Thank you so much for this video and all the work you've done to make it. I was searching for a fan-cooled thunderbolt 3 or USB4 enclosure for quite a long period of time as I'm really concerned about the high temps and I never found one. You are the first and only person who showed an exact product that I'm looking for. Thank you for the comparison too, as now I understand what to buy =)
Certainly the best analysis and testing of TB3 / USB4 ports I have seen to date on Apple's misleading marketing figures, and very good research and explanation.. I'm suscribing to your channel.. I don't care how beautiful the background or the lighting is, I just want real facts .. 'bravo' for the quality of the content.
Thanks friend! I appreciate you hanging out. It can be tough because reviewing tech (or anything) has the ability to upset some folks if the results aren’t leaning to the correct narrative. I’m certainly not trying to create buyers remorse, but sometimes I find that the items we purchase aren’t exactly as advertised 🤷♂️ Anyway, I’ll keep speaking the truth 😉
Thanks so much for all the great content! The amount of information in your videos is ridiculously helpful. In fact, thanks to your videos I just ordered an Acasis enclosure and SN750 NMVE drive to connect to a new Mac Studio on order. Can’t wait to see how fast this set-up functions.
Alright friends. Just another follow up to compare these two enclosures, and to also discuss that there are "issues" with these controllers/retimers on this M1 chip? Can it be fixed with an update? Sure, but that's likely a hardware update. When testing I always recommend going beyond the synthetic benchmarks and seeing what these are like in an actual workflow. All cables used are certified, and I've even tested certified active cables with these enclosures. It's coming down to relying on powered Thunderbolt hubs to push this throughput, which I'm still waiting on one that hasn't been fully rolled out yet. Either way, sending my best, and it's not all heartbreaking that these M1 Macs are throttled/bottlenecked on these ports because the performance is still amazing for a base level chip. You may be finding different results and by all means, feel free to share them here. I'll see you in the comments.
Hi Kev. It’s Kevin in Toronto writing. Thanks for this video, which was slightly beyond my scope. However, I was going to suggest to you previously that perhaps in a future video you could talk about or mention USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 - that although they share the same plugin, they are NOT the same thing. In some instances, I don’t think that some cable manufacturers even understand the differences between the two. I have found that finding a proper Thunderbolt 3 cable isn’t easy. On Amazon, they are listed as Thunderbolt 3/USB-C cables or adapters, to which I ask myself “well, which one are you?” The USB-4 configuration that you mention being something Apple has done with the M1 chip is not something I am too familiar with, so thanks for going to the trouble of enlightening those of us that may not know. By the way, I have been finding glitches with the Big Sur OS that is infuriating at times. It’s been ejecting my external drives for no reason while I’m working in them. Out of the blue I’ll get a pop up advising that the external drive was ejected improperly. This goes for the T7 as well as my SATA Drive and a Flash stick. Very weird. Perhaps I’ve got a ghost in the machine! Hope all is well.
Hey Kevin, great to see you over here again. You know, it’s funny. I had a section in the video about the cables, but decided to cut it out. I was trying to trim it down a bit. Specifically I discussed the passive vs active cables, and yes, you are right when it comes to the confusion of those cables. As far as the randy ejecting, are you plugged directly in I assume? I’ve had someone else share their issue with using a hub, which hopefully with the latest update as of yesterday I believe, this may fix that issue with some of those hubs. However, interesting indeed. I don’t have a T7, but do have a T5, which I haven’t had that issue. I also keep my NVMe enclosures plugged in pretty much all the time. Interesting. I’ll have to investigate further. Have you found any others with the issue?
@@KevinRossRN - Hi Kev. Only the T7 is plugged in directly. The other two are through a USB-A hub. I haven’t clicked on the latest update yet. I’ll do that tomorrow and keep an eye on the ejection rate. Haven’t found anyone else with this same ejection issue. With the Flash drive, I move over a music file from the SATA drive to the Flash drive, and the flash freezes during the write and then just ejects. That was today. But for previous days, just straight ejection out of the blue. It’s not an often occurrence, but definitely a few times in each session. Weird. Never had these issues before. I’m not doing anything unusual or different. All the drives are formatted properly. Anyhow, I’ll figure it out Kev. Just thought I’d mention it.
That is weird, and honestly, frustrating. I wish I could point to a fix. At the very least, let’s hope that the latest update provides some benefit. It is supposed to fix the issue with third party hubs that were bricking the Mac, but I wonder if there’s a few other updates that are snuck into it that may address anything else. I’ll be curious to hear.
I appreciate you taking the time doing this and really presenting it in a manner I’m not guessing anymore. Great video, great info and presentation. Got my 👍🏼 thanks
Glad to help. If you need to sandbox the OS you can boot from it, or just hold the OS and apps in the internal and run your libraries, gaming data, etc off of the external as well.
Love me some snaxy graphs, numbers and air quotes. Let's bring them back! 😁😂 Appreciate all the effort put into this and I got to say the execution is superb. Great stuff Kevin!
@@KevinRossRN Allow me to correct myself. I switched the drives and the ports and had better "ventilation" than last time. There was no noticeable difference between HFS+ and APFS. Apologies for any confusion. Yes - I have a 4TB Maxed out 16" M1 Max and the experience is completely different. I work on my 2019 27" Core I-9 iMac and keep asking myself "Is this thing frozen?". Loading programs with the older SSD is particularly slow by comparison. My advice, unlike most on RUclips, is buy AS MUCH of the new M1-Pro/Max as you can afford.
Oh gotcha. I think I responded before the edit. And honestly I think that’s reasonable for real world use…at least in my testing on this video as well as my updated test from last week I posted.
Thanks! And it certainly can go a little deeper than this, but hopefully they can resolve the issue in the next iteration and open up more PCIe lanes or more power to the controller.
Hi Kevin, thanks for this video. With reference to the other videos you made later on in the summer of 2021, have ssd enclosures improved transfer speeds on the 1st Gen M1 Macs since February last year? Take care. Great stuff as always. Your channel deserves to grow much much more.
You bet. So there has been some slight improvement with the communication protocol, specifically in my latest video where I tested the Samsung 980PRO. I was getting slightly better results with this enclosure as well as the Fledging with that SSD. I’d say that this isn’t the case with all SSDs on the M1, but I am still testing. Hoping to get some Sabrent SSDs to test because it sounds like some of them are providing better results now.
Great video as usual, no BS or rumor riffing. Ordered a tb-3 external enclosure from wavlink. Will be using on a future mac, currently on windows machine. I am finding that none of these enclosures support two sided NVME drives. Is that the case with these enclosures as well Kevin?
Thanks! And yeah, in my research I haven’t found any enclosure yet that can handle that. Up to 4TBs, yes, but I will say that this could be a thermal nightmare if not properly managed. I get sketched out by some of these enclosures, especially when it comes to the components they’re using. That’s why I try to put them under as much load as possible. I am working on something that is more NAS based as far as the hardware, but should be able to have that direct TB connection that would be able to handle those thermals and a few NVMe SSDs. My dream setup would be able to work on those SSDs through TB/USB4 and then archive within the same enclosure to some spinning HDDs...Such a niche workflow. But yeah, the two sided setup would likely cause failure or bottlenecks that these smaller manufacturers couldn’t handle on the customer service side, not to mention the expense because of the type of board they’d need in those enclosures. 🤷♂️
I bought the Wavlink too. I had the first replaced, and a Crucial P5 V3 specced not V4. Rated performance something like 3500/3000 yet I can only get around 1000 read and write. I sent the NVMe back to Crucial, and the new replacement performs exactly the same. Tried this on M1 Macs and Intel. Always close to the same. I am really disappointed in this. Is it perhaps an incompatible mix?
I actually did a follow up video that released yesterday touching on a couple of these questions. I’d have to determine which chip you’ve got on that board in the enclosure, but this could be an issue where the enclosure isn’t able to fully push that throughput, but there’s also the enclosure and SSD compatibility. I’m seeing more manufacturers list the SSDs they’ve tested.
Keep doing these great videos! Been very informative. I’m wondering what kind of external ssd enclosure and what kind of nvme drive do you prefer for fastest transferring. I saw the numbers were close but, say that you’re on a bit of a budget but want the same speeds, what do you recommend?
So I’d say the SanDisk extreme may be your best bet. The one linked in the description that I tested is plenty fast. They have Western Digital NVMe SSDs in them. Otherwise, if you’re building an enclosure you could get the WD SN750 SSD and then a USB-C Enclosure like this one: amzn.to/37OmwFH It’s not TB3, but on par with the SanDisk speeds, and you can always upgrade the SSD in it. That would bring you in at around 150-160USD
Thank you for this awesome content! Very informative and rolled out quicker than I could get around to watching it! As you've rightly opined before, the pace of development is so quick nowadays -- to the point that I can't (or won't bother) to keep up. Thanks for your intensive real world testing and for providing all this data so that we (me) mere mortals can make more informed buying decisions! That said, would I be "future proofing" (insomuch as possible) if I were to get the USB 4 with Gen 4 SSD today? Or would it be more likely that by the time we see more PCIe lanes or controllers with more power to fully utilise those throughput speeds, USB 4 and/or Gen 4 SSDs would be reduced to a commonality (with mass market prices) instead of remaining high-priced commodities? Just wondering cos I'm getting my Mac Mini tomorrow! Thanks, Kevin!
So for external use right now, and likely in the near future it will be harder to get that full throughput of Gen4, however in my case (and probably yours), I was able to find a Gen4 SSD at the same price, so I just grabbed it. I also do like USB4 for that protocol that it works with USB-C, so I do think it’s worth it there.
You deserve a sub brother! I just recently started going back to my lifetime photo and video archive on a QNAP 20TB thunderbolt raid 5 setup after a long hiatus. Got myself a 2tb NVME m.2 (Samsung 980 pro) and 2 8TB sata SSD’s (Samsung evo) for making a mobile secondary backup of my QNAP lol.. definitely getting your recommended enclosures! Gratitude 🙏🏼
Hey that’s awesome! And, I did an update on the Acasis and 980 PRO, and they are a great combo. I use it all the time. Great to have you around the channel and I appreciate you sharing your workflow as well. 🤘
Loved these few of Thunderbolt 3 NVMe vids from you. I got an external Thunderbolt 3 enclosure and a Sabrent Gen4 4800 MB/s drive, but am getting the same 2500-2700 MB/s speeds. So it's not currently even possible to get the 4000-5000 MB/s speeds from these drives, unless they're mounted on a PCIe motherboard in a PC?
That is correct. You can only get the speeds that either the enclosure supports and the throughput that TB3/TB4 supports. And based on the information I’ve received the Sabrent SSDs have sometimes performed slower in these enclosures, and just seem to do better directly on the motherboard.
I've done extensive testing on just about all TB enclosures out there (there really is not many), and I landed on the Shell Thunder. I have three of them. Coupled with the SP Gen 4 NVMe, it offers about 50% MORE speed on Write than an EVO, and will run cooler (by almost 20 degrees C under load). The enclosure itself also pushed out speeds around 41% higher than in "other" TB enclosures. It was a no brainer which flash to use with me and in which enclosure. The Shell Thunder enclosure is the fastest out there for what it is and Shell are great people to talk with about all things nerdy (and trust me, I have). THAT speak volumes with me. But just as Kevin has said many times, benchmarks are what they are...benchmarks. They are not the be all end all. Don't get too hung up with the numbers of BM and AJA. Put the piece into your workflow and make your decision in that manner and how it works for YOU. Why? The most interesting aspect of my testing yielded the same results as Kevin whereas, the drives that were so-called "faster" exported at the same speed as the "slower" ones. I ran into this situation many times and it just blew me away. It was at that point I no longer focused merely on the "numbers". It is truly a "staring point". Good luck beautiful humans.
Really appreciate you popping over for this one. Much appreciate your time and comment. I do love the Fledging setup and have also been in communication with them, which I appreciate so much from a brand. And yeah, even though you (one) may get similar results from a pre-built 3.2 device, these are still great because of the customization...especially since we can't customize/update anything on these M1 machines. Many thanks, and keep rocking those faces.
@@KevinRossRN Yessir! I've always built my own because I'm just a speed freak (and a little OCD). That part is predictable. What wasn't was all the testing I did with all those DIY enclosures/NMVe and what was concluded from it. I also was never happy with pre-built NVMe configurations that are offered. Don't like to be pigeon-holed. I tinker way too much. Keep rockin' those beanies!
The SN750, which I did post those read/write values in the video, but the only reason I tested the Gen 4 silicon power was because I got an awesome deal on it, I wanted to test whether it made a difference in the enclosure (it didn’t), and I ended up using it in a PC build that I’ll be sharing on the channel soon, but the SP in the PC is reading at 4977 and writing at 4200.
Great channel! Love these videos! Question for you. I got the Acasis enclosure with 2TB WD SN750. One thing I noticed that the enclosure is very warm when idling and stays very warm even if ejected from my M1 mac but leave it plugged in. Have you noticed anything like this on your units? I'm curious if its the enclosure still drawing power or the SSD.
Yeah, this is something I’ve been testing on Monterey as well as Big Sur. It’s still drawing power even if the OS isn’t utilizing the drive, so hence the reason why it’s still warm. This seems to be something with these thunderbolt enclosures that I’ve found.
