Thunderbolt 4 & NVMe M.2 External Storage: Read/Write Speeds?

[handheldgames]

When paired with a M2 Macbook air, the ASM4242 write performance with the SN850x is abysmal.

A good breakdown on the state of USB4

 

[albertjs]

I have 4 Thunderblades in Raid0 connected each of them to a Thunderbolt4 Port of my Mac Studio M2 Ultra and I'm getting 11.600 Mb/s WRITE & 5.800 Mb/s READ. Crazy!

To compare with the internal 8tb of the Mac Studio I attach results and also 8k RAW FPS.

My model is the maxed out M2 Mac Studio with 192gb RAM, 24-core CPU, 76-core GPU.

 

[handheldgames]

I have 4 Thunderblades in Raid0 connected each of them to a Thunderbolt4 Port of my Mac Studio M2 Ultra and I'm getting 11.600 Mb/s WRITE & 5.800 Mb/s READ. Crazy!

To compare with the internal 8tb of the Mac Studio I attach results and also 8k RAW FPS.

My model is the maxed out M2 Mac Studio with 192gb RAM, 24-core CPU, 76-core GPU.

Great speed, but your one drive away from a total data loss. Read speeds seem much lower than they should be. What drives are you using?

 

[albertjs]

Great speed, but your one drive away from a total data loss. Read speeds seem much lower than they should be. What drives are you using?

Not a problem if data loss, I have other backup drives. The OWC Thunderblades uses Aura Pro drives inside, not sure about the exact model of Aura though...

 

[theorist9]

As you can see, data bandwidth is capped at 22 Gb/s or 2750 MB/s in all configurations.

I understand TB4 allows PCIe tunnelling with rates up to 32 Gbps. The TB4 SSD enclosures that use the Intel TB4 chips use PCIe tunnelling.

Is there a specification you can reference?

I believe the 32 Gbps and the 22 Gbps are the same thing, where the former is raw bandwidth, and the latter is actual data transfer speeds:

From: https://tripplite.eaton.com/products/thunderbolt-4

 

[Ploki]

When paired with a M2 Macbook air, the ASM4242 write performance with the SN850x is abysmal.

View attachment 2219566

A good breakdown on the state of USB4

oh. i was looking into getting the ASM2424 for my SN850X (or maybe the 980 Pro i have in a TB3 enclosure) but this looks worse than the now 5 year old TB3 enclosure i already have.
I tried the SN850X in the TB3 enclosure, and it got consistent 2.5-2.7 both R/W.



Anyway, I've been toying with these things for sometime now and have (too much) drives.
My experience with M1 (and M1 Pro) and NVMe SSDs and chipsets:
- better SSDs like 980 Pro and SN850X work in RTL9210 fine.
- cheaper SSDs such as Crucial P2, WD Blue SN570 work like garbage with RTL9210.

- WD SN570 doesn't even work properly in RTL9210 at all. It works so bad in fact that it actually screwed with my whole dock and screen started flickering and computer started freezing.

- JMS583 with M1 works so much better that I ordered another two JMS583 cases to replace my two RTL9210. There's absolutely no scenario i tried in which RTL would work better than JMS583.

edit:
Also, all RTL9210 enclosure disconnect on me periodically. It's really annoying. And they somehow "lag" more, they're less responsive.

 

[Ploki]

Also counter-intuitevely, supposedly RTL9210 is able to turn off and JMS538 doesn't.
But in practice with me, RTL9210 run hotter with same drives.

 

[ChrisRRR]

Following this thread i decided to go for a Samsung 980 Pro and the Acasis enclosure, connected via Thunderbolt. I was kind of shocked that after some hours of running with basically no R/W operation within the last hour the enclosure was hot to the touch. Not painful but definetely more than "ok, that's warm.".

Is that to be expected? I of course applied the large heat transfer pad from the Acasis kit to the top of the SSD, but I'm *very* surprised that it is that warm when basically just idling.

(i then mounted the enclosure with the remaining 0.5mm heat transfer pad to the stand of my Studio Display as an additional large bulk of heat sink metal, btw)

 

[brandair]

My two zero raided WD Black SN850X 2TB SSD's in ACASIS TB405 NVMe cases average around 40 Celcius without any especial anti-heat precautions. Peak temperature has been 96 Celcius in the most demanding scenario. These are not backup drives but are used constantly for data reading and writing.

Following this thread i decided to go for a Samsung 980 Pro and the Acasis enclosure, connected via Thunderbolt. I was kind of shocked that after some hours of running with basically no R/W operation within the last hour the enclosure was hot to the touch. Not painful but definetely more than "ok, that's warm.".

Is that to be expected? I of course applied the large heat transfer pad from the Acasis kit to the top of the SSD, but I'm *very* surprised that it is that warm when basically just idling.

