Fastest SSD For Your M4 Mac Thunderbolt 5 Enclosure - Samsung 990 Pro vs WD SN850X Write Speed Test. So having mentioned the cache issues with the Samsung 990 Pro 4TB in previous videos, I thought it would be good to show this in a comparison with the WD SN850X 4TB. I used the M4 Max MacBook Pro for the tests as it has Thunderbolt 5. The Samsung 990 Pro 4TB only has about 442GB of fast pSLC cache. pSLC meaning pseudo SLC. For a 4TB SSD I think this cache is on the low side. Once the cache is exhausted the write speed drops to about 1.6GB/s and lower. While I can't find definitive information on how big the cache is on the WD SN850X 4TB, which is also pSLC. The 1TB version has 300GB of cache and the 2TB has 600GB. In my own usage, the 4TB version does not exhaust its cache when moving a folder of over one 1TB. This suggests to me that that the cache scales, which is evident with the scaling of the cache between the 1TB and 2TB versions. So given that the 4TB can easily handle just over 1TB without exhausting its cache, I think it's safe to say that it has 1200MB or 1.2TB of cache. When the WD SN850X 4TB does exhaust its cache and drops to the its slower write speed. It's not only faster than the slower speed of the Samsung 990 Pro, at about 1700MB/s but it also has bursts up to about 2400MB/s. This indicates that the WD SN850X 4TB has a faster recovery time for its cache compared to the Samsung 990 Pro 4TB. Don't forget, my tests for these SSDs are as storage drives inside external Thunderbolt 4, Thunderbolt 5 and USB4 enclosures for use with Mac computers. So while the Samsung 990 Pro 4TB may have some advantages as a system boot drive. As a storage SSD inside an enclosure, the WD SN850X clearly has the advantage. As for the Acasis TB501. Some people may be indifferent to me calling it a Thunderbolt 5 enclosure and that it is recognised as a USB4 V2 device under macOS. However, it does have an Intel JHL9480 controller, which is a Thunderbolt 5 controller and it does run at 80Gb/s for data transfer. Here's some links to stuff used in the video and some other links that may be useful. I have not included links to the Samsung 990 Pro 4TB as I personally don't believe it is suitable for this type of use. Use my promo code David15 for a 15% discount if buying from the Acasis website. Acasis website TB501 enclosure ➡ bit.ly/4fsUfEQ TBU405Pro M1 Enclosure ➡ bit.ly/4i1edsR TBU401 enclosure ➡ bit.ly/49PFnPu Acasis on Amazon TB501 enclosure ➡ Not available yet on Amazon TBU405Pro M1 Enclosure ➡ amzn.to/41V6p62 TBU401 enclosure ➡ amzn.to/3DwYEta WD SSDs: SN850X 4TB ➡ geni.us/SN850X-4TB SN850X 2TB ➡ geni.us/SN850X-2TB SN850X 1TB ➡ geni.us/SN850X-1TB Links to Apple products: M4 Max MacBook Pro 16" ➡ geni.us/70Xn M4 Max MacBook Pro 14" ➡ geni.us/57QzTfu M4 Pro MacBook Pro 16" ➡ geni.us/qSYR M4 Pro MacBook Pro 14" ➡ geni.us/4thf yu0 M4 MacBook Pro 14" ➡ geni.us/Y7TFR Mac Mini M4 ➡ geni.us/oibaLH Mac Mini M4 Pro ➡ geni.us/ImJto Video chapters: 00:00 Intro & explanation 01:31 WD SN850X test 04:14 Samsung 990 Pro test 09:25 End summary AMAZON ASSOCIATE DISCLOSURE: I am an Amazon Associate. My Amazon links are Amazon affiliate links. I earn money from qualifying purchases when you use my Amazon affiliate links. OTHER EARNINGS AND COMMISSIONS: I also earn money from other product links within my video description. For the sake of clarity and for the avoidance of any confusion, assume that I earn money from commissions from any and all links that I have within my video description. Amazon links to stuff used in this video: The gear that I use, have used or reviewed that I would recommend. Cameras: amzn.to/3PzC8mI Microphones: amzn.to/3tD6FaM Computers: amzn.to/3tuwHNr Phones: amzn.to/3ttqjWN iPads & Tablets: amzn.to/46t8wxG You can also send me a coffee donation via PayPal if you found my video super helpful: www.paypal.me/DavidHarry My Amazon pages with videos and product links: Amazon USA www.amazon.com/shop/davidharry Amazon UK www.amazon.co.uk/shop/davidharry If you would like to help my channel please use my global Amazon Affiliate links. I will be paid a small commission for anything you buy from Amazon when using these links. These commissions don't cost you any extra but really do help me to buy gear for my productions and to review: Amazon USA: geni.us/Amazon-USA Amazon UK: geni.us/Amazon-UK Amazon Deutschland: geni.us/Amazon-Deutschland Amazon France: geni.us/Amazon-France Amazon España: geni.us/Amazon-Espana Amazon Italia: geni.us/Amazon-Italia Amazon Canada: geni.us/Amazon-Canada Contact for product reviews: RUclips@DavidHarry.com I’m David Harry. Thank you very much for watching this video, take care and goodbye now. Cheers, Dave.
Thanks, and you very welcome 👍 Yes, you definitely made a good choice with the SN850X. That’s not to say that there aren’t other good SSD options out there. However, the SN850X is a well balanced SSD that’s awesome for storage use. Plus, it also has the most “fast cache” out of all the SSDs I’ve tried, which gives it a big advantage when writing large amounts of data in one go. I just hope the video was clear enough in showing why I personally wouldn’t recommend the 990 Pro as a storage SSD for an enclosure. Cheers, Dave.