@@KevinRossRN Thanks for the reply! Have you heard of any 2TB SSDs that work with the Acasis and M1 mac with no issues? My 2TB WD SN750 is only getting ~1200mbps write which many other have noted too. I'm worried to try the Samsung 970 EVO Plus because i heard a lot of people having issues with that SSD and M1 macs.
Yeah the SN750 seems to work the best, except for that silicon power one I reviewed a while back. I think there’s been an update to the SN750 SSD components that may be slowing it down, which is related to the manufacturing issues globally. The video I did comparing it to the 970 EVO also resulted in the SN750 performing better, but it also comes down to what you’re using it for. As in this case, the program can only write so fast through TB3/USB4 and regardless of the speed of the SSD, it’s negligible. But again, just depends on what you’re using it for. This will be one of the first things I test on the M1X.
I have a video coming out today on further tests with two of the top SSDs in this category. For video editing, it really doesn’t matter because the program can only read and write so fast. Are you going with a DIY setup?
Great video. What drive and enclosure would you recommend for someone whose needs are to transfer documents and some audio (pdf, mp3) on a M1 Mac Mini? I don’t think my needs are as demanding as video editing and transferring video b/t drives. Would i benefit enough to justify the premium for thunderbolt?
I’ve actually updated these videos with the Mac Studio. The one thing I really like about the Acasis is that it’s USB4 so I’m able to use it on USB-C devices. I still use them both though, but the Acasis will have a slight edge on synthetic benchmarks. Real world however, the difference is minimal.
Also srry, maybe im the only one that didn't get this but the nut was missing from just the acasis enclosure and not both as the fledging also shows up in that segment. No problem with the fledging? Thanks :D
Hey, Very informative, straight to the point & beautifully presented videos! Has anyone ever told you that you look a bit like Rodney Mullen? .D at 09:44 you had test results screened for "Extreme SSD" - just to be clear, by that are you referring to Sandisk Extreme SSD that you linked in your description?
Yep, the one linked in the description is the one I tested. And no, I haven’t heard that about looking like Rodney Mullen 😏😉 Actually yes, yes I have 🛹 Appreciate you hanging out 🤙
@@KevinRossRN haha, Maybe the hat+hair combo makes the similarities. Interesting, so ~500mb per sec drive is enough for such demanding export and does it pretty much at same speed as ~5000mb per sec SSD. Almost went nuts today with these numbers and research :D That real life comparison was really needed. Going with Sandisk Extreme and moving on with my life haha. Cheeeers! Keep it up!
So the one I linked up...it should say it parentheses as far the product number, it’s the 1050MB/s read and write...but yes, real world use netted those results and I use all of these SSDs constantly and don’t really notice any difference. And yeah, I’m flattered. Quite a few have mentioned the resemblance. He’s a cool dude and an even better skateboarder than I am.
So the trick for the M1 Mac's is to really use a USB4 or TB3 enclosure, if you want to get beyond the ~700 that most of the USB 3.x enclosures are giving? Interesting. You're the first one I saw that actually showed what's needed to reach higher speeds on the M1 Mac's.
Yeah, I have several videos in this subject. But yes, if you need to go beyond that then these Thunderbolt or USB 4.0 enclosures are the way to go. I still use them all the time.
I was wondering what would give me the fastest speeds to run my M1 Mac Mini of external MVNO Gen 4, so I bought a Sabrent Thunderbolt 3 m.2 NVME ssd aluminum enclosure because it was cheaper than the USB 4.0 enclosure but i was not sure which or what would be the fastest speed enclosure i could buy. Do you think i did the right move or should i buy a different enclosure?
Well done my friend. A good in-depth video. I am not quite there yet where I need the very high speed of disks. Although they are of course very nice and pump out very impressive speed, I am not in that category yet where I need the insane speed. Still shooting 1080 and 4K. My T3 and T5s can still keep up, and for larger jobs I use my QNAP in raid. But its very good that you are making these videos, and I really hope those who want to get into video or media that works wit larger files have a look at your research. Did you by any chance measure any temperature on the ssd? The only thing that makes me a little nervous each time I am rendering from the T3 or T5 is they do tend to heat up quite a little. I digress, sorry, another very well done video my friend :)
Thanks my friend, and yes, I did run those temps... I think I accidentally cut those out of the video...let me go to my notes and I’ll update that in the description. BTW, how are you liking your QNAP?
@@KevinRossRN I really love the QNAP, it is very robust so far (knock on wood) I am currently editing with it with spin disks, in raid. Using it over thunderbolt. I am considering upgrading it with SSD disk, but again, like I tried to say, for working, it´s more than enough. It´s robust, and if a disk fails it costs me minimum. But of course as prices of SSDs keeps dropping and they do also become bigger it is becoming more and more tempting. For 1080 and 4K spin disks in raid is just fine. I did however also of course had to try some 8K files. Then it told me to F ...off. :) But I must really add, by old rabbit I transcode all my files to proxy before working on larger project anyways. And when I did that with 8K it had no problem. I feel really many misunderstands often when looking at reviews the difference in speed, and what formate one should be working with etc. Here I digress once more...sorry! I hope you are well and the family is well to ? :)
Ha! It’s okay to digress. Great to hear. I’m eyeballing a TB connected option to be able to edit from. I’d love to edit off the SSD and then archive on the spinning drives. I do currently back up on a Synology and can edit with Symlinks via FCP, but would love more throughput. All is well here. Hope you’re hanging in there these days.
Dude, thank you so much for reviewing and bringing all the data to us. I appreciate it because I cant understand why we are not allowed to get the speeds these drives are capable of on our macs. Windows pcs do not seem to have the same limitations.
You got it! I’ve continued to test and update the community here on some of my most recent videos where we’re finding some better enclosure and SSD combos, but yes, it has been a pain with these M1s. The updated chips are “better” with this throughput, but we’re still seeing some issues with that communication protocol. Glad to have you here.
Thanks! Years of podcasting, plus I suppose the “gift” of my vocal chords 🤷♂️ You never know, you might just hear me randomly on a voiceover for a documentary 😉
Great channel! I would love to see the OWC Envoy Pro EX TB3 ssd compared. It clocks in around $300 for 1TB and has approached M1 internal speeds on some other comparisons I’ve seen.
They did send me an external SSD, no questions asked and no expectations to make a video, but would love the opportunity to test more of their products since as you can see I try not to just run a synthetic benchmark and call it good 😉
I love this video, thanks!, i have a question. ACASIS is or not compatible with iPad Pro 2020? In Amazon, descriptions says “not compatible with ipad”.
As far as 2020 iPad Pro, I can’t speak to that, but it should be because my iPad Air 4 recognizes it. It was actually one of the first things I tested since it should be using the USB4 protocol.
thanks for the video, Acasis produce a thunderbolt 3 only enclosure (not usb4), is it the same? same controller of the USB4 version? price is lower on aliexpress. have you tested it?
I haven’t tested the TB3 version. Did you notice if it’s the same model number? I’d have to look into it, but I will say these TB3 enclosures are more than capable.
Great video. Really like your channel. I have a 2017 MBP 13” I7 with 16GB RAM and a 1TB drive that is struggling with 4K video. The thing is this MBP has 4 USB C (Thunderbolt) ports and I use them all. I am struggling to figure out if I can live with two ports, albeit separate channels. Video is not my only thing. I need two USB-A ports, plus another 2 USB-C (or Thunderbolt) ports for external SSDs (one is my Time Machine). The price certainly seems right though on the M1.
I’ve got a similar setup and when I got the M1 it was as if I got a Mac Pro. It’s a little beast. Have you looked into the TB3 and TB4 hubs from Caldigit or OWC? Those will give you some extra I/O.
Hello . I bought an Evo Plus 1 Tb. I have Macbook Pro A 1398 (16gb/1Tb). I'm trying to find a case for him. Also interesting is the ability to insert it instead of an Apple disk using an adapter. I'm also thinking about buying a Mac Mini and connecting an external drive as a boot drive using a 40 Gbps enclosure. What do you think of it ?
Great information. and video, Thank You. However, you didn't say which Intel Processor or the amount of memory in ether computer. As 'm looking to purchase a few of the M1 units for some testing I need to do myself and having just purchased a new MacBook Pro 16 with the Intel Core i9 with the TB3, I'm very curious as to which Intel CPU you're comparing. Please let me know if possible. Thank you in advance.
Yes. USB4 is compatible with Thunderbolt throughput and also falls back to USB-C Gen2. It’s just that the M1 TB ports are “slower” than the updated machines, but I’ve discussed this in previous videos as well that you can get that higher throughput if you’re really pushing them. But simple answer, I have two M1s and these work great.
Hi Kevin. I really like your videos. But I Have an issue here. What is the best enclosure for my WD BLACK SN 850 1TB Gen 4? I just bought it a couple of days ago (With Orico RTL9210 enclosure) and It really sucked. Lol. it only showed 500-800 Mb/s Read Speed in BLACKMAGIC Test. I have MAC MINI M1 and want to make it an external drive like you did and I'm really looking forward to your suggestion. Thx.
@@KevinRossRN no I haven't actually. It seems Acasis is not popular in my country (indonesia) which is why its a not easy to get your hands on it. and its way more expansive too. My friend offer me YOTTAMASTER. But he told me the results will be still around 2GB/S and not more, even if I put the SN850 gen 4 in it which suppose to has 6Gb/s read speed as in their adv claim. What do you think?
Well you’re going to be limited by the bandwidth of the enclosure and Thunderbolt. Now if you had that SSD installed internally, then you’d get closer to advertised speeds, but yeah, the boards in those enclosures only support just over 3,000 (give or take) and the bottleneck is the connection.
Hey Kevin I’m currently using a treebleet thunderbolt 3 enclosure with SK hynix Gold P31 2TB PCIe NVMe Gen3 M.2 2280 Internal SSD. Currently seeing 2566 read / 2100 write. I expect this to increase slightly after receiving the cal digit thunderbolt 4 element hub as the ssd is rated for 3500/3200. Highly recommend this combination after trying many this was the fastest enclosure I found.
Yeah, I’ve been meaning to review that one. The USB4 from Acasis is pretty awesome, and I’ll be curious to see what you find with the hub comes in. My update on the M1 Max should be coming out soon in regards to Thunderbolt speeds with these drives. Let me know what you find when you retest.
@@KevinRossRN I also tried that Acasis enclosure. I loved the build quality. Felt like a total beast. But on my machine the treebleet outperformed. I’ll check back in a couple weeks after the hub arrives.
Yeah, I think it comes down to finding the one that works best with your setup because as you see they’re all a little different. Looking forward to the update. Whenever you get a chance.
@@KevinRossRN so I received my hub. Instantly noticed write performance is awful when plugged into the hub. However. Having the hub plugged in and the drive direct to computer i am seeing those higher write speeds and seeing them stay consistently high. Where as before they would drop down a tad and go back up. But direct to hub. I saw a drastic decrease in write speed with this drive down to 600… gross.
My favorite right now is the Samsung 980PRO and the Acasis. Those might be linked up below. But in one of my recent videos I do show that external SSDs (for video editing) are still on par with the internal.
Only for very large file transfers, and actually performing this task often. Otherwise, save some cash and think about the Silicon Power or the Samsung 970 EVO Plus.
@@KevinRossRN Great service! Sorry to bother you but now that I’ve found your channel and subscribed I’m going through all your videos on DIY SSD. Thank you so much. Take care.
I wish it was easier to buy a 40Gbps enclosure. So many models, so little in terms of specs on the controller chips used. So many models with bad thermal pad connectivity. Incorrect cables being shipped etc. Going from 4 days ago when I had no idea what a NVME SSD enclosure was or cost, to now where my head is about to explode, I just want a good price on a reliable performing enclosure. First World problems I suppose. It's a good and bad problem to have but still a rollercoaster. Thanks for what you do and share, it's appreciated! 😀👍
@@KevinRossRN Thanks for the reply. I was about to order one but ACASIS aren't compatible with SK Hynix SSD's apparently. From what I understand it will kernel panic a Mac if used in that combination. Ouch, time to do more research. Interestingly while I was doing research I found out that the ANYOYO uses the same controller board as the ACASIS enclosure, just with a different aluminium case. When I went onto the ANYOYO web page I clicked on their contact us link and it was for an ACASIS email address.
Yeah a lot of these manufacturers are using the same components and marketing/branding as something different. I looked into it a couple years back when I was going to launch my own. Do you already have that SSD, or just looking at it due to access and price?
@@KevinRossRN I ordered a 2TB P41 Platinum last week when it came up for a deal on Amazon Australia too good to pass up ($178 AUD or $120 USD). It's still in the ordered state and not shipped though. Somewhat of a concern as there have been reports of some people receiving an empty sealed box. Why is it that most of the issues we have with IT equipment these days is the ordering and delivery rather than operational or warranty issues !? All part of the roulette wheel of online ordering I suppose. 😉
Sorry to spam messages 😌 but I thought it might be of use for someone to know that I emailed SK Hynix directly and they said they do not recommend using their SSD's in an external enclosure regardless of the brand. Their recommendation is for internal computer use only. As a result I cancelled my Amazon order for one and will probably buy a Samsung 980 Pro instead.
