kind of USB-C cable it is.) Not surprisingly the drive ran slower and with lower power, and I guessed it would be USB 3, but instead it’s running as USB 4 at 20 Gbps. That actually works well for that drive, since it’s a Time Machine drive running at lower power now, but is still reasonably speedy for that purpose. It’s as stable as my other USB 4 / Thunderbolt 40 Gbps drive, and I don’t get that wake from sleep issue that I occasionally get with USB 3 SSDs. (BTW, this was cross-posted from here.)

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That USB-C cable was a USB3 cable, apparently spec'd for the 10 Gbps USB-C ports on my monitor. While under everyday general use it was perfectly fine, under extended heavy benchmarking at USB4 20 Gbps, it was not reliable. I then purchased a USB-IF certified USB4 20 Gbps cable and it works great at 20 Gbps.

Of course, if I use a certified TB4 or USB4 40 Gbps cable, it runs fine at 40 Gbps when directly connected to my Mac. However, I'm using 20 Gbps because if I'm connecting through the monitor, it can't do 40 Gbps writes anyway. (The monitor itself takes up over half of the 40 Gbps bandwidth.) 20 Gbps mode uses a bit less power too.

 

[Black Diesel]

Can I run a Gen 5 Samsung 9100 in a Maiwo K1717 enclosure? I realize I won't be using it at its full potential, but I can move it to a TB5 enclosure in the future. Let me know if there are any issues running a Samsung 9100 PRO 4TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 5.0 inside my Maiwo K1717 enclosures at TB4 speed. I can get a better deal on these Samsung Gen 5's than WD Gen 4's, so I'm thinking why not get the Gen 5's as long as it will work in my Maiwo enclosure.

 

[Brian33]

I haven't tried it, but from everything I've heard, PCIe 5.0 is backward compatible with PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 4.0 standards.

This https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express#PCI_Express_5.0 says:

On 29 May 2019, PCI-SIG officially announced the release of the final PCI Express 5.0 specification.[99] The PCI Express 5.0 retained backward compatibility with previous versions of PCI Express specifications.

I think a PCIe 5.0 M.2 card should work fine in your Maiwo (which I think Thunderbolt 3 and 4 (both?) transport 4 lanes of PCIe 3.0).

 

[Black Diesel]

I haven't tried it, but from everything I've heard, PCIe 5.0 is backward compatible with PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 4.0 standards.

This https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express#PCI_Express_5.0 says:


I think a PCIe 5.0 M.2 card should work fine in your Maiwo (which I think Thunderbolt 3 and 4 (both?) transport 4 lanes of PCIe 3.0).

Cool, I think I'll give it a try. Thanks.

 

[Loco Sock]

Still going strong, hopefully a M5 Mac Sutdio comes out this year and I can upgrade enclosures.

 

[flatcapdad]

Confirmed Working Configuration

After quite a bit of experimentation, I've successfully connected an Acasis TBU405Pro Thunderbolt 3 NVMe enclosure to a Late 2013 MacBook Pro (Thunderbolt 2).

Hardware

• MacBook Pro Retina 13" Late 2013 (A1502)
• Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ↔ Thunderbolt 2 Adapter
• Apple Thunderbolt 3 cable
• Belkin Thunderbolt 3 Express Dock HD (F4U095) with original PSU
• Acasis TBU405Pro
• Crucial T500 2TB NVMe SSD

Direct connection
MacBook Pro → Apple TB3↔TB2 Adapter → Acasis

❌ Did not work. The enclosure would not power up or enumerate.

Working connection

MacBook Pro → Apple TB3↔TB2 Adapter → Belkin F4U095 → Acasis

✅ Dock enumerates correctly.

✅ Acasis powers up immediately.

✅ SSD mounts normally.

✅ Blackmagic Disk Speed Test: approximately 1200 MB/s read/write, which is consistent with Thunderbolt 2 bandwidth.

I also tested the same dock on a 2017 iMac.

Initially I only achieved ~1200 MB/s because the USB-C cable supplied with the Belkin dock only negotiated a 20 Gb/s Thunderbolt link. Replacing it with a known genuine certified Thunderbolt 3 cable restored a 40 Gb/s link and full (~2350 MB/s) performance.

Replacing it with a certified 40 Gb/s Thunderbolt 3 cable restored the link to 40 Gb/s, and Blackmagic returned to ~2350 MB/s read/write, identical to connecting the Acasis directly.

So the Belkin dock itself is not a performance bottleneck when used with a proper Thunderbolt 3 cable.

 

[TzunamiOSX]

Direct connection
MacBook Pro → Apple TB3↔TB2 Adapter → Acasis

❌ Did not work. The enclosure would not power up or enumerate.

Working connection

MacBook Pro → Apple TB3↔TB2 Adapter → Belkin F4U095 → Acasis

That is completely normal. The Apple adapter does not support power transfer from TB2 → TB3. The Belkin dock can bring the power to the Acasis case.