USB-C Case for 8TB M.2 SSD (Corsair MP400)

[tilstip]

Hi community,

I'm super excited about the 8TB version of the MP400 M.2 SSD from Corsair.
Link: https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/Storage/M-2-SSDs/MP400/p/CSSD-F8000GBMP400

I'm a Mac user (MacBook Pro 16-inch 2019) and need lots of storage on the road, storing video and photos with loads of RAW files in the field. Until now I used a bunch of Samsung T5 SSDs. Unfortunately they max out at 2TB. I'm waiting for the 4TB version forever, but it doesn't arrive…

I wonder if there is a proven and suitable case to put in the Corsair 8TB MP400 that would work reliable on the latest MacBooks over USB-C/Thunderbolt?

So far my research has not been successful as most cases and their controllers state a limit of 2TB. Actually I don't know if these are real technical limits or just marketing statements as at the time of release there were no M.2 SSDs above 2TB. Other cases don't mention a limit at all but I still wonder if it would work.

Has anybody here tried to achieve something similar or at least has a working setup using a 4TB M.2 SSD?
Or can anybody recommend a M.2. case with a controller IC that should work with 8TB or even have experience with it?

Thank you!

 

[justashooter]

Will this work:

OWC Envoy Express Thunderbolt 3 Enclosure for NVMe M.2 SSD

The world's first Thunderbolt certified 'add your own drive' bus-powered enclosure for super-fast pocket-sized video, photo, audio, and gaming.

eshop.macsales.com

 

[tilstip]

Will this work:

OWC Envoy Express Thunderbolt 3 Enclosure for NVMe M.2 SSD

The world's first Thunderbolt certified 'add your own drive' bus-powered enclosure for super-fast pocket-sized video, photo, audio, and gaming.

eshop.macsales.com

This seems to be exactly what I was looking for! Thank you. I will try this and report on it.

 

[tilstip]

Update:

I purchased the OWC Envoy Express Case (that clearly states it supports 8TB SSDs) and the Corsair MP400 8TB NVMe M.2 SSD. In theory this should work. In practice it doesn't:

First formatting the drive failed with disk utility and then the drive didn't appear at all anymore.
A few hours and reboots later the drive appeared again and I could give it another try, which finally worked and I could format the drive successfully.

I made some speed tests that worked well and that where impressive: 1300MB/s read and write.
I was happy to early because then I started moving data onto the drive. Just after 2 minutes the drive disconnected itself. MacOS showed the warning that the drive was disconnected without ejecting it…

Since then the drive again doesn't appear in the finder anymore nor in Disk Utility.

So at this point I can't recommend the OWN Envoy Express Case with the MP400 8TB SSD.
If this is a general problem or only happens with exactly this SSD, I can't tell.

I tend to believe that this is not an individual and specific bug to my configuration, because I have read about the same behaviour (drive ejects itself) with other cases and NVMe SSDs on Amazon Reviews. I assume there is some incompatibility of the controller IC (OWC Envoy Express uses the Intel JHL6540 Thunderbolt 3 Controller) or bug in MacOS?

I'm in touch with OWC support and hope that they can shine some light on it and hopefully make this work.
I'll updated this thread again, so others won't run into similar issues after spending so much money and something that should clearly work in theory.

 

[zhpenn]

Update:

I purchased the OWC Envoy Express Case (that clearly states it supports 8TB SSDs) and the Corsair MP400 8TB NVMe M.2 SSD. In theory this should work. In practice it doesn't:

First formatting the drive failed with disk utility and then the drive didn't appear at all anymore.
A few hours and reboots later the drive appeared again and I could give it another try, which finally worked and I could format the drive successfully.

I made some speed tests that worked well and that where impressive: 1300MB/s read and write.
I was happy to early because then I started moving data onto the drive. Just after 2 minutes the drive disconnected itself. MacOS showed the warning that the drive was disconnected without ejecting it…

Since then the drive again doesn't appear in the finder anymore nor in Disk Utility.

So at this point I can't recommend the OWN Envoy Express Case with the MP400 8TB SSD.
If this is a general problem or only happens with exactly this SSD, I can't tell.

I tend to believe that this is not an individual and specific bug to my configuration, because I have read about the same behaviour (drive ejects itself) with other cases and NVMe SSDs on Amazon Reviews. I assume there is some incompatibility of the controller IC (OWC Envoy Express uses the Intel JHL6540 Thunderbolt 3 Controller) or bug in MacOS?

I'm in touch with OWC support and hope that they can shine some light on it and hopefully make this work.
I'll updated this thread again, so others won't run into similar issues after spending so much money and something that should clearly work in theory.