David, thanks for another useful video. I've been using the ACASIS Thunderbolt 4 enclosure with fan, combined with the WD SN850X, based on your recommendation and have been well pleased with the performance. I'll likely get the ACASIS Thunderbolt 5 enclosure at some point, probably when they drop the price, and combine it again with a WD SN850X.
Hi, Aaron. Funny enough, I have just responded with a super boring comment on another comment that you commented on 🤣 Yes, that Acasis TB4 enclosure with the fan and an SN850X is a great combination. I'd been using that combination for about a year before using the TB5 enclosure and it was faultless. I even used an ACASIS enclosure without a fan with the same SN850X for about a year before that and that was great. However, without the fan it did get a little hot at times, especially when I was recording video direct to the external drive. However, the SN850X didn't once thermal throttle, even without the fan, which is another plus point for the SN850X. Saying that though, I would definitely recommend an enclosure with a fan, as this should help to extend the life of the SSD due to less constant heat over time. As for the TB5 enclosure, I absolutely love it and it's my main media and recording drive now. However, saying that and being completely honest, other than some very specific use case scenarios, my previous TB4 version with the fan was easily good enough for most things. With regard the very specific use case scenarios. I also have media on my Mac's internal storage which I fill up really quickly. So I do end up editing between my Mac and the external storage but because I'm always running out of space, I have to move data between the Mac's internal storage and the external drives. So with the M4 Max having TB5, moving data between it and the TB5 SSD is now a lot faster than what it used to be. And for me and my workflow, just that one thing is worth having the TB5 SSD for. I sometimes get people in the comments giving me crap about how "no-one needs these types of speeds" etc. Now while that may be true for a lot of people, when you do need those speeds, the TB5 drive is problem fixer. Plus, for whatever reason, some people may just want the fastest drive that they can get and I would argue the point and suggest that a TB5 drive, is to some degree, a future proofing investment. Even if someone is only using TB4 on their Mac, or any computer, right now. There's a good chance they will end up on TB5 with a Mac in the future, in which case the TB5 drive will be one less consideration for an upgrade. Plus, at some point, maybe with M5, all the Macs will be TB5 anyway. As for the TB501. If you are not in hurry, Acasis will be sending me the TB501Pro when it's released, hopefully in about three weeks time. Now I'm not sure what the differences are between it and the TB501 but I will be reviewing it as soon as I get it. So it may be worth holding on to see what that's like. However, I can't see it being any faster, as there's still only the one Intel TB5 controller chip as far as I'm aware, as far as TB5 controller chips are concerned. But it may have some extra USB functionality and I believe Acasis have got rid of that hole thing in the design of the TB501 that I was critical of in my review of the TB501. Also, if you are into crazy (maybe stupid) videos where someone is doing something that has absolutely no practical use in the "real-world". Keep an eye on my channel 🤣 When I get the next TB5 enclosure I will do a video where I will stripe two TB5 drives, something that's often called RAID0, although it's not really RAID as there's no redundancy. I will do a speed test and hope to see over 10GB/s. Again, not something that's practical but maybe interesting and a bit of fun. In fact, I can actually show a very specific use case scenario to test the speed of that setup, that a single TB5 drive cant do. I am able to generate a video format that has such a high bitrate, that even a TB5 drive can't play it back as it's too slow 🤣 Again, not a practical exorcise but it could be good for the entertainment factor and will at least be a first on RUclips, although a first that no-one will have any interest in 🤣 Take care. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry Good to know that the TB501Pro will be coming out. I'll definitely wait for that, and compare it to the non-Pro model before buying anything. Based on my use case, I will not consider any enclosure without a fan. I was hoping there would be some competition from other companies with TB5 enclosures with a fan, especially at CES earlier this month, but I didn't see anything that I would consider beyond the ACASIS. I guess most manufacturers and/or consumers don't see the need for a fan in the enclosure, but in my opinion that's being very short-sighted.