The question comes to mind, are the SSD enclosures more efficient utilizing a separate power source as opposed to pulling the power through the Thunderbolt 3 connection? Or are these SSD enclosures more efficient running through a Hub as opposed a direct connect to the M1 Thunderbolt 3 connection. Does the same hold true for connections to the MAC Mini M1?
I actually did a video on using a Thunderbolt dock to help increase the saturation in that throughput that can occur, however it really only helps if you are truly able to push these enclosures to the fullest. Basically, I was able to get these to perform faster, but only when I was performing multiple tasks simultaneously.
Hey Kevin, love the videos and just subscribed. I’m new to building enclosures and just bought a 2TB WD Black SN850. Was looking for an enclosure that would give tb3/4 speed and came upon the Acasis. When I went to buy it I noticed they had a disclaimer saying that the 850 and the 980pro were not recommended. I reached out to them and they said they will work but only at sub1000 mbps speeds and that these drives are not recommended. I asked for an explanation but got a reply that didn’t make any sense and they held firm that these gen4 drives will only max out at 900-1000 mbps. What are your thoughts on their specific response and can you recommend any enclosures that will be a good fit with the WD850. I’m planning on using it with a MacBook Pro max and Canon r5 5 and 8K raw files editing on fcpx. Appreciate any help bro.
Welcome to the community. As far as the disclaimer, it’s kind of funny because they ended up embedding this video on their website…funny. I believe what was happening was that there was a combo of updates to the SN750 and 850 SSDs (due to the manufacturing delays), and some were experiencing these slow downs, but I didn’t experience these directly. Here is a video I did not that long ago that might help: Samsung 980 PRO vs WD Black SN850 External SSD | M1 Mac and M1 Max ruclips.net/video/kNUQOIt2oqQ/видео.html
@@KevinRossRN Thanks for getting back. It seems your numbers on the video you recommended to me actually backs up Acasis' claim about slower write speeds with the WD850, certainly vs the 980Pro. I was confused as the WD850 is gen4 and the WD's claimed speeds appear to be in line with the 980pro. Is your sense that the WD850 is throttling because of the thermals perhaps?
Nah, I don’t think it’s intentionally throttling. I think it’s the communication protocol that’s having issues with some of these Gen 4 SSDs. It’s as if they’re trying to be backward compatible, which they would be, but they’re just not taking full advantage of even the Gen 3 speeds.
Funny I did not get the same little nut on the Akasis, it came with a rubber plug that fits in its place, seems to work fine and honors the no tools required statement. Very fast enclosure, I am getting 2700 read and write speeds with a MacStudio.
Yeah, I think they were one of the first of these enclosures I came across with the nut, and as I picked up more I noticed that others started doing the same. However most of these brands are often using the same manufacturers to assemble these and just putting a different name on it. It’s been fine though. Haven’t had any issues.
Hi Kevin, Thanks so much for doing this. I picked up a sandisk extreme pro usb 3.2 drive in hopes of getting the advertised 2kmb/s read/write speeds to address a bottleneck I was experiencing in my Logic Pro projects at higher track counts. Needless to say I did not achieve this and spent a good amount of time trying to figure out why before finding your video. Disappointment aside, I'm looking for the fastest possible disk i/o for multi-tracking in logic. I traditionally find myself writing 20-30 tracks simultaneously while playing back (read) dozens or even hundreds more. In the worse cases, tracks appear to bw randomly omitted from playback, or worse, the project simply stalls or stops. My bad for misunderstanding a very confusing spec I suppose. So, if I want the fastest possible external drive for heavy logic use (high number of simultaneous reads and writes) is there a specific setup you recommend? I'm going to review your more recent videos on this subject, but so far it sounds like the Samsung 980 pro with a TB4 enclosure might be the thing I need. If I'm missing anything I'd love to know. Thank you kindly!!
Yeah, the Samsung 980 Pro is a fav for f mine, but one of the questions I have is do you know how fast your particular workflow is reading/writing to the drive? I used an example in one of my recent videos how the synthetic benchmark speed often times doesn’t translate to real world use. Also, I’ve been meaning to follow up again with a 3.2 (Gen 2) drive test to show that with these Macs and really the protocol that occurs through Thunderbolt that the drives rated for 2,000MBs will just default to under 1,000MBs. Anyway, just thought I’d inquire as to the details of your particular read and write if you happen to have that info.
@@KevinRossRN Thank you so much for the reply! At the moment I'm seeing read & write speeds of about 950mbp/s using my Samsung Extreme Pro (2000mb/s USB 3.2 version) testing with Black Magic, which seems consistent with both your findings and my own. I'm not sure how to tell whether I'm getting those speeds in real situations using logic or not. What I do know is that the HD meter is usually pegged when my performance issues appear. If you've got any tips on how to test my real world read/write speeds while recording multiple tracks in logic I'll happily run some tests. If a TB4/USB4 (?) enclosure with a Samsung 980 pro will double my track count before I run into performance limitations, it's a no-brainer, but as you say, context matters, and I'd hate to spend even more money only to find my performance issues running logic persist. Thanks so much again for your reply! very kindly, Michael
So I personally use a number of apps to get this information, and iStat Menus is one of them where I can see what’s happening with the SSD as far as that read and write while a program is in use. This is where I’ve seen the CPU or GPU being maxed out (you can also see this with iStat) and therefore the read and write wasn’t even close to the max speed of the actual drive because those were the bottlenecks vs. the SSD being the issue.
@@KevinRossRN Gotcha! will try iStat Menus and test while running a logic session to see if I can provide more info. I would really love anything even approaching the 2-3k read/write speeds I'm seeing in the (synthetic) benchmarks.. but I would also love to avoid spending hundreds on something that will not outperform my current setup. I've clearly reached my limitations with the samsung extreme pro v2 drive (rated for 2k mb/s, but performing at less than half of that).
Thanks for the video. Seems to be down to the enclosure. Apple are pointing to enclosure firmware over phone support. Seen USB 3.1 v2 working close to the 10Gb throughput at 850MB read/writes in another channel here.
That’ll be interesting if it is. However, once the M1X comes out, I’ll be sure to test it against the M1 since the M1X is supposed to have a higher wattage chip. 🤷♂️
If you see this, do you have any idea why the acasis with a WD SN 750 would not be recognized or show up in my M1 iPad Pro when connected ? Thank you in advance
Why is USB in an Apple Mac mini M1 always an issue and way too slow, giving between 300 and 800 Mbyte/s? I really was not able getting more then that, even with NVME enclosure and SSD.
I just went on a similar long adventure just trying to figure out how to get 10gbps to work at full speed on Dell computers. The 10gbps port is actually USB 3.1 gen1x2. I couldn't find anything with those specs, so I moved up to a 20gbps enclosure and finally capped off over 1GB/s transfers. Two of my laptops have Thunderbolt 3 ports though, so now I'm looking at what might work best all around. Does the USB4 enclosure open up to the 40gbps speed on a Thunderbolt 3 port? The older TB3 enclosures seem to need multiple controllers built in, or they drop down to 5gbps on non TB3 ports, or don't connect at all. I tried to pay attention for most of your video, but it's a lot of information to hold onto for my ADHD brain. So, if you covered that, I apologize.
So on TB3 ports you’ll find that the rated 20Gbps enclosures will only be supported at Gen 2 speeds of 10Gbps, which is just how they fall back on the communication protocol. And USB4 is supposed to give you theoretical speeds of 40Gbps on TB3 ports, but the actual throughput will be dependent on the machine’s TB controller. So in the M1 Macs we’re finding that these are a bit “slower” than advertised due to the low power chip, although they can be pushed much harder and ultimately faster. Now, depending on the board/controller in a PC, USB4 should still give you TB3 speeds, but I have updated videos on this subject and what we’ve been finding is that it really depends on the enclosure and the particular computer it’s connected to. Are you mostly looking for something for large file transfers?
Hey Kevin, just found out your channel and I'm really liking your job. I just purchased the Acasis USB 4 and WD Black SN750 1TB. On my 2018 Intel Mac Mini I can't get write speeds above 1200MB/s. Did you experience the same thing from an intel Mac? Could it be a limitation on the Intel Mac Mini or MacOS Catalina? Anyone in the community had the same issue? Thanks and keep up the good work!!
Welcome friend! Funny enough, I am running tests right now as I type this. I’m comparing the 970 EVO Plus to the SN750 in this enclosure on multiple devices. Which file format are you using and which benchmark software?
@@KevinRossRN I tried synthetic benchmarks Black Magic and Amorphous Disk Mark and the SN750 formatted as APFS and ExFAT but with pretty much the same results. Write tops at 1160MB/s and Reads at 2600+ MB/s. I noticed also that the acasis gets pretty hot to the touch and actually stays hot even when idle (DriveDX showing 60 degrees Celsius during benchmarking). It may be coincidence but it seems like the write speeds I get from the enclosure are pretty much identical to the write speeds I get from the internal 256GB ssd. Update . Just tested with a 10GB test file copying over from the internal ssd to the external enclosure. It was finished in ~8.8s so its around 1.135 GB/s , pretty much the same number I'm getting from the benchmarks.
So I need to run a few more final tests, but on my MBP (2017) running Catalina I’m getting about 2795 read and 2572 Write on APFS. I’m going to be performing a large folder transfer of about 260GBs. I’ll report back.
How does one find out the cache speeds of the various SSD options used with these external enclosures? Does this depend on the enclosure used, or the SSD?
Thanks for the ton of info ! Will definitely help me buying ! However incase someone who knows his stuff reads my comment, I will share my problem. I have a macbook air with m1 chip and it's the base 250 gigs model. I am planning to buy a seagate firecuda 1 tb ssd but really confused on whether I should buy just the adapter chip without enclosure ( I would be fine with just ssd attached to an adapter without casing barebones) to save me a lot of money. Or will I have to invest in a good enclosure ? Thing is I am unable to find a legit adapter which supports thunderbolt 4 speeds and the firecuda will be bottlenecked if I don't do that.
Maybe someone can chime in here that’s tried it. The Acasis is compatible with the FireCuda and they (Acasis) confirmed this themselves. I can’t speak to a non-enclosure setup and if you’re doing anything intensive then I’d be concerned with thermals because of lack of thermal management, but maybe your workflow isn’t that intense.
Ken, I saw a video some time ago that compared a spinning disk (7200rpm) with an older SSD when working off them in FCPX and the difference was minimal. I know we are talking apples to oranges but this hype around all of this productivity stuff is way out of line. The money we spend to get seconds to minutes saved is maddening. I take coffee breaks that I will never get back in productivity loss.
Yeah, this all has to be measured for each workflow and user. As the tests show, the differences aren’t really there for an export. And FCP has a really good option to work off of a NAS with spinning drives due to Symlinks. Scrubbing through and cutting definitely needs a bit more responsiveness from the drive, but again, that’s why I don’t just work from Synthetic benchmarks only because it comes down to how it’s working for me at the end of the day. As far as getting back time, I’ve been getting back way more time in performance from the actual machine.
In your experience what's more reliable? SSD well known brands (Samsung, WD, etc) or enclosures with a SN750? I hear a lot about disconnections (G-drives), and just plain ssd's dying (Lacie), others slowing down (Samsungs X3)... I see a lot of opinions, but nothing concrete. Like if you need reliability, then get this path. If you need to save money, probably this is better (at the risk of...), or whatever.
If you're looking to save money in the short-term, then an external SSD that's already built (like a SanDisk Extreme, Samsung T5/T7) are a great option. I've used them for years. The advantage of these enclosures is that the NVMe SSD that goes in them can be customized. So for instance I tested the WD SN750 which is a gen 3 PCIe SSD that is supposed to be "slower" than the Silicon Power PCIe Gen 4 SSD, which theoretically is faster, but in this case doesn't make a difference. But as a long-term example. I've purchased that WD SN750 and Silicon Power for these enclosures. And, when an updated enclosure comes out, or I'm actually able to take full advantage of the advertised speeds as these chipsets get updated, then I've always got the SSD (separate) that I can move to another enclosure. Another benefit with these SSDs and enclosures is that let's say I wanted to take that SSD and put it in a PC or NAS/Backup drive to be used there. So, the long-term return on the separate NVMe SSD can be better, but again, the prices of these pre-built solutions are great, they're usually really reliable, and will still be fine in most workflows.
The issue is not Thunderbolt but the BSD implementation of the PCI sleep mode, which puts thunderbolt drives and other things into a hibernation state to save on power. The tools are less than 3 years old and all derived from open source code built on cortex cores not Apple cores. So it will probably be buggy until the next version of Mac OS. I haven’t had any real issues with M1 & thunderbolt except the 2 seconds most drives take to start writing if they have been idle for a while. I’m pretty sure this will get better over time but ARM & BSD Unix have only really been building tools for about 3 years so I expected it to be far worse than it actually is.
Really appreciate you weighing in here. Would be great if this could be remedied in an update. My thoughts were along the lines of that trace distance of the retimer and controller to be able to adequately repeat that signal from the port, and especially being concerning with such a low watt chip. But again, helpful. Appreciate you dropping by with that bit of knowledge.
@@KevinRossRN Yea I think it's growing pains Apple depends heavily on the BSD community for the the vast majority of their toolkit. But BSD developers didn't have any ARM based machines with Thunderbolt to work and test with so Apple most likely took the BSD PCI implementation and patched it to work as USB4 because the only real developer based ARM machines are single board computers and the Pinebook Pro and none of them have Thunderbolt controllers. But I truly expected the M1 to be really bad but it's been actually really nice. I enjoy your content and keep up the the great work.