I have a similar use case, I have been using Samsung 4TB 860 EVO and a 2.5 Enclosure for about 3 years time, it is quite reliable. I recently looking at the sata Samsung 8TB 870 QVO, but the speed will slow down after about 70 GB write(when slc cache full)

I also looking at the MP400 8TB and a SABRENT USB-C case(not the thunderbolt one, because it will not work on the non-thunderbolt device or I sometimes use USB C to A on old mac)

The SABRENT USB-C case looks very solid. and the price is very good.

btw SABRENT also has a Sabrent Rocket Q 8TB NVMe with a lower price, but the review is not very good on AMAZON. and I am in AUS the warranty is not easy for SABRENT, so I prefer the Corsair MP400 8TB

the SABRENT USB-C case might works better for 8tb? as SABRENT also has an 8TB Nvme.

Looking forward to hearing from your update, as reliability is the No.1 for me. if the drive ejects itself is really unacceptable. If the Sabrent USB-c enclosure not working I may go for the Samsung 8TB 870 QVO + 2.5 sata enclosure

 

[ght56]

I have a similar use case, I have been using Samsung 4TB 860 EVO and a 2.5 Enclosure for about 3 years time, it is quite reliable. I recently looking at the sata Samsung 8TB 870 QVO, but the speed will slow down after about 70 GB write(when slc cache full)

I also looking at the MP400 8TB and a SABRENT USB-C case(not the thunderbolt one, because it will not work on the non-thunderbolt device or I sometimes use USB C to A on old mac)

The SABRENT USB-C case looks very solid. and the price is very good.

btw SABRENT also has a Sabrent Rocket Q 8TB NVMe with a lower price, but the review is not very good on AMAZON. and I am in AUS the warranty is not easy for SABRENT, so I prefer the Corsair MP400 8TB

the SABRENT USB-C case might works better for 8tb? as SABRENT also has an 8TB Nvme.

Looking forward to hearing from your update, as reliability is the No.1 for me. if the drive ejects itself is really unacceptable. If the Sabrent USB-c enclosure not working I may go for the Samsung 8TB 870 QVO + 2.5 sata enclosure

The problem is these NVMe drives get so hot that long-term reliability on them (specifically ones using enclosures with passive cooling and without massive heatsinks) is questionable, and individual accounts of these drives cooking themselves seems more common than with SATA SSDs and enclosures (and while arguably more an enclosure than a drive issue, it's still an expensive proposition.) I still use large SATA 860 Pros partly for this reason as I am often moving larger files that have the potential to generate a lot of heat.

 

[BrandonChang]

Update:

I purchased the OWC Envoy Express Case (that clearly states it supports 8TB SSDs) and the Corsair MP400 8TB NVMe M.2 SSD. In theory this should work. In practice it doesn't:

First formatting the drive failed with disk utility and then the drive didn't appear at all anymore.
A few hours and reboots later the drive appeared again and I could give it another try, which finally worked and I could format the drive successfully.

I made some speed tests that worked well and that where impressive: 1300MB/s read and write.
I was happy to early because then I started moving data onto the drive. Just after 2 minutes the drive disconnected itself. MacOS showed the warning that the drive was disconnected without ejecting it…

Since then the drive again doesn't appear in the finder anymore nor in Disk Utility.

So at this point I can't recommend the OWN Envoy Express Case with the MP400 8TB SSD.
If this is a general problem or only happens with exactly this SSD, I can't tell.

I tend to believe that this is not an individual and specific bug to my configuration, because I have read about the same behaviour (drive ejects itself) with other cases and NVMe SSDs on Amazon Reviews. I assume there is some incompatibility of the controller IC (OWC Envoy Express uses the Intel JHL6540 Thunderbolt 3 Controller) or bug in MacOS?

I'm in touch with OWC support and hope that they can shine some light on it and hopefully make this work.
I'll updated this thread again, so others won't run into similar issues after spending so much money and something that should clearly work in theory.

See my post: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/owc-envoy-express-tb3-enclosure-sabrent-2tb-rocket-issues-help.2268762/page-2?post=29476696#post-29476696

Avoid using double-sided SSD with Envoy Express. It actually killed a 4TB Corsair MP400 in my case as well.

 

[tilstip]

Update:

Good news (so far):

The temptation to have such a small and fast external 8TB disc was too exciting, so I purchased another case from another manufacturer (Trebleet) to give it another try and rule out that it is an issue of the SSD itself or some general incompatibility issues.

The new case I bought is the following:

Buy Thunderbolt 3 NVMe M2 External SSD Enclosure with Free Shipping | Trebleet

Our hot selling item, shipping out the next working day. It is compact, affordable & durable. A perfect backup & storage tool while one is on the go.

www.trebleet.com

When assembling the SSD I already saw it uses the same Thunderbolt Controller as OWC (Intel JL6340) and I already suspected the same issues will appear. Luckily, so far, after 24h of runtime and transferring over 2TB of data onto the SSD it works without any problems.