Alright, Kevin. Yes, they’re super responsive in the timeline for scrubbing etc. In fact, when using them I can’t feel the difference between them or if the media is on the internal drive of the M4 Max. The read speed of these drives are almost the same as Mac’s storage, around 6000MB/s. In fact, both these drives are more than double the speed of the internal storage of my M4 Mac Mini, which only has the base 256GB internal storage and is only around 2200MB/s for its read and write. Although, the M4 Mac Mini can’t even take full advantage of these drives because it doesn’t have TB5. I’m totally sold on this TB5 enclosure, so I’m going to sell my TB4 drives and any other spare SSDs and switch to more TB5 drives for my main storage. I just wish the 8TB SSDs weren’t so expensive, as an 8TB WD SN850X in one of these Acasis TB501 enclosures would be awesome and it would mean less disk swapping and having to move files about to free up space. Although, seeing as I’m a messy prick, I’d probably still be just as messy but with bigger drive spaces 🤣 Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry That's incredible. I need to start thinking about upgrading to Thunderbolt 5 devices across the board. I'm starting to think a great setup would be a windows mini pc for recording, but a Mac for editing and everything else. Thunderbolt 5 speeds feel like the next generation of computing. It's mental that these drives are beating the internal drives. Kevin
Devo, I expect that you are already aware that Acasis now have an Upgraded Version of their TB501 called the TB501Pro and which has an adjustable fan speed. I am expecting to receive mine next week and my WD SN850X 4TB is waiting to be installed. It is thanks to your previous video reviews that I have made this choice to buy, so Many Thanks! Robin 😊
Pseudo SLC= Normal TLC which the controller chip temporarily uses as SLC (only writing one bit per cell). This is obviously quicker than writing 3 bits (TLC=Three Level Cell /SLC =Single Level Cell) per memory cell. As the NVME fills up less of the main storage is available to use as Pseudo TLC. So drives slow down the more capacity they use (write speeds in any case). A proper DRAM cache on the NVME is obviously better. The 990 Pro has a 4GB DRAM cache which obviously fills up very fast , I believe the SN850X has the same. Personally I find the Hynix P41 Platinum as my NVME of choice, (I have 3 , as well las a SN850X, SN770, a Crucial P2, Kingston Fury all 2TB). My favourite and quickest USB4/TB3/4 enclosure is the Inateck one that on Amazon often sells for around £65. That gives me around 3500MBps connected to an OWC Tb5 dock (MBP 4 Pro) or 3300MBps connected via a Caldigit Elements hub to an M1 Max Studio)
Hi, Mick. Thanks for the clarification 👍 Just to be clear, when I said I didn’t know what pseudo SLC meant. I do know what the word pseudo means, just not what was pseudo about the cache. I hope I didn’t come off as a complete dumbass 🤣 What’s interesting is that the WD’s pSLC recovers a lot faster than the Samsung’s. Which is probably down to the NAND used. Interestingly, the WD doesn’t suffer as much either when the space is getting full. I actually have a P41, Hynix sent me one to use in a PS5 video. However, I’ve tested it in my enclosures and get some pretty erratic results. The Zike Z666 USB4 really struggles with it. I suspect it’s an issue with the controller in the Zike, which I can’t remember what it is right now. However, one of my TB4 enclosures also has issues with it. There’s nothing wrong with the SSD itself, as it works great in the PS5 and passes its diagnostic/speed test after the install. Thanks for the heads up on the Inateck, I’ll have to have a look at one 👍 Cheers, Dave.
Very interesting I’m using a lexar 4Tb SSD with a ugreen enclosure, all usb4 not 5 and my quick tests shows it’s running at about 1/2 the speed of the internal 1Tb SSD. On my Mac mini pro. Internal spores are amazing w/r 6500/6300 !!! As I said, about 1/2 that external my but it’s fine for my use case. Photography apps no video. Thanks for this update.
Hi, Patrick. Sounds like you've got a great external drive that matches your setup and use. There really is no need to pay for speed that you don't need or feel the benefit from. However, for things like high bandwidth video editing and recording or other instances where you need to move large amounts of data as quickly as possible, especially if it's for commercial work. Then having the fastest and largest drives is going to be helpful. I do a lot of data moving between my computer and drives, so for me personally the faster speeds really do make a difference. I use a lot of ProRes 422 HQ 4K/60 footage, mostly for my gaming channel, so I run out of space quite quickly and need to move files about as quick as I can. I also record direct to the external drives with my Blackmagic interfaces and also my UVC interfaces. Again, something that takes up a lot of space and usually requires moving about. I think in my case I could do less moving of data if I had larger capacity drives. Plus my day to day data management is terrible. I also four 4TB SATA SSDs for one of my recording systems, which will only use SATA. Which makes it a little more difficult to consolidate my drive types. Cheers, Dave.
Hi @DavidHarry. Question regarding WD ssd. Do I need to do a firmware update before using it? because as far as I can see it's not possible on MacOS since WD provides software only for Windows
u might want to change the IO drop down above the Disk graph of the activity monitor to Data, because in the past at least, it was actually reporting IOPS, not transfer rates. now it seems to be reporting GBytes/sec, which is a bit surprising, thh
David is obviously the one to decide whether to test that or not, and is probably much more of an expert on the subject than I am. But, from what I know, Gen 5 NVMe drives generate a lot more heat and generally need a massive heat sink. Whether the ACASIS enclosure with a fan would be enough to keep it from thermal throttling, or not, I don't know. The other thing, and key point, is that I believe the enclosure he's using only supports PCIe4.0, meaning a Gen 5 SSD would drop down to Gen 4 throughput, assuming it even works. Finally, I don't know the specs of the M4 Mac's Thunderbolt 5 port, but I know that PC's which have a Thunderbolt 5 port based on Intel's chipset cannot reach the maximum 80Gb/s rating of the port, but rather a limited to less than 64Gb/s, due to the fact that they use a discrete Thunderbolt 5 chip which connects to the CPU via a 4xPCIe4.0 port. If the Mac does something similar, my guess is that even if the enclosure supported Gen 5 drives fully, the result wouldn't be any faster if the bottleneck is in the Thunderbolt 5 interface. I am though looking forward to the day when there is an enclosure that can fully support and cool a Gen 5 drive, and a Thunderbolt 5 interface that can run at the full speed, which is nearly 10G Bytes / second.