Thanks friend. Appreciate having you here. And yes, as I had mentioned that even though we’re not getting that advertised throughput , the machine has really been awesome. Such a time saver on my end.
Hey Kevin, Thanks for doing this! Subscribed... I tried 4 different 2tb drives with varying speeds in Acasis. The fastest so far is the Sabrent Rocket 4.0. WD SN750 write speeds can never get above 1190 in Black Magic or 970 in AJA... In addition, the enclosure gets SO hot it burns my hand to touch and it would disconnect in the middle of Carbon Copy Cloner task. The temps would get that hot without any activity within 5 minutes... Also, it never connects on the first try, I have to unplug/plug 3-4 times before it mounts. I have macOS Monterey on my M1Max MacBook Pro and 2018 Intel Mac Mini, both are Thunderbolt3 capable and both show the same behavior. I tried both the original and the Caldigit cables with same result. Any thoughts on that?
That’s awesome you’re getting decent performance on that Sabrent. It was funny because originally those SSDs were the worst performers, but not sure if there was an update that helped that communication protocol. So as far as the heat, is that with the Sabrent in there? Also, when plugging in does the green light not illuminate, or is it lighting up but it’s just not mounting?
@@KevinRossRN Yes, enclosure is hot with the Sabrent Rocket 4.0. The green light stays solid while the drive is connected and it starts blinking when it mounts. Unfortunately this doesn’t always happen, it’s a bummer that it works so intermittently, it’s very fast when it works. I don’t really know which device to blame, I am on my second copy of the Sabrent NVME (still hot and not mounting) and the second copy of Acasis is coming on Monday…
Interesting. I think it’s definitely unfortunate that these sometimes feel as if we’re beta testing them. I’ll be curious to see what you find when the enclosure comes on Monday. I think some of these drives don’t do well in these small enclosures because they run hot as it is, but in a PC you’ve got plenty of options for cooling. I think this is also one of the reasons we won’t be seeing full support for these Gen 4 SSDs in enclosures because the thermal management would be a nightmare. Some just run really hot even when they’re not even under full load. It would likely take an enclosure with a built in heat sink.
@@KevinRossRN I see, maybe I am better off putting a slower NVMe in this Acasis enclosure? The Sabrent Rocket 3 was my number 2 choice by speed (I believe it’s a PCI 3 version). In my testing, the SN750 was a distant last place in terms of the write speed, the Samsung Evo Plus came in 3rd with write speed in 1300s…
Have you considered the Samsung 980? I need to find the comment thread , but someone on here said he got something like 2700/2800 on both read and write. I was pretty surprised to hear it.
I got (following your review here) the Acasis USB4 with the WD Black 750 as you have here... OK the 2tb NVMe. I am getting GREAT READ speeds on my M1 Mini, BUT only 900 on the WRITE speed. I seem to find alot of others reporting the same with the M1 Mini.. (on another review I read that there is a difference when you use a HDMI monitor running at the same time as the THUNDERBOLT 3 being used for the Ext. enclosure when both are connected to the M1 Mini... So I am awaiting my new THUNDERBOLT 4 dock from OWC which I will run my HDMI monitor off). Back to my question.. How were you getting such high WRITE speeds off the Acasis from the same set up as mine? Thank you.
So I did a video here on those Thunderbolt 4 docks: ruclips.net/video/Cl-W029t4LQ/видео.html If you can saturate the ports then you'll get better (overall) performance. I've also been notified that the most recent SN750 SSDs seem to get throttled because the cache gets filled quickly. I have two of these SSDs and haven't experienced this issue, but others have. I'm looking into it, and I can't say with certainty that they may have had some manufacturing changes on these newer SN750s. As far as the HDMI trick, I meant to add this to my video as I found this out later in my testing. Have you tried to just plug in an HDMI cable right from the mini? It should actually get you some additional performance.
@@KevinRossRN thanks Kevin.. at the moment the HDMI is connected into the Mini where I think coming out the dock may perform better... as for saturating the ports.. sorry I am not that computer techie.. what does that mean?
So in my latest video I mention that these ports need to be pushed because these chips are under powering the TB controllers. The dock helps push that a little, but in my testing I found that the more I had connected and actively doing something the faster the throughput….basically you should get a much higher write speed.
So you’re showing transfer speeds of 1,126 to 3,118 MBps or 1.1 to 3.1 GBps, when even USB 3 can handle 5 GBps. What am I missing here? Why do we even need USB 3.2 or Thunderbolt 3-4?
Well you probably don’t need it. I’ve talked about this several times, and even in my latest video from last month with a real world scenario between 3.1 Gen 2 and TB3… However on these Macs a 3.1 Gen 2 at best will be just under 1GB/s because TB3 won’t support a 2x2 at 20Gb/s throughput. So it’ll either be 3.1 Gen2 or TB3 and then it comes down to workflows of moving very large files more often than not. Also the advantage of TB would be setting it up in RAID and increasing that throughput. But the programs are only going to read and write so fast, so there is a point of diminishing returns in some scenarios. But again, even though something is rated at 5GB/s…we’re just not seeing that throughput on these devices.
@@KevinRossRN Thanks. I do understand if you're daisy chaining devices it will use more bandwidth but from what I can discern there aren't any HDDs or SSDs that come anywhere close to the using the Bandwidth provided by USB 4 or Thunderbolt 3, yet. As I read somewhere recently "...that means, for the time being, the new standard is very much aimed at encouraging the industry to update its hardware."
In my latest testing they also have to be able to manage the thermals of these faster SSDs in these enclosures. But yes, the SSDs are pretty much unable to be pushed to their advertised read and write through Thunderbolt. So, if it comes down to sheer budget at the moment, the non DIY enclosures are plenty.
Can a SDD with a read speed of up to 7000mb/s (ex Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus, Samsung 980 PRO) get to that speed on these enclosures? I see that the enclosures are rated for much lower read/write speeds.
Ha! Not even close. Just someone who likes to know how things work I guess. From a very young age I used to take things apart and put them back together. Just sharing what I know, whatever that may be. 🤷♂️😉
Great question. So I assume you’re talking about the TB3 version, which I did look at and would be interested to test. Where I think this dock could really shine for the M1 is that it isn’t bus powered, but rather has that power brick that can help push that throughput, and this is based off of some research that other creators have gotten better throughput if they run their SSDs through a powered dock.
@@KevinRossRN Correct! I'm referring to the TB3 version. Maybe put an SN750 and then a PCIe 4.0 drive in there to test out the response. Curious about that throughput as well. :)
Does it make a difference how fast your external SSD is when you are video editing? For example will it make the actual editing process smoother if your external SSD is 1000+mbps vs 500mbps? Or does it only make a difference to rendering/exporting times?
It depends on what video editing software you’re using, but it depends. As an example a 1000MB/s has performed the same as my NVMe drives that are rated at 3000+MB/s because the editing program can only read and write the data so fast. You may notice a negligible difference in the 500MB/s as I do have these drives as well. On the M1 Mac I notice it more because the throughput is limited on the TB3 ports, so that 500MB/s is hanging in the mid 300s. For the price (based on what I’ve seen) many of the 1000MB/s drives are within a few dollars 20-30USD give or take. I consistently get about the same performance with editing on these 1000MBs drives as I do on the faster ones. I used the Samsung T5 for years without issue. Also, in my latest video, I was able to edit on an external spinning HDD without issue, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it for sustained work.
@@KevinRossRN Thanks for the super thorough and rapid response. You're the man! I am new to editing and I am noticing that when I have more than a few tracks of video in my timeline in Davinci Resolve that it gets really glitchy and freezes quite a lot. I wasn't sure if that was because its in 4k 10bit 4:2:2, h.265 or if it had something to do with the media files being stored on my 500gb samsung t3. While its probably because of the codec, I was wondering if upgrading my SSD to one of these NVME's would make a significant difference? Thanks again Kevin!
Gotcha. I have noticed that in resolve I am getting similar results as you. Interesting too that I was even getting some lag and chop when trying to cut BRAW 🤷♂️ Possible it’s a mix of the codec and the optimization of Davinci. I hope it gets better because I do like that editor.
@@KevinRossRN video Editing, back up, and would like to use the computer SSD for the APP/Software vs the external SSD to store and work on my files (photoshop, Lightroom, ADOBE PREMIER Pro AND Final Cut Pro)
So I did an updated video last month on SSDs. I think you might be surprised by what I found…or maybe not. This Acasis drive I reviewed is still going strong in my rotation. I typically use the SN750 in it with good results, but someone from the community got a deal on the 980 Pro: amzn.to/31j4xHa And it’s working quite well. I also love the Sabrent enclosure: amzn.to/3ob1XMs But it’s not Thunderbolt, but I’ve been working off that as well with no issues.
Great video. Do you have any experience with huge photoshop swap files on these media’s. I’m specifically trying to take some of the r/w workload to an external drive,
@@KevinRossRN yes that's true. I brought it up, because og recent apple M1 MacBooks seem to memory swap so much disk space it wears out the disk. I was thinking of getting a fast tb3 drive to compensate the usage and lower the wear and tear. Not sure it's a bright idea. What do you guys think?
I mean those SSDs in the Mac should be fine for quite some time, and PS loves that RAM, which is why I got 16GBs, so there’s less swap happening. But that being said, a TB3 enclosure, or even a 3.2 Gen 2 drive would help to have as your scratch/media source.
Hi Kevin, great in-depth (enough) video - thank you ! I'm also trying to find a solution to migrate from my Intel Mac (iMac & Hack) based Video editing to my M1 Mac mini. My Intel (Hack) used 3 x ADATA 2TB NVMe's on a HighPoint NVMe to PCIe x8 Gen3.0 card with MacOS software RAID giving me 6TB storage at 7000MBs r/w performance - happiness. On the M1 Mac, I hoped to get 5600MBs read and ~3000Mb write performance (external storage) using the same MacOS RAID 0 via 2 x OWC USB4 hubs (one per M1 Mac mini USB4/TB port) with 2 NVME's on one hub and one on the other. I wasn't sure if the 2 Mac mini USB4/TB controllers share the same CPU side bus bandwidth (ie 2800MBs USB4/TB3 throughput), but they seem to be able to access "some" more bandwidth than the 2800MBs per port, therefore: RAIDing across the USB4 ports should increase the bandwidth. Currently I get 3100MBs read from the 3 x NVMe's (OS RAID), but it seems my Acasis USB4 NVMe enclosures don't like my ADATA SX8200 Pro (3500/3000MBs r/w) NVMe. Presently each NVMe enclosure individually struggle at about 1000MBs r/w - sad. I've discussed this issue with Acasis who suggested I change NVMe brand - more sad. Secondly, I am not sure if Acasis are delivering different guts inside their USB4 NVMe enclosures - mine (model TBU401) show they only connect to the M1 Mac mini (Sys Info->Thunderbolt/USB4 tab as "mode:Thunderbolt 3", whereby my OWC USB4 hubs connect to the Mac as "mode:USB4" as expected ? Another RUclips video showed the Acasis USB4 NVMe enclosure connected as "USB4 SSD".. confusing what is being delivered ? Interestingly, my Acasis USB4 NVMe enclosures arrived with a sculptured rubber post to secure the NVMe in the enclosure rather than a standoff and screw, however the NVMe top heatsink area is now not level with the case for good heat sinking, so a bit of wiggling is required before you shut the lid. Love any thoughts on this direction/issues ? Cheers j
I just got the replacement enclosure from Acasis, but need to bust it open and run some tests, which I'll update the community here on those results. I'm also waiting to see if I can pick up one of those updated Docks from Caldigit so I can also test the throughput as it seems like these M1's are just hungry for more power to clean up that signal with the retimer. I've poured over forums to find similar results when it comes to these enclosures, but some have just stopped at running a black magic test and calling it good from there, which you know my thoughts on that 😆 Per some of these forums many are reporting this to Apple, which some have said they've gotten responses indicating the engineers have been notified, which I'm unsure of how a software/firmware update will help if it's the issue of the retimer's distance to the controller (on the chip). Hard to say. But, now that I have two USB4 enclosures, let me at least run those tests to see if something has changed with this latest batch. I know other manufacturers have typically defaulted to trying another SSD in their enclosures, specifically the SN750 since it seems to be the one that's widely tested, which I picked that up to confirm and compare to my Silicon Power Gen 4. I'll circle back around.
@@KevinRossRN Hi Kevin, thank you. When you connect the Acasis USB4 NVMe enclosure to your M1 MacMini (MacOS 11.2.2), in the Mac Sys Information->Thunderbolt/USB4 tab, do you see "Device Name: Tahini Creek" and "Mode: Thunderbolt 3" ? I expected "Mode:" should be "USB4" for the Acasis USB4.0 NVMe model TBU401. When I connect a OWC USB4 hub to the M1 Mac TB/USB4 port it says "Mode: USB4". I think this "Mode:" info was added in MacOS 11.2.2. FYI, I did a couple more tests with S/W RAID0 across both TB/USB4 ports and just reached 4600Mbs reads, 3200MBs writes. But writes are not constant.. Soon I'll reformat the RAID drives chunk size down to 128K - ie: the TB packet size. But promising... Thx Jeff
I am getting Tahini Creek, which is also aligned with Titan Ridge, and TB3. Let me update the OS. I’ll circle back around, and do appreciate this data by the way.