To my surprise it is even incredibly fast and much faster than the OWC case. With the OWC I reached 1300MB/s.
In the Trebleet case the MP400 8TB reaches over 2000MB/s read and write. See screenshot attached.

 

[BrandonChang]

Update:

Good news (so far):

The temptation to have such a small and fast external 8TB disc was too exciting, so I purchased another case from another manufacturer (Trebleet) to give it another try and rule out that it is an issue of the SSD itself or some general incompatibility issues.

The new case I bought is the following:

Buy Thunderbolt 3 NVMe M2 External SSD Enclosure with Free Shipping | Trebleet

Our hot selling item, shipping out the next working day. It is compact, affordable & durable. A perfect backup & storage tool while one is on the go.

www.trebleet.com

When assembling the SSD I already saw it uses the same Thunderbolt Controller as OWC (Intel JL6340) and I already suspected the same issues will appear. Luckily, so far, after 24h of runtime and transferring over 2TB of data onto the SSD it works without any problems.

To my surprise it is even incredibly fast and much faster than the OWC case. With the OWC I reached 1300MB/s.
In the Trebleet case the MP400 8TB reaches over 2000MB/s read and write. See screenshot attached.

View attachment 1708651

OWC Envoy Express uses JHL6240, which gives only 2 lane PCIe. JHL6340 gives 4 lanes.

 

[zhpenn]

Update:

Good news (so far):

The temptation to have such a small and fast external 8TB disc was too exciting, so I purchased another case from another manufacturer (Trebleet) to give it another try and rule out that it is an issue of the SSD itself or some general incompatibility issues.

The new case I bought is the following:

Buy Thunderbolt 3 NVMe M2 External SSD Enclosure with Free Shipping | Trebleet

Our hot selling item, shipping out the next working day. It is compact, affordable & durable. A perfect backup & storage tool while one is on the go.

www.trebleet.com

When assembling the SSD I already saw it uses the same Thunderbolt Controller as OWC (Intel JL6340) and I already suspected the same issues will appear. Luckily, so far, after 24h of runtime and transferring over 2TB of data onto the SSD it works without any problems.

To my surprise it is even incredibly fast and much faster than the OWC case. With the OWC I reached 1300MB/s.
In the Trebleet case the MP400 8TB reaches over 2000MB/s read and write. See screenshot attached.

View attachment 1708651

That's good news, please update here if anything happens, I saw a post that said may be because of the thermal issue.

 

[zhpenn]

I have contact Trebleet, they said they will have a Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C 3.1Gen2 2in1 enclosure available in a month.

 

[tilstip]

Update:

I have had the drive connected now for over 9 days and worked on it.
Bad news: The drive actually disconnected once after being utilised fully for hours under heavy read/write load. It became super hot. However, this was an untypical use case for. I moved 80k files around, while indexing them and creating preview images amounting to 4TB.

I think it it is caused by heat as it ejected itself again while it was still hot. After it cooled down it was fine.

Otherwise under normal situations the drive worked well and I will keep it as I mainly use it to offload data and not constantly work from it.

Still feels crazy to have 8TB is such small form factor. That's a big deal for me

 

[zhpenn]

Update:

I have had the drive connected now for over 9 days and worked on it.
Bad news: The drive actually disconnected once after being utilised fully for hours under heavy read/write load. It became super hot. However, this was an untypical use case for. I moved 80k files around, while indexing them and creating preview images amounting to 4TB.

I think it it is caused by heat as it ejected itself again while it was still hot. After it cooled down it was fine.

Otherwise under normal situations the drive worked well and I will keep it as I mainly use it to offload data and not constantly work from it.

Still feels crazy to have 8TB is such small form factor. That's a big deal for me

Thanks a lot for updating the useful information, I think I can make a decision to purchase this combination. They already came out with a 2 in 1 Thunderbolt 3 & USB3.2 SSD Enclosure which I already place the order

 

[tilstip]

That's cool! Please let us know how it goes. Do you know if it is possible to switch to USB3.2 mode even when connected to a Mac? Maybe it runs less hot then und one could switch on a need basis.

 

[zhpenn]

That's cool! Please let us know how it goes. Do you know if it is possible to switch to USB3.2 mode even when connected to a Mac? Maybe it runs less hot then und one could switch on a need basis.

I think they will detect it automatically, can not manually switch

 

[zhpenn]

That's cool! Please let us know how it goes. Do you know if it is possible to switch to USB3.2 mode even when connected to a Mac? Maybe it runs less hot then und one could switch on a need basis.

I just got the MP40 8TB and the Treble TB3+USBC Enclosure, I formated to APFS, copy about 88GB files, then do some read and write test, then formated it to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Then the speed become super low, then I eject, and replug again, the drive never recognise again

I change to a new USBC case, still not working, the drive is dead.