@@aaronlee6821 Hi, Aaron. You are absolutely spot on 👍 However, I wouldn't say that I am more of an expert than you are, I'm just someone who has a lot of practical experience of the things I talk about, as I'm constantly using the stuff. It's likely that you have a better technical understand than I do about such things. The first issue with Gen 5 SSDs, is exactly as you said, heat. Given that certain Gen 4 SSDs have heat issues, such as the 990 Pro, Gen 5 SSDs are going to be worse. Especially inside small enclosures, even actively cooled ones. While I haven't built a PC yet with a Gen 5 SSD, looking at their active cooling solutions for use in a PC, which will already have great airflow and extra cooling. I think that's indiction enough as to how hot a Gen 5 SSD will get. Also, the few Gen 5 SSDs that are available seem to be double sided. Which means that they may have problems fitting into some enclosures, as most enclosures may not have the necessary clearance underneath the SSD to the PCB of the enclosure. Or the SSD may even end up touching some of the components on the enclosure's PCB, which may result in too much heat being dumped to those components. Again, you are absolutely correct about the controller and its available bandwidth. The TB501 and probably all of the few Thunderbolt 5 enclosures that are currently available, are using the Intel JHL9480 TB5 controller. This, as you've said, is limited to PCIe4.0 x4, which has a maximum theoretical bandwidth of 8GB/s (64Gb/s). So yes, given that all the current Gen 5 SSDs are easily capable of 10GB/s and some are over 12GB/s (theoretically). Their speeds will be compromised by the Gen 4 bridge on the TB5 controller and other limitations and overheads of the PCIe tunnelling over Thunderbolt. On the point of the overheads, which is something that I think you were eluding to. While I am not 100% sure about such things, here's what I do understand. Depending on the byte-size/packet-size/payload of the data, being 128 or 256 Bytes, this will have a bearing on the overall bandwidth. I have seen technical papers also referencing "metadata" as part of the overhead, although, for me, "metadata" seems to be a spurious description. Now, as I've said, I am not 100% with my understanding of such things. However, in my previous life as a Windows only user and as someone who has built hundreds of PCs over the last 30+ years (I used to build and sell bespoke custom configured DAWs and NLEs in the early and mid 90s). The later part of my system building, before going fully Mac about three years ago, involved using Thunderbolt controllers and Thunderbolt peripherals on Windows. My understanding of the disparity between the "technical" limit of the data speeds for Thunderbolt and the "real-world" speed due to the various overheads, was mostly down to parity checksumming. With this error correction, being somewhere around 20% of the bandwidth being used, plus various bi-directional communication data and overhead between the host and controller etc. And the general robustness of the signal path. Now while I appreciate that what I've just "tried" to explain with my limited knowledge was a bit vague, at best 😂 These various overheads are why you don't see the maximum bitrate of the PCIe bandwidth, even with SSDs that are clearly faster than the available "usable" bandwidth. In fact, due to these overheads, even a fast Gen 4 SSD can be slightly limited even with a Thunderbolt 5 enclosure. Which means that a Gen 5 SSD will be leaving even more performance on the table, which at the end of the day can be seen as a waste of money. Anyway, the short answer is that you will gain no speed advantage using a Gen 5 SSD over a fast Gen 4 SSD in a Thunderbolt 5 enclosure 🤣 Take care. Cheers, Dave.
Hi. Unfortunately, and while a Gen 5 SSD would be "technically" usable due to backward compatibility with the PCIe Gen 4 bridge in the TB5 controller. A Gen 5 SSD would be too hot and you'd be wasting a lot of its speed as it would be restricted by the Gen 4 bandwidth. Even a fast SSD such as those shown in the video are slightly limited, as they are actually slightly faster than the available "real-world" bandwidth, due to the various overheads of Thunderbolt. So basically, you wouldn't see any difference in speeds between a Gen 5 SSD compared to a Gen 4 SSD in a Thunderbolt 5 enclosure. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry Thanks, David, for the detailed reply. As for building computers, I've been at it for almost 50 years. My first computer build was an IMSAI 8080, which came out in the end of 1975, and where I ordered a kit and had to solder all the components onto bare PCBs, and had to enter my code via front panel toggle switches and LEDs (I originally built the computer without any RS-232 terminal, but did build a terminal later on). I've been totally fascinated with computers ever since. I know a lot about lots of various protocols that I've worked on over the years, and even personally developed several hardware/software protocols for specialized applications, but actually don't know much at all about the details of the Thunderbolt protocol. I do have extensive knowledge about USB, used in certain limited applications, and I'm just now beginning to try to learn about Thunderbolt. Hopefully I'll be able to add more information related to Thunderbolt peripherals/communications as I learn more. Your explanation sounds reasonable to me, being all protocols have some overhead which limit their real-world throughput compared to the actual specification for raw throughput. As a general rule of thumb, I generally guesstimate I might get 90% of the published throughput in actual use, but expect it might easily be much lower, depending on the protocol and other bottlenecks. Regarding your comment, "Anyway, the short answer is that you will gain no speed advantage using a Gen 5 SSD over a fast Gen 4 SSD in a Thunderbolt 5 enclosure", I would say that my best guess is that you're correct, or if there happened to be some gain, it would be very minimal at this point in time. As you (and I) have discovered, the real-world speed depends a lot on how manufacturers implement their solutions, with WD doing a great job, but they haven't yet released their Gen5 drives. A poorly implemented Gen5 drive could easily perform worse than a Gen4 drive in a Thunderbolt 5 enclosure, even if the enclosure is updated to take Gen5 drives. I just purchased this week an Asus Proart Z890 motherboard, which is my first motherboard that can take a Gen5 NVMe, but I'm holding off on buying a new NVMe, because I plan to wait for WD to release their drive, in hopes that it will outperform the competition. But even then, and with the motherboard's native Thunderbolt 5 support, and after buying a Thunderbolt 5 enclosure, I plan to still only put a WD SN850X into it. Should someone soon come out with a Thunderbolt 5 enclosure that is much taller and can support/cool properly a Gen5 drive, and should I find out the Mac M4Pro Thunderbolt 5 port isn't limited to 64Gb/s, I might consider that. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can crunch the numbers, but I'd expect the maximum possible on Thunderbolt 5 to be roughly 9GB/s, figuring in the overhead, vs. the theoretical but impossible 10GB/s. If that's possible, we're looking at a possible 50% increase in speeds over Gen4, which is fantastic. But if using Thunderbolt 5 interface chips that have the 64Gb/s (4xPCIe4.0) limitation (i.e., on my PC), a perhaps potential maximum of 7GB/s, or so, doesn't warrant upgrading for such a tiny improvement.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
Fastest SSD For Your M4 Mac Thunderbolt 5 Enclosure - Samsung 990 Pro vs WD SN850X Write Speed Test.