@@KevinRossRN A little update: I tried two ADATA SX8200Pro 2TB each in a ACASIS enclosure - one connected to the M1 left TB port and one to the M1 right port. I used macOS software RAID 0 with 16K slice and got interesting performance most of the time: AmorphousDiskMark (at 4GiB) showed SEQ1M QD8 R/W: 5,750 / 3,200 MB/s while BMD (at 4GB) showed R/W: 3,245 / 3,010 MB/s. This speed should be enough for high end video editing. I also found the M1 has some smarts going on for auto adjusting thunderbolt/usb performance - the harder I pushed the Thunderbolt bus the better the throughput (ie inserted a Hub and added a 5K TB3 monitor) - I expect this is due to the new M1 storage controller. The down side is you sometimes see very poor performance until you exercise the Thunderbolt bus. The same 2 x ADATA NVMe's in a macOS Intel PCIe x8 slot (x4 switched for each NVMe) runs at a pretty constant R/W: 7,000 / 5,200 MB/s. I tried to isolate if certain NVMe or NVMe->Thunderbolt controller are better or worse, and this became a rabbits hole since the M1 definitely plays with each one differently - sorta learning how to max each storage device out over time, than cuts back for power saving or bandwidth control ? Even testing the WD Black SN750, famed to be the M1's most happiest NVMe, I also saw R/W: 2,800/2,500 MB/s somedays and a lousy R/W 2,100 / 800 MB/s other days. I am also battling a problem with 2 or more NVMe's connected via Thunderbolt to the M1 crashing a lot at boot up or connecting the devices. I tried different NVMe's and enclosures - very noticeable with 3 or more NVMe's - all crash the M1. Apple is kindly involved with this one. Hope this helps all.
This is very helpful friend. I’ve got an Anker TB4 hub that I’ve been testing to run similar benchmarks with and also pushing all of the ports simultaneously, and did notice a bump in performance when that occurred, but I suppose the question is how often that’s going to happen for most users 🤷♂️ This is a great breakdown though and I’ll continue to hang out in that rabbit hole a bit longer with my testing as well. 🤙🤘
Would love to know how all this info equates to the new apple MacBook Pro’s , as I need an external SSD for the new 16” MacBook Pro I’ve just ordered 🤔
The SanDisk would be cheaper in the short term. The long term advantage and savings with the enclosure and NVMe SSD is that you can use that SSD in another enclosure, or a computer that can accept the NVMe. It could also be placed in a NAS setup that accepts NVMe SSDs. So, customizable, cheaper in the long run, but performance in this use case is pretty similar.
You know, this is Apple's fault. You shouldn't have to stew over port applications and speed. That's like picking oil for your car. Oil is oil. This confuses the community and in the long run will not benefit anyone. BUT, it makes me suspect that Apple will be coming out with an M2 product that will address all of these concerns and Apple hopes you'll buy one of those when they appear sooner than we think. That's a shame because I know there are plenty out there that can barely afford an M1 thinking they're getting the latest and greatest. It's like the memory which is not expandable on these devices. IOW, you can't buy the cheaper one with the plan of upgrading to 16GB. So does that mean that people are going to wait? Maybe if they're not desperate for a new machine. But this is quite aggravating. Now, seriously, did you understand everything Kevin explained? Not his fault. This is the material he has to work with. But in the days of Firewire there was less ambiguity. You had FW400 or you had FW800. The connectors could be different though. And USB2.0 started off great until the connectors AND bandwidth went a dozen directions. Now when you say USB-C you have no idea what's in there since that's just a connector. I'll never figure out the rationale.
wait so these usb 4 enclosures let a nvme ssd achieve similar speeds to internal, while being external? The 'usb 3.2 gen 2' nvme ssd enclosures on amazon seem to only get 1GB/s meanwhile if you stuck those nvme ssds inside your computer they'd be getting around 2.5 /3
If they were in the computer and on the board, as long as the board would support that throughput (example would be PCIe Gen4), then yes. But there’s a bottleneck between the controller, the retimer, and then obviously the fact that it’s external and has to travel through that connection to the board and NVMe in the enclosure.
@@KevinRossRN So, using a SDD with a transfer speeds of up to 5000-7000mb/s (ex Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus, Samsung 980 PRO) would be pointless since using an external enclosure will limit the speeds to about 1GB/s?
In a USB-C Gen 2 enclosure it’ll limit them to about those speeds, but a USB4 or TB3 enclosure will be double that and then some, but yeah, you still won’t get the full read and write on that SSD in an enclosure.
I think the only thing that others have stated is that it randomly disconnects, but I haven’t tested this one. I’ve been meaning to take this one for a spin though.
@@KevinRossRN Yeah it doesn't seem to be very stable now. Probably I'll wait for the next gen to see how it goes, because the enclosure + an ssd are still a bit expensive to me
@@KevinRossRN Yes I'm not in a rush right now, just got a great deal for an used Mac mini so I'm looking into some storage options. Btw the new Apple event is happening in 3 days and I'm very excited to see if the new Mac mini rumors are true!
I am going to buy the new M1 iMac but want to buy the best/fastest external ssd with it. So I am looking for the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 2 TB or the Samsung 980 Pro 2 TB. But what casing do I need, is the Fledging Shell Thunder fast enough or do I need something else? Tips please!
Big congrats on preordering the M1 iMac. So as per this video you're aware that the controllers/retimers with these M1's are a bit underpowered, so just be mindful of the NVMe you're getting because the Gen 4 SSDs are way more than you need. So I'm consistently using the Fledging and the Acasis. They both perform the exact same when it comes to transfers and video editing. The one difference with the Acasis is that I can use it on the iPad since it's USB/TB4. It really depends on what you're using the external drive for. Sabrent's NVMe is decent and that Rocket 4 Plus is great. The Sabrent enclosures however are hit or miss based on all of the feedback I've been getting from creators and others in the community. The Samsung SSDs are also super fast as well, but again depending on what you're doing you also want to make sure the SSD's cache is decent and doesn't create a massive bottleneck when that cache fills up. The 4 plus, the 980 and even the Western Digital 850 are pretty much at the top as far as the specs, but again these are also Gen 4 SSDs so definitely don't expect to get 5000-7000 read and write speeds.
@@KevinRossRN ok, thx for your reply! I want to order today but the Acasis is not available in my country, I also have a iPad Pro so if it also can connect to that it would be great. Do you know some good alternatives? I am going to use the ssd for video editing in Final Cut Pro. You think the Sabrent or Samsung are overkill? What drive would you recommend? I am also looking at the Sabrent Rocket XTRM-Q www.amazon.nl/Sabrent-Thunderbolt-Externe-3-2-modus-SB-XTMQ-2TB/dp/B08BZ2FXTF/ or the Samsung X5 www.amazon.nl/Samsung-Draagbare-Externe-Solid-State/dp/B07GL8NF14/
@@KevinRossRN I eventually went for the iMac with 2TB storage ( yeah I’m ripped off) and 16GB Ram. Maybe I will need some extra storage in the future but for now I’m set.
So glad I found this Video, am looking for an external ssd to edit from on my M1 macbook air as I saved the extra money i would have spent on the disk space upgrade and instead got the 16 gb version. So I have just bought an ssd case that supports 2000mbps and connects with a usb 3.2 2x2 cable. After testing the speed on the blackmagic speedtester it only showed about 700 write and 900 read. Confused, because i thought the Thunderbolt 4 on my macbook is downwards compatible with usb3.2 2x2 I now have the suspicion that something is wrong with either the cable or the case as the ssd i have built into the case goes all the way up to 3200 mbps, so that is not the problem. As Sandisk has a discount on their external ssd's in my country at the moment, I am now thinking of getting their extreme pro version which goes up to 2000 mbps as well. Now my question after watching your video is does the M1 Macbook air throttle the incoming usb 3.2 2x2 connection to 1000mbps which causes my ssd to be slower? Because if that is the case, then the Sandisk Version would have the exact same problem as well. So the only way I can get a speed of 2000mbps would then be to get a thunderbolt 3 or thunderbolt 4 case and insert my ssd in there? is this correct or am I understanding that wrong😅. I will now continue to watch more of your videos on this topic and hope I can get a reply soon. Thank you for that in advance and by the way: you've got a happy subscriber in me😁
Hi Julian, welcome to the community and congrats on your M1. So I recently did a test with a TB4 hub from Anker and there is definitely something happening with the communication protocol with these (M1) thunderbolt3/USB4 ports. These controllers on the SoC can definitely be pushed really hard, however this seems to be the issue (for most). The harder you push them, generally speaking, the better they seem to perform. The Gen 2 protocol seems to take a massive hit in synthetic benchmarks, however the write speed can also be tough on the TB3 NVMe enclosures as well, except when they get pushed a bit harder and then you'll notice that bump in performance. Here's what I'll say and I'm continuing to test. The M1 is really an amazing piece of kit for a lot of tasks, especially for editing. However, there does seem to be or has been some engineering oversight on the controllers and retimers when it comes to the full capability of what Thunderbolt 3 should actually perform at, but in this case isn't reaching out of the box without adding a hub or tasks that really push that throughput. Now when it comes to FCPX tasks the program is going to be limited by that read and write and it's not going to fully saturate that bandwidth. I've gotten peak read and write speeds when rendering of anywhere from 1,000-1,300 MB/s on the internal drive....I'd have to double check my notes, but that is also not sustained because the CPU and GPU are going through that timeline and settle somewhere in the neighborhood of let's say 400-500MB/s and sometimes lower. So in my testing I might shave a minute or a couple when using the internal. Sometimes it's more, but not a massive jump. However the interesting thing is that the more I pushed these drives when connecting the Anker hub, I was however able to get almost exact render/export times on the TB4 enclosure as I was on the internal because I was trying to saturate that throughput as much as possible with other tasks. But again, I'm still trying to find a USB-C Gen 2 external drive that actually gets close to the advertised performance, but haven't found that yet. The SanDisk extreme is a drive I use quite often, but synthetic benchmarks are much lower, however in real world it doesn't really impact my work. I would say however that if you have the SSD and if it's within your budget, I have continued to have great luck with these thunderbolt enclosures, but I can only speak about the Acasis and the Fledging. Every now and again the quality control on a cable or an enclosure may have missed something because I had someone reach out about a slower Fledging enclosure, but once they got the replacement sent to them then their results were the same as mine. A very long winded reply, and I wish I had THE answer here, but until we get these next chips I don't really have a similar (ARM) device to test this against. The early bluetooth issues certainly got more attention because it impacted more folks day-to-day whereas us "tech" enthusiasts seem to be focused on these controllers on the chip, which hey, I'm right there with you. WIth two dedicated lanes we should be flying on these machines. I was really hoping for a software update that could be address this communication protocol, but there is definitely something within the hardware that isn't allowing this throughput unless you completely stress the machine. Not sure if this is helpful, but wanted to just drop a bit of what I know so far.
there are a lot of figures been thrown out here, i'd love a slide at the end of a section that shows the numbers right beside each other or something like that. but great vid nontheless
Yeah, sometimes I do throw those visuals in. Sometimes after days or weeks of testing, the project gets a little over the top in the edit and those visuals take a bit of work to incorporate sometimes and but the end I get pretty shredded. However, I will be putting more of those visuals into upcoming videos and certainly appreciate the feedback 👍
@@KevinRossRN no worries! i know its more work so it's whatever you'd like. A little short voice summary i think would be an alternative too and could be easier too
All good friend. The feedback is helpful. I’ll likely be incorporating a spreadsheet into my notes that I can hopefully bring in those visuals much easier. We’ll get there 😉
I'm curious 🤔, Would Using PCIe (gen 4) SSDs make things any faster !? 🤔 Ooh and Great Video 👍, really no one talks about render/export times when talking about external SSDs 🙂
Thanks! So I was testing a Gen 4 vs a Gen 3 and there’s no real difference. It’s a limitation of the board in these enclosures (for one), and there is some limitation with these thunderbolt controllers. I did however release a video today discussing the “benefit” of using a thunderbolt hub, which can speed things up a bit with real world renders/exports.
Hi Kevin, I bought an Acasis USB 4.0 enclosure for my M1 MacBook Air. I get good speeds with a SanDisk Extreme Pro NVME SSD. 2400 write, 2700 read. But even when I don't access the drive or after I eject the drive, the enclosure stays warm and the green led is on. Is something like this normal?As if the SSD gets warm even when ejected. How do your enclosures behave?
If you don’t fully unplug it from the device, there’s still a power draw occurring even if you don’t see it in your drive utility. It’s just something we’re seeing more often with these DIY enclosures.
@@KevinRossRN Thanks for your answer.Do you remember if the led on your Acasis case goes off after some time and if it goes into sleep mode? It is about 35-40 degrees Celcius idle. Maybe it's caused by the Sandisk Extreme Pro (identical to the WD SN750 Black). In the Sabrent case it also stays warm, but at less temperature.
Yeah, the LED typically remains on and it’s possible that the particular SSD could be drawing more, but these are definitely a little different than those pre-built solutions….based on my testing.