Then I touch the drive, feel super hot, not sure if it is the TB3 stuff burn the Drive, now I am claiming corsair warranty.

how is your tb3 case going? which file system are you using? apfs or hfs+ Mac OS Extended (Journaled)?

Thanks a lot.

 

[BrandonChang]

I just got the MP40 8TB and the Treble TB3+USBC Enclosure, I formated to APFS, copy about 88GB files, then do some read and write test, then formated it to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Then the speed become super low, then I eject, and replug again, the drive never recognise again

I change to a new USBC case, still not working, the drive is dead.

Then I touch the drive, feel super hot, not sure if it is the TB3 stuff burn the Drive, now I am claiming corsair warranty.

how is your tb3 case going? which file system are you using? apfs or hfs+ Mac OS Extended (Journaled)?

Thanks a lot.

Warned you guys about using a densely packed double-sided SSD with a TB3 enclosure.

 

[zhpenn]

Warned you guys about using a densely packed double-sided SSD with a TB3 enclosure.

I found some enclosure with the fan, will it be better?

 

[zhpenn]

I feel that all Nvme Enclosure I test on a mac Sabent(JMS583 Chip set) and trebleet(JHL7440+JMS583 Chipset) is quite unstable, sometimes recognize sometimes not(in most case not)

 

[rynow204]

Anyone used the new dual bay trebleet nvme case and raided 2 nvme's together?

Thunderbolt 3 Two-Slot M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure Compatible with New M1 | TREBLEET

Supports Two NVMe Drives and aluminum enclosure featuring two Thunderbolt 3 ports，up to 2800MB/s of mind-bending performance via Thunderbolt 3. Support software RAID0 and Raid1 Support computers with Thunderbolt 2 interface（Need Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter） Support power delivery port...

www.trebleet.com

Might put the WD Black 750's as I've read they dont get speed/heat throttled as hard as the Samsungs.
I'm thinking of getting this one for large data transfers (200-500gb at a time)

Would love to hear some reviews / experiences.

Many thanks in advance.

 

[Davka]

This is November 2022... I just tried to use Acasis 10in1 enclosure with Corsair 8TB MP400. After copying a lot of files, 3.5TB, it suddenly started disconnecting automatically. I tried cooling it, but after that I couldn't copy a single file. This MP400 8TB ran on my big PC without any issues. In general, putting an 8tb SSD in an enclosure seems like a bad idea.

 

[nvmeuser]

Hey all, I have an update to contribute. Its Jan 2024.

I got an MP400 8TB (as a gift) and I'm trying a few enclosures with a 2019 MacBook Pro. In my case I just need to write files to it, I won't use it actively.

Using the Insignia enclosure, the MBP does not see the drive at all.

I tried the OWC Envoy Express (OWCTB3ENVXP00), it came with a short thunderbolt 4 cable. The MBP sees it but when I try to mount it I get the error:

Could not mount “NEWDRIVE”. (com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error 49223.)

Solved the error by reformatting to GUID/exFat using Mac. Read/write was 1350/1480mbps.

I have two one more enclosures coming. The Trebleet, and another OWC Envoy Pro SX Thunderbolt (OWCTB3ENVPSX0T).

OWC Envoy Pro SX Thunderbolt (OWCTB3ENVPSX0T) comes with a TB4 cable and has read write speeds of 2100/2450mbps.

 

[nvmeuser]

Hey all, I have an update to contribute. Its Jan 2024.

I got an MP400 8TB (as a gift) and I'm trying a few enclosures with a 2019 MacBook Pro. In my case I just need to write files to it, I won't use it actively.

Using the Insignia enclosure, the MBP does not see the drive at all.

I tried the OWC Envoy Express (OWCTB3ENVXP00), it came with a short thunderbolt 4 cable. The MBP sees it but when I try to mount it I get the error:

Could not mount “NEWDRIVE”. (com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error 49223.)

Solved the error by reformatting to GUID/exFat using Mac. Read/write was 1350/1480mbps.

I have two one more enclosures coming. The Trebleet, and another OWC Envoy Pro SX Thunderbolt (OWCTB3ENVPSX0T).

OWC Envoy Pro SX Thunderbolt (OWCTB3ENVPSX0T) comes with a TB4 cable and has read write speeds of 2100/2450mbps.

Just tested the Trebleet model 8115-US and the read/write is ~1800/2380. I've been testing with Black Magic Disk Speed Test.

For all of these tests I've left the enclosure open.

I've been copying files over using the OWC Pro SX and it seems the best at the moment. I've also left that enclosure open as well to ensure it doesn't overheat (I've got a little fan pointed at it) and it seems to be doing okay. I'm copying files from old drives, so there's a bottleneck in speed and that also might be helping keeping it cool.

After copying files over, the OWC Pro SX has slowed a bit and is seeing speeds of 1910/2390.

I hope this can help anyone under these very niche circumstances.