So having mentioned the cache issues with the Samsung 990 Pro 4TB in previous videos, I thought it would be good to show this in a comparison with the WD SN850X 4TB. I used the M4 Max MacBook Pro for the tests as it has Thunderbolt 5.
The Samsung 990 Pro 4TB only has about 442GB of fast pSLC cache. pSLC meaning pseudo SLC. For a 4TB SSD I think this cache is on the low side. Once the cache is exhausted the write speed drops to about 1.6GB/s and lower.
While I can't find definitive information on how big the cache is on the WD SN850X 4TB, which is also pSLC. The 1TB version has 300GB of cache and the 2TB has 600GB. In my own usage, the 4TB version does not exhaust its cache when moving a folder of over one 1TB. This suggests to me that that the cache scales, which is evident with the scaling of the cache between the 1TB and 2TB versions. So given that the 4TB can easily handle just over 1TB without exhausting its cache, I think it's safe to say that it has 1200MB or 1.2TB of cache.
When the WD SN850X 4TB does exhaust its cache and drops to the its slower write speed. It's not only faster than the slower speed of the Samsung 990 Pro, at about 1700MB/s but it also has bursts up to about 2400MB/s. This indicates that the WD SN850X 4TB has a faster recovery time for its cache compared to the Samsung 990 Pro 4TB.
Don't forget, my tests for these SSDs are as storage drives inside external Thunderbolt 4, Thunderbolt 5 and USB4 enclosures for use with Mac computers. So while the Samsung 990 Pro 4TB may have some advantages as a system boot drive. As a storage SSD inside an enclosure, the WD SN850X clearly has the advantage.
As for the Acasis TB501. Some people may be indifferent to me calling it a Thunderbolt 5 enclosure and that it is recognised as a USB4 V2 device under macOS. However, it does have an Intel JHL9480 controller, which is a Thunderbolt 5 controller and it does run at 80Gb/s for data transfer.
Here's some links to stuff used in the video and some other links that may be useful. I have not included links to the Samsung 990 Pro 4TB as I personally don't believe it is suitable for this type of use.
Use my promo code David15 for a 15% discount if buying from the Acasis website.
Acasis website
TB501 enclosure ➡ bit.ly/4fsUfEQ
TBU405Pro M1 Enclosure ➡ bit.ly/4i1edsR
TBU401 enclosure ➡ bit.ly/49PFnPu
Acasis on Amazon
TB501 enclosure ➡ Not available yet on Amazon
TBU405Pro M1 Enclosure ➡ amzn.to/41V6p62
TBU401 enclosure ➡ amzn.to/3DwYEta
WD SSDs:
SN850X 4TB ➡ geni.us/SN850X-4TB
SN850X 2TB ➡ geni.us/SN850X-2TB
SN850X 1TB ➡ geni.us/SN850X-1TB
Links to Apple products:
M4 Max MacBook Pro 16" ➡ geni.us/70Xn
M4 Max MacBook Pro 14" ➡ geni.us/57QzTfu
M4 Pro MacBook Pro 16" ➡ geni.us/qSYR
M4 Pro MacBook Pro 14" ➡ geni.us/4thf yu0
M4 MacBook Pro 14" ➡ geni.us/Y7TFR
Mac Mini M4 ➡ geni.us/oibaLH
Mac Mini M4 Pro ➡ geni.us/ImJto
Video chapters:
00:00 Intro & explanation
01:31 WD SN850X test
04:14 Samsung 990 Pro test
09:25 End summary
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I’m David Harry. Thank you very much for watching this video, take care and goodbye now.
Cheers,
Dave.
Another super helpful video, Devo. Thanks for validating my decision to go with the WD over the Samsung - I've been quite happy with the SN850X
Thanks, and you very welcome 👍 Yes, you definitely made a good choice with the SN850X. That’s not to say that there aren’t other good SSD options out there. However, the SN850X is a well balanced SSD that’s awesome for storage use. Plus, it also has the most “fast cache” out of all the SSDs I’ve tried, which gives it a big advantage when writing large amounts of data in one go. I just hope the video was clear enough in showing why I personally wouldn’t recommend the 990 Pro as a storage SSD for an enclosure. Cheers, Dave.
David, thanks for another useful video. I've been using the ACASIS Thunderbolt 4 enclosure with fan, combined with the WD SN850X, based on your recommendation and have been well pleased with the performance. I'll likely get the ACASIS Thunderbolt 5 enclosure at some point, probably when they drop the price, and combine it again with a WD SN850X.
Hi, Aaron. Funny enough, I have just responded with a super boring comment on another comment that you commented on 🤣 Yes, that Acasis TB4 enclosure with the fan and an SN850X is a great combination. I'd been using that combination for about a year before using the TB5 enclosure and it was faultless. I even used an ACASIS enclosure without a fan with the same SN850X for about a year before that and that was great. However, without the fan it did get a little hot at times, especially when I was recording video direct to the external drive. However, the SN850X didn't once thermal throttle, even without the fan, which is another plus point for the SN850X. Saying that though, I would definitely recommend an enclosure with a fan, as this should help to extend the life of the SSD due to less constant heat over time.