Both will have plenty of speed. If you’re going with a PC as well, and you don’t have Thunderbolt on the PC, then the Acasis is the way to go because it’s USB4.
I purchased the USB4 enclosure to use with a pcie 4.0 Sabrent Rocket 4 plus ans it didn't work. I'm not sure if it's a compatibility issue or if the enclosure was a fake, but it was purchased from Amazon UK
I was actually considering testing this very SSD, however the community here seems to have mixed results with Sabrent SSDs in these enclosures. When you plug the enclosure in are you able to go into the system settings and see the enclosure plugged into the TB port?
@@KevinRossRN it's weird on first try it will see it and allows me to format it. But then if I eject the drive and insert it - nothing, zilch. Even in system info it does not detect anything hooked up, even though the green led is lit up. This is on a macbook pro M1. This exact thing happened twice as I purchased both items again to rule out so I'm abut stumped going forward.
That’s very interesting and frustrating at the same time. So when you go into system report and down to Thunderbolt/USB4, and then clicking Bus 0 or Bus 1, there’s nothing that shows up?
@@KevinRossRN the Acasis is showing now in system report and correctly reporting as a 40Gps upstream but didn't work with the sabrent storage. I finally solved the issue by getting a TB3 sabrent case and it works fine albeit at much lower speeds due to the limitations of the case but is a higher quality construction. So to sum up the Rocket 4 plus and the Acasis do not play ball . Hope that helps other users.
I really appreciate you updating the community here. I was about to purchase that SSD today, but decided to hold. This seems to be a common issue with some of these enclosures. Unfortunate because it seems Sabrent makes great drives.
Fantastic video. Been deep in the rabbit hole with these ssd enclosure for about a week now. Sub earned 👍🏻
That rabbit hole is deep. Glad to see you made it out. Awesome to have you here.
There he is! Nice and thorough video bro, really useful info! 👊
Ha! This Gerald Undone level is a breakneck workflow. I think I'll go back to vlogging 😆
Good to see you brother.
Thank you so much for this video and all the work you've done to make it. I was searching for a fan-cooled thunderbolt 3 or USB4 enclosure for quite a long period of time as I'm really concerned about the high temps and I never found one. You are the first and only person who showed an exact product that I'm looking for. Thank you for the comparison too, as now I understand what to buy =)
Fantastic! Really glad to help. I go a little deeper into it in my most recent video. Best of luck on your purchase.
Certainly the best analysis and testing of TB3 / USB4 ports I have seen to date on Apple's misleading marketing figures, and very good research and explanation.. I'm suscribing to your channel.. I don't care how beautiful the background or the lighting is, I just want real facts .. 'bravo' for the quality of the content.
Thanks friend! I appreciate you hanging out.
It can be tough because reviewing tech (or anything) has the ability to upset some folks if the results aren’t leaning to the correct narrative.
I’m certainly not trying to create buyers remorse, but sometimes I find that the items we purchase aren’t exactly as advertised 🤷♂️
Anyway, I’ll keep speaking the truth 😉
Thanks so much for all the great content! The amount of information in your videos is ridiculously helpful. In fact, thanks to your videos I just ordered an Acasis enclosure and SN750 NMVE drive to connect to a new Mac Studio on order. Can’t wait to see how fast this set-up functions.
That’s fantastic. A Mac Studio on the way! 🚚📦
You’ll be blown away by that machine.
Alright friends. Just another follow up to compare these two enclosures, and to also discuss that there are "issues" with these controllers/retimers on this M1 chip? Can it be fixed with an update? Sure, but that's likely a hardware update. When testing I always recommend going beyond the synthetic benchmarks and seeing what these are like in an actual workflow. All cables used are certified, and I've even tested certified active cables with these enclosures. It's coming down to relying on powered Thunderbolt hubs to push this throughput, which I'm still waiting on one that hasn't been fully rolled out yet.
Either way, sending my best, and it's not all heartbreaking that these M1 Macs are throttled/bottlenecked on these ports because the performance is still amazing for a base level chip. You may be finding different results and by all means, feel free to share them here. I'll see you in the comments.
Of course! Happy to help. I think I’m going to build out my own testing lab 🤣
Hi Kev. It’s Kevin in Toronto writing. Thanks for this video, which was slightly beyond my scope. However, I was going to suggest to you previously that perhaps in a future video you could talk about or mention USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 - that although they share the same plugin, they are NOT the same thing. In some instances, I don’t think that some cable manufacturers even understand the differences between the two. I have found that finding a proper Thunderbolt 3 cable isn’t easy. On Amazon, they are listed as Thunderbolt 3/USB-C cables or adapters, to which I ask myself “well, which one are you?” The USB-4 configuration that you mention being something Apple has done with the M1 chip is not something I am too familiar with, so thanks for going to the trouble of enlightening those of us that may not know.
By the way, I have been finding glitches with the Big Sur OS that is infuriating at times. It’s been ejecting my external drives for no reason while I’m working in them. Out of the blue I’ll get a pop up advising that the external drive was ejected improperly. This goes for the T7 as well as my SATA Drive and a Flash stick. Very weird. Perhaps I’ve got a ghost in the machine! Hope all is well.
Hey Kevin, great to see you over here again.
You know, it’s funny. I had a section in the video about the cables, but decided to cut it out. I was trying to trim it down a bit. Specifically I discussed the passive vs active cables, and yes, you are right when it comes to the confusion of those cables.
As far as the randy ejecting, are you plugged directly in I assume? I’ve had someone else share their issue with using a hub, which hopefully with the latest update as of yesterday I believe, this may fix that issue with some of those hubs.
However, interesting indeed. I don’t have a T7, but do have a T5, which I haven’t had that issue. I also keep my NVMe enclosures plugged in pretty much all the time.
Interesting. I’ll have to investigate further. Have you found any others with the issue?
@@KevinRossRN - Hi Kev. Only the T7 is plugged in directly. The other two are through a USB-A hub. I haven’t clicked on the latest update yet. I’ll do that tomorrow and keep an eye on the ejection rate. Haven’t found anyone else with this same ejection issue. With the Flash drive, I move over a music file from the SATA drive to the Flash drive, and the flash freezes during the write and then just ejects. That was today. But for previous days, just straight ejection out of the blue. It’s not an often occurrence, but definitely a few times in each session. Weird. Never had these issues before. I’m not doing anything unusual or different. All the drives are formatted properly. Anyhow, I’ll figure it out Kev. Just thought I’d mention it.
That is weird, and honestly, frustrating. I wish I could point to a fix. At the very least, let’s hope that the latest update provides some benefit. It is supposed to fix the issue with third party hubs that were bricking the Mac, but I wonder if there’s a few other updates that are snuck into it that may address anything else.
I’ll be curious to hear.
I appreciate you taking the time doing this and really presenting it in a manner I’m not guessing anymore. Great video, great info and presentation. Got my 👍🏼 thanks
Awesome. Glad to have you around here on this one. 🤘
My kind of geeky info! Curious to boot ability of these drives. Pulling the trigger on one them soon! Appreciate you brotha!
Glad to help. If you need to sandbox the OS you can boot from it, or just hold the OS and apps in the internal and run your libraries, gaming data, etc off of the external as well.
Love me some snaxy graphs, numbers and air quotes. Let's bring them back! 😁😂
Appreciate all the effort put into this and I got to say the execution is superb. Great stuff Kevin!
Really appreciate you being here friend.
I have 2 Trebleet TB3 enclosures each with a 2 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD and they work great getting between 2.0 and 2.5 GB/s in Black Magic.
I really need to get one of these for testing. I know it’s another go to option for folks.
Are you on M1 as well? I assume.
@@KevinRossRN Allow me to correct myself. I switched the drives and the ports and had better "ventilation" than last time. There was no noticeable difference between HFS+ and APFS. Apologies for any confusion.
Yes - I have a 4TB Maxed out 16" M1 Max and the experience is completely different. I work on my 2019 27" Core I-9 iMac and keep asking myself "Is this thing frozen?". Loading programs with the older SSD is particularly slow by comparison. My advice, unlike most on RUclips, is buy AS MUCH of the new M1-Pro/Max as you can afford.
Oh gotcha. I think I responded before the edit. And honestly I think that’s reasonable for real world use…at least in my testing on this video as well as my updated test from last week I posted.
My dog got offended when you said 'Beautiful Humans..' 😂
It’s been known to happen. That’s why I started a second channel 😉
Pretty cool to hear about the nitty gritty stuff here, definitely helped me understand more about what's going on, thanks!
Thanks! And it certainly can go a little deeper than this, but hopefully they can resolve the issue in the next iteration and open up more PCIe lanes or more power to the controller.
And a set of Ginsu knives 😂 that made me chuckle!
Hey, when you’re cutting video, you’ve got to have sharp tools 😉🤣
@@KevinRossRN 💯 !
Great video. Really appreciate the time it took to get the data and your presentation of it as well.
Thanks! I have some more recent updates as well, but I do still use these enclosures.
Your video is super helpful. VERY well done. Thanks!!
You bet. And thank you.
Hey you look precisely like that monster hero one from the Big Hero 6 guys.
🤫 don’t tell anyone. We’ll keep this between us😉
Naw... Aerosmith!
Rock on 🤘
Hi Kevin, thanks for this video. With reference to the other videos you made later on in the summer of 2021, have ssd enclosures improved transfer speeds on the 1st Gen M1 Macs since February last year? Take care. Great stuff as always. Your channel deserves to grow much much more.
You bet. So there has been some slight improvement with the communication protocol, specifically in my latest video where I tested the Samsung 980PRO. I was getting slightly better results with this enclosure as well as the Fledging with that SSD.
I’d say that this isn’t the case with all SSDs on the M1, but I am still testing. Hoping to get some Sabrent SSDs to test because it sounds like some of them are providing better results now.
@@KevinRossRN Thank you Kevin!
My pleasure.
how lucky are we that we have people like Kevin who take the time to do the work/research for us! Thank you so much.
It’s my pleasure. Glad to help where I can.
Great video as usual, no BS or rumor riffing. Ordered a tb-3 external enclosure from wavlink. Will be using on a future mac, currently on windows machine. I am finding that none of these enclosures support two sided NVME drives. Is that the case with these enclosures as well Kevin?
Thanks! And yeah, in my research I haven’t found any enclosure yet that can handle that. Up to 4TBs, yes, but I will say that this could be a thermal nightmare if not properly managed.
I get sketched out by some of these enclosures, especially when it comes to the components they’re using. That’s why I try to put them under as much load as possible.
I am working on something that is more NAS based as far as the hardware, but should be able to have that direct TB connection that would be able to handle those thermals and a few NVMe SSDs.
My dream setup would be able to work on those SSDs through TB/USB4 and then archive within the same enclosure to some spinning HDDs...Such a niche workflow.
But yeah, the two sided setup would likely cause failure or bottlenecks that these smaller manufacturers couldn’t handle on the customer service side, not to mention the expense because of the type of board they’d need in those enclosures. 🤷♂️
I bought the Wavlink too. I had the first replaced, and a Crucial P5 V3 specced not V4. Rated performance something like 3500/3000 yet I can only get around 1000 read and write. I sent the NVMe back to Crucial, and the new replacement performs exactly the same. Tried this on M1 Macs and Intel. Always close to the same. I am really disappointed in this. Is it perhaps an incompatible mix?
I actually did a follow up video that released yesterday touching on a couple of these questions.
I’d have to determine which chip you’ve got on that board in the enclosure, but this could be an issue where the enclosure isn’t able to fully push that throughput, but there’s also the enclosure and SSD compatibility. I’m seeing more manufacturers list the SSDs they’ve tested.
Keep doing these great videos! Been very informative. I’m wondering what kind of external ssd enclosure and what kind of nvme drive do you prefer for fastest transferring. I saw the numbers were close but, say that you’re on a bit of a budget but want the same speeds, what do you recommend?
Thanks! And so to clarify, what would be your main workflow and what’s a rough budget that you have?
No problem! I’d say $150-$200, mainly copying documents and video import and export from and to my m1 MacBook Pro.
So I’d say the SanDisk extreme may be your best bet. The one linked in the description that I tested is plenty fast. They have Western Digital NVMe SSDs in them. Otherwise, if you’re building an enclosure you could get the WD SN750 SSD and then a USB-C Enclosure like this one: amzn.to/37OmwFH
It’s not TB3, but on par with the SanDisk speeds, and you can always upgrade the SSD in it. That would bring you in at around 150-160USD
@@KevinRossRN thank you so much! Did not know the sandisk extreme had the WD nvme in them! I will definitely check them out
Yep, the companies actually merged. Western Digital bought SanDisk.
Thank you for this awesome content! Very informative and rolled out quicker than I could get around to watching it! As you've rightly opined before, the pace of development is so quick nowadays -- to the point that I can't (or won't bother) to keep up. Thanks for your intensive real world testing and for providing all this data so that we (me) mere mortals can make more informed buying decisions!
That said, would I be "future proofing" (insomuch as possible) if I were to get the USB 4 with Gen 4 SSD today? Or would it be more likely that by the time we see more PCIe lanes or controllers with more power to fully utilise those throughput speeds, USB 4 and/or Gen 4 SSDs would be reduced to a commonality (with mass market prices) instead of remaining high-priced commodities?
Just wondering cos I'm getting my Mac Mini tomorrow! Thanks, Kevin!
