What's SSD for a 10gbps enclosure?

[h.gilbert]

Had a look on the thunderbolt enclosure thread but realised I don't need those speeds and don't want to spend too much.

What's a decent SSD for a 10gbps enclosure. I hear some don't play nice and those that are DRAM less slow down quite quickly. Thanks.

 

[Fishrrman]

Is the enclosure USB3, USB3.1 gen2, thunderbolt2, thunderbolt3, or what?

 

[obesechess]

Depends on the form factor you're looking for (this will be dictated by which enclosure you are using). Samsung, Crucial, and WD Blue are all considered very good for consumer grade and aren't too expensive. I use a Samsung 990 NVMe for my files and a Sandisk Ultra 3D (rebadged WD Blue, but easier to find on sale for some reason) for my TM backups. Be aware that depending on your computer, you may not actually get 10gbps, but almost any of this stuff is going to be plenty fast for anything short of incredibly intensive video production, where you're regularly writing and rewriting multi-gigabyte files.

 

[h.gilbert]

Is the enclosure USB3, USB3.1 gen2, thunderbolt2, thunderbolt3, or what?

The ones I'm looking at on amazon are all USB 3.2 Gen 2 rated for 10 gbps. I get lost with the ever changing USB naming conventions!

 

[h.gilbert]

Depends on the form factor you're looking for (this will be dictated by which enclosure you are using). Samsung, Crucial, and WD Blue are all considered very good for consumer grade and aren't too expensive. I use a Samsung 990 NVMe for my files and a Sandisk Ultra 3D (rebadged WD Blue, but easier to find on sale for some reason) for my TM backups. Be aware that depending on your computer, you may not actually get 10gbps, but almost any of this stuff is going to be plenty fast for anything short of incredibly intensive video production, where you're regularly writing and rewriting multi-gigabyte files.

All of the enclosures I'm looking at support m.2 from 2280 to 2230. They're all 10gbps so 1250 MB/s so I guess getting something PCIe 4 (7500MB/s) like the Samsung 990 is a bit pointless? Even the PCIe 3 drives are 3500MB/s and even if real world speeds are half that, then that's still faster than what the enclosure can through put.

I've just seen some issues with some drives and macOS and also some drives slowing down to well under 1000MB/s after a few minutes. So just wanted to see if anyone had any recommendations

 

[h5c5]

I bought an ICY BOX M.2 NVMe SSD USB 3.2 Gen2x2 External SSD Enclosure to pair with a Samsung 980 500GB PCIe 3.0 NVMe M.2 SSD/Solid State Drive. It works to speeds of 10Gbps, apparently limited by current Mac T4 standards, but with the potential to go faster (20Gbps). For me it was the right balance between value & 'future-proofing' (for new standards or a new device).

 

[obesechess]

All of the enclosures I'm looking at support m.2 from 2280 to 2230. They're all 10gbps so 1250 MB/s so I guess getting something PCIe 4 (7500MB/s) like the Samsung 990 is a bit pointless? Even the PCIe 3 drives are 3500MB/s and even if real world speeds are half that, then that's still faster than what the enclosure can through put.

I've just seen some issues with some drives and macOS and also some drives slowing down to well under 1000MB/s after a few minutes. So just wanted to see if anyone had any recommendations

My recollection from reading before purchasing - I am a Mac Newbie so take this with a grain of salt - is that the M1 throttled USB-C data transfers but that the M2 does not.

M1 Mac Thunderbolt 4 ports mostly don't support 10Gb/s speed - 9to5Mac

Pro users of M1 Macs have reported disappointing transfer speeds with external SSDs, and tests appear to show that most M1 Mac Thunderbolt 4.

9to5mac.com

 

[h.gilbert]

My recollection from reading before purchasing - I am a Mac Newbie so take this with a grain of salt - is that the M1 throttled USB-C data transfers but that the M2 does not.

M1 Mac Thunderbolt 4 ports mostly don't support 10Gb/s speed - 9to5Mac

Pro users of M1 Macs have reported disappointing transfer speeds with external SSDs, and tests appear to show that most M1 Mac Thunderbolt 4.

9to5mac.com

Interesting...

Edit: Just tested out moving some 170GB of files from my 2016 Pro to my 'new' M1 Air with a Sandisk Extreme Portable V2 rated at ~1000MB/s, formatted encrypted APFS. Basically the same transfer rates on both devices - about 750MB/s average with spikes of above 800 on both machines. So M1 seems to be acting the same as Intel here, indeed system info on my M1 shows the USB interface speed as 10Gb/s.