As for the TB5 enclosure, I absolutely love it and it's my main media and recording drive now. However, saying that and being completely honest, other than some very specific use case scenarios, my previous TB4 version with the fan was easily good enough for most things. With regard the very specific use case scenarios. I also have media on my Mac's internal storage which I fill up really quickly. So I do end up editing between my Mac and the external storage but because I'm always running out of space, I have to move data between the Mac's internal storage and the external drives. So with the M4 Max having TB5, moving data between it and the TB5 SSD is now a lot faster than what it used to be. And for me and my workflow, just that one thing is worth having the TB5 SSD for.
I sometimes get people in the comments giving me crap about how "no-one needs these types of speeds" etc. Now while that may be true for a lot of people, when you do need those speeds, the TB5 drive is problem fixer. Plus, for whatever reason, some people may just want the fastest drive that they can get and I would argue the point and suggest that a TB5 drive, is to some degree, a future proofing investment. Even if someone is only using TB4 on their Mac, or any computer, right now. There's a good chance they will end up on TB5 with a Mac in the future, in which case the TB5 drive will be one less consideration for an upgrade. Plus, at some point, maybe with M5, all the Macs will be TB5 anyway.
As for the TB501. If you are not in hurry, Acasis will be sending me the TB501Pro when it's released, hopefully in about three weeks time. Now I'm not sure what the differences are between it and the TB501 but I will be reviewing it as soon as I get it. So it may be worth holding on to see what that's like. However, I can't see it being any faster, as there's still only the one Intel TB5 controller chip as far as I'm aware, as far as TB5 controller chips are concerned. But it may have some extra USB functionality and I believe Acasis have got rid of that hole thing in the design of the TB501 that I was critical of in my review of the TB501.
Also, if you are into crazy (maybe stupid) videos where someone is doing something that has absolutely no practical use in the "real-world". Keep an eye on my channel 🤣 When I get the next TB5 enclosure I will do a video where I will stripe two TB5 drives, something that's often called RAID0, although it's not really RAID as there's no redundancy. I will do a speed test and hope to see over 10GB/s. Again, not something that's practical but maybe interesting and a bit of fun.
In fact, I can actually show a very specific use case scenario to test the speed of that setup, that a single TB5 drive cant do. I am able to generate a video format that has such a high bitrate, that even a TB5 drive can't play it back as it's too slow 🤣 Again, not a practical exorcise but it could be good for the entertainment factor and will at least be a first on RUclips, although a first that no-one will have any interest in 🤣
Take care.
Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry Good to know that the TB501Pro will be coming out. I'll definitely wait for that, and compare it to the non-Pro model before buying anything. Based on my use case, I will not consider any enclosure without a fan. I was hoping there would be some competition from other companies with TB5 enclosures with a fan, especially at CES earlier this month, but I didn't see anything that I would consider beyond the ACASIS. I guess most manufacturers and/or consumers don't see the need for a fan in the enclosure, but in my opinion that's being very short-sighted.
Thanks for the tests Dave. Have you tested these drives for video editing yet and seen whether they improve scrubbing etc?
Alright, Kevin. Yes, they’re super responsive in the timeline for scrubbing etc. In fact, when using them I can’t feel the difference between them or if the media is on the internal drive of the M4 Max. The read speed of these drives are almost the same as Mac’s storage, around 6000MB/s. In fact, both these drives are more than double the speed of the internal storage of my M4 Mac Mini, which only has the base 256GB internal storage and is only around 2200MB/s for its read and write. Although, the M4 Mac Mini can’t even take full advantage of these drives because it doesn’t have TB5. I’m totally sold on this TB5 enclosure, so I’m going to sell my TB4 drives and any other spare SSDs and switch to more TB5 drives for my main storage. I just wish the 8TB SSDs weren’t so expensive, as an 8TB WD SN850X in one of these Acasis TB501 enclosures would be awesome and it would mean less disk swapping and having to move files about to free up space. Although, seeing as I’m a messy prick, I’d probably still be just as messy but with bigger drive spaces 🤣 Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry That's incredible. I need to start thinking about upgrading to Thunderbolt 5 devices across the board.
I'm starting to think a great setup would be a windows mini pc for recording, but a Mac for editing and everything else. Thunderbolt 5 speeds feel like the next generation of computing.
It's mental that these drives are beating the internal drives.
Kevin
Devo, I expect that you are already aware that Acasis now have an Upgraded Version of their TB501 called the TB501Pro and which has an adjustable fan speed. I am expecting to receive mine next week and my WD SN850X 4TB is waiting to be installed. It is thanks to your previous video reviews that I have made this choice to buy, so Many Thanks! Robin 😊
Pseudo SLC= Normal TLC which the controller chip temporarily uses as SLC (only writing one bit per cell). This is obviously quicker than writing 3 bits (TLC=Three Level Cell /SLC =Single Level Cell) per memory cell.
As the NVME fills up less of the main storage is available to use as Pseudo TLC. So drives slow down the more capacity they use (write speeds in any case).
A proper DRAM cache on the NVME is obviously better. The 990 Pro has a 4GB DRAM cache which obviously fills up very fast , I believe the SN850X has the same.