(i then mounted the enclosure with the remaining 0.5mm heat transfer pad to the stand of my Studio Display as an additional large bulk of heat sink metal, btw)

 

[Feek]

Bought this.

Put a Samsung 990 Pro 2Tb drive in it and plugged it into one of the ports on the back of my M1 Mac Studio Ultra.

This is what I get.

That's alright isn't it?

 

[Surenmunoo]

Bought this.

Put a Samsung 990 Pro 2Tb drive in it and plugged it into one of the ports on the back of my M1 Mac Studio Ultra.

This is what I get.

That's alright isn't it?

I ordered 2 of these last night to work with my M2 Max Studio

 

[Feek]

I ordered 2 of these last night to work with my M2 Max Studio

I just made a post in another thread about this combo, you might find it interesting: here.

 

[Surenmunoo]

I was looking a a local seller that states the OWC dock can do unto 5000mbps, I wonder if that's true. It is not cheap so have 2 minds whether to buy or not but the faster speeds will be good for the M2 Max Studio

Buy the OWC miniStack STX Thunderbolt 4 Dual 4K Docking & Storage solution,... ( OWCT4MS9000 ) online

pbtech.co.nz "OWC miniStack STX Thunderbolt 4 Dual 4K Docking & Storage solution, with 96W Power Delivery, Thunderbolt4 x5, USB x5, 3.5" SATA Bay x1 (support 2.5" SATA Drive as well), NVMe M.2 slot x1 (support 2280 NVMe M.2 SSD drive), Support AndroidOS,

www.pbtech.co.nz

 

[elfamosisimoJON]

I was looking a a local seller that states the OWC dock can do unto 5000mbps, I wonder if that's true. It is not cheap so have 2 minds whether to buy or not but the faster speeds will be good for the M2 Max Studio

Buy the OWC miniStack STX Thunderbolt 4 Dual 4K Docking & Storage solution,... ( OWCT4MS9000 ) online

pbtech.co.nz "OWC miniStack STX Thunderbolt 4 Dual 4K Docking & Storage solution, with 96W Power Delivery, Thunderbolt4 x5, USB x5, 3.5" SATA Bay x1 (support 2.5" SATA Drive as well), NVMe M.2 slot x1 (support 2280 NVMe M.2 SSD drive), Support AndroidOS,

www.pbtech.co.nz

unless you have it in raid over multiple TB4 ports, the maximum you can achieve with a single TB4 cable is 3000mbs

 

[b17777]

I wonder whatever became of the Mini Stack Studio ?
5:28

 

[b17777]

Bought this.

Put a Samsung 990 Pro 2Tb drive in it and plugged it into one of the ports on the back of my M1 Mac Studio Ultra.

This is what I get.

That's alright isn't it?

I've got two of these with 980 pro 2TB. One I use for TM, one for storage.
I updated the firmware on my Studio Display months ago with the drive plugged in (to the Studio, not the display), and it bricked the drive case.
The 980 in another case was fine. Maybe a coincidence ? I'll never update firmware again without unplugging first.

 

[Surenmunoo]

Has anyone used the external NVME drives to boot a OS with the Mac Studio to save the internal SSD from the dreaded TBW failures? Be cheaper I think to boot from external drives than internal to prolong the Studio life of its SSD

 

[Feek]

internal SSD from the dreaded TBW failures

I think the SSD in my Studio will probably outlive me.

 

[Surenmunoo]

I think the SSD in my Studio will probably outlive me.

Maybe I am just getting carried away with all these YouTube videos LOL

 

[Feek]

Maybe I am just getting carried away with all these YouTube videos LOL

My 2017 iMac has an SSD.

Drive DX indicates it's at 93% of its intended lifespan so it's lost 7% in six years.

If this is to believed, it's good for another 85 years or so

 

[Surenmunoo]

Finally Arrived

 

[Feek]

Finally Arrived

View attachment 2243991

That's the old 'about this Mac' screen isn't it? How dod you get that on Ventura?

 

[Ploki]

My 2017 iMac has an SSD.

Drive DX indicates it's at 93% of its intended lifespan so it's lost 7% in six years.

If this is to believed, it's good for another 85 years or so

I mean, you can kill an SSD if you're set out to.
something to be said about SSDs getting better as well.

 

[Surenmunoo]

That's the old 'about this Mac' screen isn't it? How dod you get that on Ventura?

A link was posted some while ago in the insanelymacs forum and I downloaded from there.

 

[Surenmunoo]

That's the old 'about this Mac' screen isn't it? How dod you get that on Ventura?

Here is the link

Releases · 2009-Nissan-Cube/About-This-Hack

Discover your hardware on macOS with this simple, user-friendly hardware info app that retains the beloved design language of the classic 'About This Mac' interface, while gaining access to...

github.com