So for external use right now, and likely in the near future it will be harder to get that full throughput of Gen4, however in my case (and probably yours), I was able to find a Gen4 SSD at the same price, so I just grabbed it.
I also do like USB4 for that protocol that it works with USB-C, so I do think it’s worth it there.
@@KevinRossRN Thanks much I'm going the same way too!
Awesome 😎
More testing to occur. There’s just a backlog of tech I’m waiting on.
You deserve a sub brother! I just recently started going back to my lifetime photo and video archive on a QNAP 20TB thunderbolt raid 5 setup after a long hiatus.
Got myself a 2tb NVME m.2 (Samsung 980 pro) and 2 8TB sata SSD’s (Samsung evo) for making a mobile secondary backup of my QNAP lol.. definitely getting your recommended enclosures! Gratitude 🙏🏼
Hey that’s awesome! And, I did an update on the Acasis and 980 PRO, and they are a great combo. I use it all the time.
Great to have you around the channel and I appreciate you sharing your workflow as well. 🤘
@@KevinRossRN Thank you 😊
Thanks for including the AmorphousDisk results. Because I'm mostly interested in the RND4K Q1D1 speeds.
You bet. I like to spread the wealth around to these benchmarking programs, but Amorphous is what I personally pay attention to.
Thank you. Great approach and analysis. You have definitely helped my decision making.
Glad that it helped. Best of luck.
thanks so much for your honesty on the enclosures
Awesome and explained in a simple Way... as always! Congrats!
From Brazil
Thanks! Glad to have you here on this one.
Loved these few of Thunderbolt 3 NVMe vids from you. I got an external Thunderbolt 3 enclosure and a Sabrent Gen4 4800 MB/s drive, but am getting the same 2500-2700 MB/s speeds. So it's not currently even possible to get the 4000-5000 MB/s speeds from these drives, unless they're mounted on a PCIe motherboard in a PC?
That is correct. You can only get the speeds that either the enclosure supports and the throughput that TB3/TB4 supports. And based on the information I’ve received the Sabrent SSDs have sometimes performed slower in these enclosures, and just seem to do better directly on the motherboard.
I've done extensive testing on just about all TB enclosures out there (there really is not many), and I landed on the Shell Thunder. I have three of them. Coupled with the SP Gen 4 NVMe, it offers about 50% MORE speed on Write than an EVO, and will run cooler (by almost 20 degrees C under load). The enclosure itself also pushed out speeds around 41% higher than in "other" TB enclosures. It was a no brainer which flash to use with me and in which enclosure. The Shell Thunder enclosure is the fastest out there for what it is and Shell are great people to talk with about all things nerdy (and trust me, I have). THAT speak volumes with me. But just as Kevin has said many times, benchmarks are what they are...benchmarks. They are not the be all end all. Don't get too hung up with the numbers of BM and AJA. Put the piece into your workflow and make your decision in that manner and how it works for YOU. Why? The most interesting aspect of my testing yielded the same results as Kevin whereas, the drives that were so-called "faster" exported at the same speed as the "slower" ones. I ran into this situation many times and it just blew me away. It was at that point I no longer focused merely on the "numbers". It is truly a "staring point". Good luck beautiful humans.
Really appreciate you popping over for this one. Much appreciate your time and comment. I do love the Fledging setup and have also been in communication with them, which I appreciate so much from a brand.
And yeah, even though you (one) may get similar results from a pre-built 3.2 device, these are still great because of the customization...especially since we can't customize/update anything on these M1 machines.
Many thanks, and keep rocking those faces.
@@KevinRossRN Yessir! I've always built my own because I'm just a speed freak (and a little OCD). That part is predictable. What wasn't was all the testing I did with all those DIY enclosures/NMVe and what was concluded from it. I also was never happy with pre-built NVMe configurations that are offered. Don't like to be pigeon-holed. I tinker way too much. Keep rockin' those beanies!
You got it. And, I need a beanie sponsor 🤣
What other SSDs have you tried? WD SN850, or Sabrent Rocket 4 by any chance? Also, what speeds were you getting with the SP Gen 4 NVMe?
The SN750, which I did post those read/write values in the video, but the only reason I tested the Gen 4 silicon power was because I got an awesome deal on it, I wanted to test whether it made a difference in the enclosure (it didn’t), and I ended up using it in a PC build that I’ll be sharing on the channel soon, but the SP in the PC is reading at 4977 and writing at 4200.
Great channel! Love these videos! Question for you. I got the Acasis enclosure with 2TB WD SN750. One thing I noticed that the enclosure is very warm when idling and stays very warm even if ejected from my M1 mac but leave it plugged in. Have you noticed anything like this on your units? I'm curious if its the enclosure still drawing power or the SSD.
Yeah, this is something I’ve been testing on Monterey as well as Big Sur. It’s still drawing power even if the OS isn’t utilizing the drive, so hence the reason why it’s still warm.
This seems to be something with these thunderbolt enclosures that I’ve found.
@@KevinRossRN Thanks for the reply! Have you heard of any 2TB SSDs that work with the Acasis and M1 mac with no issues? My 2TB WD SN750 is only getting ~1200mbps write which many other have noted too. I'm worried to try the Samsung 970 EVO Plus because i heard a lot of people having issues with that SSD and M1 macs.
Yeah the SN750 seems to work the best, except for that silicon power one I reviewed a while back.
I think there’s been an update to the SN750 SSD components that may be slowing it down, which is related to the manufacturing issues globally.
The video I did comparing it to the 970 EVO also resulted in the SN750 performing better, but it also comes down to what you’re using it for.
As in this case, the program can only write so fast through TB3/USB4 and regardless of the speed of the SSD, it’s negligible. But again, just depends on what you’re using it for.
This will be one of the first things I test on the M1X.
I'm going to keep this for when I'm struggling to fall asleep !
That’s awesome! I made this one especially for you. 😉😴
Great informative (and honest) video, but in all seriousness I wanted to see the Ginsu knives benchmark data.
Yeah it seems the Ginsu knives benchmark is a hot request. 💀
Excellent tech review. So at the end of the day, which is recommend for Mac mini M1 doing video? Thanks
I have a video coming out today on further tests with two of the top SSDs in this category.
For video editing, it really doesn’t matter because the program can only read and write so fast. Are you going with a DIY setup?
Great video. What drive and enclosure would you recommend for someone whose needs are to transfer documents and some audio (pdf, mp3) on a M1 Mac Mini?
I don’t think my needs are as demanding as video editing and transferring video b/t drives. Would i benefit enough to justify the premium for thunderbolt?
The same ones in the description. I have several of the SanDisk models. They’ve been great, and reasonably priced.
Thanks for your honest review. Really practical and based on real need.
That’s the idea (real use case). And, thank you.
Excellent video. What is your recommendation now sir, is there a better value option out there right now?
Thanks! I still use both of these enclosures. I have two of the Acasis right now. They’ve been performing quite well. I also use them in my iPads.
Acasis or Fledging for the M1 Studio, which is better/more consistent based on updates since you originally recorded this?
Thanks!
I’ve actually updated these videos with the Mac Studio. The one thing I really like about the Acasis is that it’s USB4 so I’m able to use it on USB-C devices. I still use them both though, but the Acasis will have a slight edge on synthetic benchmarks. Real world however, the difference is minimal.
Great Detailed Video!!!!
Thank you. This one took quite a bit of research.
Great video Kevin! 👊🏾🔥💯
Thanks so much. Appreciate having you here.
@@KevinRossRN No problem! 💯
Also srry, maybe im the only one that didn't get this but the nut was missing from just the acasis enclosure and not both as the fledging also shows up in that segment. No problem with the fledging? Thanks :D
No problem with the Fledging, that is correct. The Acasis was the one that was missing.
Hey,
Very informative, straight to the point & beautifully presented videos! Has anyone ever told you that you look a bit like Rodney Mullen? .D
at 09:44 you had test results screened for "Extreme SSD" - just to be clear, by that are you referring to Sandisk Extreme SSD that you linked in your description?
Yep, the one linked in the description is the one I tested.
And no, I haven’t heard that about looking like Rodney Mullen 😏😉
Actually yes, yes I have 🛹
Appreciate you hanging out 🤙
@@KevinRossRN haha, Maybe the hat+hair combo makes the similarities.
Interesting, so ~500mb per sec drive is enough for such demanding export and does it pretty much at same speed as ~5000mb per sec SSD.
Almost went nuts today with these numbers and research :D
That real life comparison was really needed. Going with Sandisk Extreme and moving on with my life haha.
Cheeeers! Keep it up!
So the one I linked up...it should say it parentheses as far the product number, it’s the 1050MB/s read and write...but yes, real world use netted those results and I use all of these SSDs constantly and don’t really notice any difference.
And yeah, I’m flattered. Quite a few have mentioned the resemblance. He’s a cool dude and an even better skateboarder than I am.
@@KevinRossRN Got it! ;)
Cheers!
Great info, thanks!
Many thanks. 🤘
So the trick for the M1 Mac's is to really use a USB4 or TB3 enclosure, if you want to get beyond the ~700 that most of the USB 3.x enclosures are giving?
Interesting. You're the first one I saw that actually showed what's needed to reach higher speeds on the M1 Mac's.
Yeah, I have several videos in this subject. But yes, if you need to go beyond that then these Thunderbolt or USB 4.0 enclosures are the way to go. I still use them all the time.
I was wondering what would give me the fastest speeds to run my M1 Mac Mini of external MVNO Gen 4, so I bought a Sabrent Thunderbolt 3 m.2 NVME ssd aluminum enclosure because it was cheaper than the USB 4.0 enclosure but i was not sure which or what would be the fastest speed enclosure i could buy. Do you think i did the right move or should i buy a different enclosure?
Well done my friend. A good in-depth video. I am not quite there yet where I need the very high speed of disks. Although they are of course very nice and pump out very impressive speed, I am not in that category yet where I need the insane speed. Still shooting 1080 and 4K. My T3 and T5s can still keep up, and for larger jobs I use my QNAP in raid. But its very good that you are making these videos, and I really hope those who want to get into video or media that works wit larger files have a look at your research. Did you by any chance measure any temperature on the ssd? The only thing that makes me a little nervous each time I am rendering from the T3 or T5 is they do tend to heat up quite a little. I digress, sorry, another very well done video my friend :)
Thanks my friend, and yes, I did run those temps... I think I accidentally cut those out of the video...let me go to my notes and I’ll update that in the description.
BTW, how are you liking your QNAP?
@@KevinRossRN I really love the QNAP, it is very robust so far (knock on wood) I am currently editing with it with spin disks, in raid. Using it over thunderbolt. I am considering upgrading it with SSD disk, but again, like I tried to say, for working, it´s more than enough. It´s robust, and if a disk fails it costs me minimum. But of course as prices of SSDs keeps dropping and they do also become bigger it is becoming more and more tempting. For 1080 and 4K spin disks in raid is just fine. I did however also of course had to try some 8K files. Then it told me to F ...off. :) But I must really add, by old rabbit I transcode all my files to proxy before working on larger project anyways. And when I did that with 8K it had no problem. I feel really many misunderstands often when looking at reviews the difference in speed, and what formate one should be working with etc. Here I digress once more...sorry! I hope you are well and the family is well to ? :)
Ha! It’s okay to digress.
Great to hear. I’m eyeballing a TB connected option to be able to edit from. I’d love to edit off the SSD and then archive on the spinning drives.
I do currently back up on a Synology and can edit with Symlinks via FCP, but would love more throughput.
All is well here. Hope you’re hanging in there these days.
Dude, thank you so much for reviewing and bringing all the data to us. I appreciate it because I cant understand why we are not allowed to get the speeds these drives are capable of on our macs. Windows pcs do not seem to have the same limitations.
You got it! I’ve continued to test and update the community here on some of my most recent videos where we’re finding some better enclosure and SSD combos, but yes, it has been a pain with these M1s.
The updated chips are “better” with this throughput, but we’re still seeing some issues with that communication protocol.
Glad to have you here.
You speak your videos very calming, with positive voice! You should read some castings, ebooks or being a Television voice… 🎅
Thanks! Years of podcasting, plus I suppose the “gift” of my vocal chords 🤷♂️
You never know, you might just hear me randomly on a voiceover for a documentary 😉
Great channel! I would love to see the OWC Envoy Pro EX TB3 ssd compared. It clocks in around $300 for 1TB and has approached M1 internal speeds on some other comparisons I’ve seen.
Always looking for more tech to compare it to what I have. My wallet doesn’t agree though 😀
This one is definitely on the list though.
Kevin Ross based on what I’ve seen from that drive, I would think OWC would want to provide you a unit to compare!
They did send me an external SSD, no questions asked and no expectations to make a video, but would love the opportunity to test more of their products since as you can see I try not to just run a synthetic benchmark and call it good 😉
@@KevinRossRN well that explains why OWC doesnt send you anything else lol...They dont want the real world #s getting out ...
Ha! I have had those conversations to let brands know that I will be testing and I will share what my concerns are.
I love this video, thanks!, i have a question. ACASIS is or not compatible with iPad Pro 2020? In Amazon, descriptions says “not compatible with ipad”.
As far as 2020 iPad Pro, I can’t speak to that, but it should be because my iPad Air 4 recognizes it.