Personally I find the Hynix P41 Platinum as my NVME of choice, (I have 3 , as well las a SN850X, SN770, a Crucial P2, Kingston Fury all 2TB). My favourite and quickest USB4/TB3/4 enclosure is the Inateck one that on Amazon often sells for around £65. That gives me around 3500MBps connected to an OWC Tb5 dock (MBP 4 Pro) or 3300MBps connected via a Caldigit Elements hub to an M1 Max Studio)
Hi, Mick. Thanks for the clarification 👍 Just to be clear, when I said I didn’t know what pseudo SLC meant. I do know what the word pseudo means, just not what was pseudo about the cache. I hope I didn’t come off as a complete dumbass 🤣
What’s interesting is that the WD’s pSLC recovers a lot faster than the Samsung’s. Which is probably down to the NAND used. Interestingly, the WD doesn’t suffer as much either when the space is getting full.
I actually have a P41, Hynix sent me one to use in a PS5 video. However, I’ve tested it in my enclosures and get some pretty erratic results. The Zike Z666 USB4 really struggles with it. I suspect it’s an issue with the controller in the Zike, which I can’t remember what it is right now. However, one of my TB4 enclosures also has issues with it. There’s nothing wrong with the SSD itself, as it works great in the PS5 and passes its diagnostic/speed test after the install.
Thanks for the heads up on the Inateck, I’ll have to have a look at one 👍
Cheers,
Dave.
Very interesting I’m using a lexar 4Tb SSD with a ugreen enclosure, all usb4 not 5 and my quick tests shows it’s running at about 1/2 the speed of the internal 1Tb SSD. On my Mac mini pro. Internal spores are amazing w/r 6500/6300 !!! As I said, about 1/2 that external my but it’s fine for my use case. Photography apps no video.
Thanks for this update.
Hi, Patrick. Sounds like you've got a great external drive that matches your setup and use. There really is no need to pay for speed that you don't need or feel the benefit from. However, for things like high bandwidth video editing and recording or other instances where you need to move large amounts of data as quickly as possible, especially if it's for commercial work. Then having the fastest and largest drives is going to be helpful. I do a lot of data moving between my computer and drives, so for me personally the faster speeds really do make a difference. I use a lot of ProRes 422 HQ 4K/60 footage, mostly for my gaming channel, so I run out of space quite quickly and need to move files about as quick as I can. I also record direct to the external drives with my Blackmagic interfaces and also my UVC interfaces. Again, something that takes up a lot of space and usually requires moving about. I think in my case I could do less moving of data if I had larger capacity drives. Plus my day to day data management is terrible. I also four 4TB SATA SSDs for one of my recording systems, which will only use SATA. Which makes it a little more difficult to consolidate my drive types. Cheers, Dave.
Hi @DavidHarry. Question regarding WD ssd. Do I need to do a firmware update before using it? because as far as I can see it's not possible on MacOS since WD provides software only for Windows
Temperature as in not just using a handheld temperature gun but an software to monitor these temps
If would be better if you had temperatures when doing this test can you buy a software recording the temps
Test crucial t500 gen4 ssd. That is also a monster
I'll have to have a look at that. Thanks 👍
u might want to change the IO drop down above the Disk graph of the activity monitor to Data, because in the past at least, it was actually reporting IOPS, not transfer rates.
now it seems to be reporting GBytes/sec, which is a bit surprising, thh
@@0netom Hi. The activity monitor is only there as a clear visual indicator to show when the bitrate drops. Cheers, Dave.
Could try outa Gen 5 ssd.
David is obviously the one to decide whether to test that or not, and is probably much more of an expert on the subject than I am. But, from what I know, Gen 5 NVMe drives generate a lot more heat and generally need a massive heat sink. Whether the ACASIS enclosure with a fan would be enough to keep it from thermal throttling, or not, I don't know.
The other thing, and key point, is that I believe the enclosure he's using only supports PCIe4.0, meaning a Gen 5 SSD would drop down to Gen 4 throughput, assuming it even works.
Finally, I don't know the specs of the M4 Mac's Thunderbolt 5 port, but I know that PC's which have a Thunderbolt 5 port based on Intel's chipset cannot reach the maximum 80Gb/s rating of the port, but rather a limited to less than 64Gb/s, due to the fact that they use a discrete Thunderbolt 5 chip which connects to the CPU via a 4xPCIe4.0 port. If the Mac does something similar, my guess is that even if the enclosure supported Gen 5 drives fully, the result wouldn't be any faster if the bottleneck is in the Thunderbolt 5 interface.
I am though looking forward to the day when there is an enclosure that can fully support and cool a Gen 5 drive, and a Thunderbolt 5 interface that can run at the full speed, which is nearly 10G Bytes / second.
@@aaronlee6821 Hi, Aaron. You are absolutely spot on 👍 However, I wouldn't say that I am more of an expert than you are, I'm just someone who has a lot of practical experience of the things I talk about, as I'm constantly using the stuff. It's likely that you have a better technical understand than I do about such things.
The first issue with Gen 5 SSDs, is exactly as you said, heat. Given that certain Gen 4 SSDs have heat issues, such as the 990 Pro, Gen 5 SSDs are going to be worse. Especially inside small enclosures, even actively cooled ones. While I haven't built a PC yet with a Gen 5 SSD, looking at their active cooling solutions for use in a PC, which will already have great airflow and extra cooling. I think that's indiction enough as to how hot a Gen 5 SSD will get.
Also, the few Gen 5 SSDs that are available seem to be double sided. Which means that they may have problems fitting into some enclosures, as most enclosures may not have the necessary clearance underneath the SSD to the PCB of the enclosure. Or the SSD may even end up touching some of the components on the enclosure's PCB, which may result in too much heat being dumped to those components.
Again, you are absolutely correct about the controller and its available bandwidth. The TB501 and probably all of the few Thunderbolt 5 enclosures that are currently available, are using the Intel JHL9480 TB5 controller. This, as you've said, is limited to PCIe4.0 x4, which has a maximum theoretical bandwidth of 8GB/s (64Gb/s). So yes, given that all the current Gen 5 SSDs are easily capable of 10GB/s and some are over 12GB/s (theoretically). Their speeds will be compromised by the Gen 4 bridge on the TB5 controller and other limitations and overheads of the PCIe tunnelling over Thunderbolt.
On the point of the overheads, which is something that I think you were eluding to. While I am not 100% sure about such things, here's what I do understand. Depending on the byte-size/packet-size/payload of the data, being 128 or 256 Bytes, this will have a bearing on the overall bandwidth. I have seen technical papers also referencing "metadata" as part of the overhead, although, for me, "metadata" seems to be a spurious description. Now, as I've said, I am not 100% with my understanding of such things. However, in my previous life as a Windows only user and as someone who has built hundreds of PCs over the last 30+ years (I used to build and sell bespoke custom configured DAWs and NLEs in the early and mid 90s). The later part of my system building, before going fully Mac about three years ago, involved using Thunderbolt controllers and Thunderbolt peripherals on Windows. My understanding of the disparity between the "technical" limit of the data speeds for Thunderbolt and the "real-world" speed due to the various overheads, was mostly down to parity checksumming. With this error correction, being somewhere around 20% of the bandwidth being used, plus various bi-directional communication data and overhead between the host and controller etc. And the general robustness of the signal path.
Now while I appreciate that what I've just "tried" to explain with my limited knowledge was a bit vague, at best 😂 These various overheads are why you don't see the maximum bitrate of the PCIe bandwidth, even with SSDs that are clearly faster than the available "usable" bandwidth. In fact, due to these overheads, even a fast Gen 4 SSD can be slightly limited even with a Thunderbolt 5 enclosure. Which means that a Gen 5 SSD will be leaving even more performance on the table, which at the end of the day can be seen as a waste of money.
Anyway, the short answer is that you will gain no speed advantage using a Gen 5 SSD over a fast Gen 4 SSD in a Thunderbolt 5 enclosure 🤣
Take care.
Cheers, Dave.
Hi. Unfortunately, and while a Gen 5 SSD would be "technically" usable due to backward compatibility with the PCIe Gen 4 bridge in the TB5 controller. A Gen 5 SSD would be too hot and you'd be wasting a lot of its speed as it would be restricted by the Gen 4 bandwidth. Even a fast SSD such as those shown in the video are slightly limited, as they are actually slightly faster than the available "real-world" bandwidth, due to the various overheads of Thunderbolt. So basically, you wouldn't see any difference in speeds between a Gen 5 SSD compared to a Gen 4 SSD in a Thunderbolt 5 enclosure. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry Thanks, David, for the detailed reply.
As for building computers, I've been at it for almost 50 years. My first computer build was an IMSAI 8080, which came out in the end of 1975, and where I ordered a kit and had to solder all the components onto bare PCBs, and had to enter my code via front panel toggle switches and LEDs (I originally built the computer without any RS-232 terminal, but did build a terminal later on). I've been totally fascinated with computers ever since.
I know a lot about lots of various protocols that I've worked on over the years, and even personally developed several hardware/software protocols for specialized applications, but actually don't know much at all about the details of the Thunderbolt protocol. I do have extensive knowledge about USB, used in certain limited applications, and I'm just now beginning to try to learn about Thunderbolt. Hopefully I'll be able to add more information related to Thunderbolt peripherals/communications as I learn more. Your explanation sounds reasonable to me, being all protocols have some overhead which limit their real-world throughput compared to the actual specification for raw throughput. As a general rule of thumb, I generally guesstimate I might get 90% of the published throughput in actual use, but expect it might easily be much lower, depending on the protocol and other bottlenecks.
Regarding your comment, "Anyway, the short answer is that you will gain no speed advantage using a Gen 5 SSD over a fast Gen 4 SSD in a Thunderbolt 5 enclosure", I would say that my best guess is that you're correct, or if there happened to be some gain, it would be very minimal at this point in time. As you (and I) have discovered, the real-world speed depends a lot on how manufacturers implement their solutions, with WD doing a great job, but they haven't yet released their Gen5 drives. A poorly implemented Gen5 drive could easily perform worse than a Gen4 drive in a Thunderbolt 5 enclosure, even if the enclosure is updated to take Gen5 drives. I just purchased this week an Asus Proart Z890 motherboard, which is my first motherboard that can take a Gen5 NVMe, but I'm holding off on buying a new NVMe, because I plan to wait for WD to release their drive, in hopes that it will outperform the competition. But even then, and with the motherboard's native Thunderbolt 5 support, and after buying a Thunderbolt 5 enclosure, I plan to still only put a WD SN850X into it. Should someone soon come out with a Thunderbolt 5 enclosure that is much taller and can support/cool properly a Gen5 drive, and should I find out the Mac M4Pro Thunderbolt 5 port isn't limited to 64Gb/s, I might consider that. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can crunch the numbers, but I'd expect the maximum possible on Thunderbolt 5 to be roughly 9GB/s, figuring in the overhead, vs. the theoretical but impossible 10GB/s. If that's possible, we're looking at a possible 50% increase in speeds over Gen4, which is fantastic. But if using Thunderbolt 5 interface chips that have the 64Gb/s (4xPCIe4.0) limitation (i.e., on my PC), a perhaps potential maximum of 7GB/s, or so, doesn't warrant upgrading for such a tiny improvement.
Software only cost around $20 bucks and yet you have the m pl ney to buy m4max