It was actually one of the first things I tested since it should be using the USB4 protocol.
thanks for the video, Acasis produce a thunderbolt 3 only enclosure (not usb4), is it the same? same controller of the USB4 version? price is lower on aliexpress. have you tested it?
I haven’t tested the TB3 version. Did you notice if it’s the same model number? I’d have to look into it, but I will say these TB3 enclosures are more than capable.
i just buy TB3 version, all is good i use WD SN750 running same speed with usb4 version
Great video. Really like your channel. I have a 2017 MBP 13” I7 with 16GB RAM and a 1TB drive that is struggling with 4K video. The thing is this MBP has 4 USB C (Thunderbolt) ports and I use them all. I am struggling to figure out if I can live with two ports, albeit separate channels. Video is not my only thing. I need two USB-A ports, plus another 2 USB-C (or Thunderbolt) ports for external SSDs (one is my Time Machine). The price certainly seems right though on the M1.
I’ve got a similar setup and when I got the M1 it was as if I got a Mac Pro. It’s a little beast.
Have you looked into the TB3 and TB4 hubs from Caldigit or OWC? Those will give you some extra I/O.
Hello . I bought an Evo Plus 1 Tb. I have Macbook Pro A 1398 (16gb/1Tb). I'm trying to find a case for him. Also interesting is the ability to insert it instead of an Apple disk using an adapter. I'm also thinking about buying a Mac Mini and connecting an external drive as a boot drive using a 40 Gbps enclosure. What do you think of it ?
I’m still using the Acasis enclosures with great success. They’ve been great. No failure so far and I’ve had them for a while now.
absolutely awesome video thanks. Great job keep it up.
Thanks! I do put a lot of work into these. Glad to help.
Great information. and video, Thank You. However, you didn't say which Intel Processor or the amount of memory in ether computer. As 'm looking to purchase a few of the M1 units for some testing I need to do myself and having just purchased a new MacBook Pro 16 with the Intel Core i9 with the TB3, I'm very curious as to which Intel CPU you're comparing. Please let me know if possible. Thank you in advance.
The M1 has 16GBs of RAM and the Intel machine is 2017 13 inch MBP i5 with 16GBs of RAM as well.
Bookmarking this for later so I can nerd out hardcore massive. Excited to see the RAID set up your working on, you going with the ethernet connection?
I’m actually working on something that’ll be TB3 connected. I’m hoping that it’ll come to fruition. Tons of research happening right now.
Great video, but Thunderbolt 3 and USB4, it’s confusing. I have an M1 iMac with 2 thunderbolt 3 ports. Do these ports support USB4?
Yes. USB4 is compatible with Thunderbolt throughput and also falls back to USB-C Gen2. It’s just that the M1 TB ports are “slower” than the updated machines, but I’ve discussed this in previous videos as well that you can get that higher throughput if you’re really pushing them.
But simple answer, I have two M1s and these work great.
Hi Kevin. I really like your videos. But I Have an issue here. What is the best enclosure for my WD BLACK SN 850 1TB Gen 4? I just bought it a couple of days ago (With Orico RTL9210 enclosure) and It really sucked. Lol. it only showed 500-800 Mb/s Read Speed in BLACKMAGIC Test. I have MAC MINI M1 and want to make it an external drive like you did and I'm really looking forward to your suggestion. Thx.
So do you have access to the Acasis enclosure I reviewed? I have two of those now.
I also have two SN750’s that perform well in those enclosures.
@@KevinRossRN no I haven't actually. It seems Acasis is not popular in my country (indonesia) which is why its a not easy to get your hands on it. and its way more expansive too. My friend offer me YOTTAMASTER. But he told me the results will be still around 2GB/S and not more, even if I put the SN850 gen 4 in it which suppose to has 6Gb/s read speed as in their adv claim. What do you think?
Well you’re going to be limited by the bandwidth of the enclosure and Thunderbolt. Now if you had that SSD installed internally, then you’d get closer to advertised speeds, but yeah, the boards in those enclosures only support just over 3,000 (give or take) and the bottleneck is the connection.
Great comparison!
Much appreciated.
Hey Kevin I’m currently using a treebleet thunderbolt 3 enclosure with SK hynix Gold P31 2TB PCIe NVMe Gen3 M.2 2280 Internal SSD. Currently seeing 2566 read / 2100 write. I expect this to increase slightly after receiving the cal digit thunderbolt 4 element hub as the ssd is rated for 3500/3200. Highly recommend this combination after trying many this was the fastest enclosure I found.
Yeah, I’ve been meaning to review that one. The USB4 from Acasis is pretty awesome, and I’ll be curious to see what you find with the hub comes in.
My update on the M1 Max should be coming out soon in regards to Thunderbolt speeds with these drives.
Let me know what you find when you retest.
@@KevinRossRN I also tried that Acasis enclosure. I loved the build quality. Felt like a total beast. But on my machine the treebleet outperformed. I’ll check back in a couple weeks after the hub arrives.
Also thanks a ton for the quality in depth testing and review and truly no filler or fluff in the video. RUclips needs more reviewers like yourself!
Yeah, I think it comes down to finding the one that works best with your setup because as you see they’re all a little different.
Looking forward to the update. Whenever you get a chance.
@@KevinRossRN so I received my hub. Instantly noticed write performance is awful when plugged into the hub. However. Having the hub plugged in and the drive direct to computer i am seeing those higher write speeds and seeing them stay consistently high. Where as before they would drop down a tad and go back up. But direct to hub. I saw a drastic decrease in write speed with this drive down to 600… gross.
Thanks so much. What enclosure / SSD combo is your overall recommendation for TB3/USB4 or TB4?
My favorite right now is the Samsung 980PRO and the Acasis. Those might be linked up below. But in one of my recent videos I do show that external SSDs (for video editing) are still on par with the internal.
@@KevinRossRN in your later video your using Silicon Power vs Samsung 980. The Samsung is ~ $80 more for 2TB. Is it worth it.
Only for very large file transfers, and actually performing this task often. Otherwise, save some cash and think about the Silicon Power or the Samsung 970 EVO Plus.
@@KevinRossRN Great service! Sorry to bother you but now that I’ve found your channel and subscribed I’m going through all your videos on DIY SSD. Thank you so much. Take care.
Totally glad to have you here. Happy to help wherever I can.
I wish it was easier to buy a 40Gbps enclosure. So many models, so little in terms of specs on the controller chips used. So many models with bad thermal pad connectivity. Incorrect cables being shipped etc.
Going from 4 days ago when I had no idea what a NVME SSD enclosure was or cost, to now where my head is about to explode, I just want a good price on a reliable performing enclosure.
First World problems I suppose. It's a good and bad problem to have but still a rollercoaster. Thanks for what you do and share, it's appreciated! 😀👍
And thank you for your time. I’m still using both of my Acasis enclosures, if that helps 🤷♂️
@@KevinRossRN Thanks for the reply. I was about to order one but ACASIS aren't compatible with SK Hynix SSD's apparently. From what I understand it will kernel panic a Mac if used in that combination. Ouch, time to do more research.
Interestingly while I was doing research I found out that the ANYOYO uses the same controller board as the ACASIS enclosure, just with a different aluminium case. When I went onto the ANYOYO web page I clicked on their contact us link and it was for an ACASIS email address.
Yeah a lot of these manufacturers are using the same components and marketing/branding as something different. I looked into it a couple years back when I was going to launch my own.
Do you already have that SSD, or just looking at it due to access and price?
@@KevinRossRN I ordered a 2TB P41 Platinum last week when it came up for a deal on Amazon Australia too good to pass up ($178 AUD or $120 USD). It's still in the ordered state and not shipped though. Somewhat of a concern as there have been reports of some people receiving an empty sealed box. Why is it that most of the issues we have with IT equipment these days is the ordering and delivery rather than operational or warranty issues !? All part of the roulette wheel of online ordering I suppose. 😉
Sorry to spam messages 😌 but I thought it might be of use for someone to know that I emailed SK Hynix directly and they said they do not recommend using their SSD's in an external enclosure regardless of the brand. Their recommendation is for internal computer use only. As a result I cancelled my Amazon order for one and will probably buy a Samsung 980 Pro instead.
The question comes to mind, are the SSD enclosures more efficient utilizing a separate power source as opposed to pulling the power through the Thunderbolt 3 connection? Or are these SSD enclosures more efficient running through a Hub as opposed a direct connect to the M1 Thunderbolt 3 connection. Does the same hold true for connections to the MAC Mini M1?
I actually did a video on using a Thunderbolt dock to help increase the saturation in that throughput that can occur, however it really only helps if you are truly able to push these enclosures to the fullest.
Basically, I was able to get these to perform faster, but only when I was performing multiple tasks simultaneously.
Hey Kevin, love the videos and just subscribed. I’m new to building enclosures and just bought a 2TB WD Black SN850. Was looking for an enclosure that would give tb3/4 speed and came upon the Acasis. When I went to buy it I noticed they had a disclaimer saying that the 850 and the 980pro were not recommended. I reached out to them and they said they will work but only at sub1000 mbps speeds and that these drives are not recommended. I asked for an explanation but got a reply that didn’t make any sense and they held firm that these gen4 drives will only max out at 900-1000 mbps. What are your thoughts on their specific response and can you recommend any enclosures that will be a good fit with the WD850. I’m planning on using it with a MacBook Pro max and Canon r5 5 and 8K raw files editing on fcpx. Appreciate any help bro.
Welcome to the community. As far as the disclaimer, it’s kind of funny because they ended up embedding this video on their website…funny.
I believe what was happening was that there was a combo of updates to the SN750 and 850 SSDs (due to the manufacturing delays), and some were experiencing these slow downs, but I didn’t experience these directly.
Here is a video I did not that long ago that might help: Samsung 980 PRO vs WD Black SN850 External SSD | M1 Mac and M1 Max
ruclips.net/video/kNUQOIt2oqQ/видео.html
@@KevinRossRN Thanks for getting back. It seems your numbers on the video you recommended to me actually backs up Acasis' claim about slower write speeds with the WD850, certainly vs the 980Pro. I was confused as the WD850 is gen4 and the WD's claimed speeds appear to be in line with the 980pro. Is your sense that the WD850 is throttling because of the thermals perhaps?
Nah, I don’t think it’s intentionally throttling. I think it’s the communication protocol that’s having issues with some of these Gen 4 SSDs. It’s as if they’re trying to be backward compatible, which they would be, but they’re just not taking full advantage of even the Gen 3 speeds.
Funny I did not get the same little nut on the Akasis, it came with a rubber plug that fits in its place, seems to work fine and honors the no tools required statement. Very fast enclosure, I am getting 2700 read and write speeds with a MacStudio.
Yeah, I think they were one of the first of these enclosures I came across with the nut, and as I picked up more I noticed that others started doing the same. However most of these brands are often using the same manufacturers to assemble these and just putting a different name on it.
It’s been fine though. Haven’t had any issues.
Hi Kevin,
Thanks so much for doing this. I picked up a sandisk extreme pro usb 3.2 drive in hopes of getting the advertised 2kmb/s read/write speeds to address a bottleneck I was experiencing in my Logic Pro projects at higher track counts. Needless to say I did not achieve this and spent a good amount of time trying to figure out why before finding your video. Disappointment aside, I'm looking for the fastest possible disk i/o for multi-tracking in logic. I traditionally find myself writing 20-30 tracks simultaneously while playing back (read) dozens or even hundreds more. In the worse cases, tracks appear to bw randomly omitted from playback, or worse, the project simply stalls or stops. My bad for misunderstanding a very confusing spec I suppose.
So, if I want the fastest possible external drive for heavy logic use (high number of simultaneous reads and writes) is there a specific setup you recommend? I'm going to review your more recent videos on this subject, but so far it sounds like the Samsung 980 pro with a TB4 enclosure might be the thing I need. If I'm missing anything I'd love to know. Thank you kindly!!
Yeah, the Samsung 980 Pro is a fav for f mine, but one of the questions I have is do you know how fast your particular workflow is reading/writing to the drive?
I used an example in one of my recent videos how the synthetic benchmark speed often times doesn’t translate to real world use.
Also, I’ve been meaning to follow up again with a 3.2 (Gen 2) drive test to show that with these Macs and really the protocol that occurs through Thunderbolt that the drives rated for 2,000MBs will just default to under 1,000MBs.
Anyway, just thought I’d inquire as to the details of your particular read and write if you happen to have that info.
@@KevinRossRN Thank you so much for the reply!
At the moment I'm seeing read & write speeds of about 950mbp/s using my Samsung Extreme Pro (2000mb/s USB 3.2 version) testing with Black Magic, which seems consistent with both your findings and my own. I'm not sure how to tell whether I'm getting those speeds in real situations using logic or not. What I do know is that the HD meter is usually pegged when my performance issues appear. If you've got any tips on how to test my real world read/write speeds while recording multiple tracks in logic I'll happily run some tests.
If a TB4/USB4 (?) enclosure with a Samsung 980 pro will double my track count before I run into performance limitations, it's a no-brainer, but as you say, context matters, and I'd hate to spend even more money only to find my performance issues running logic persist.
Thanks so much again for your reply!
very kindly,
Michael
So I personally use a number of apps to get this information, and iStat Menus is one of them where I can see what’s happening with the SSD as far as that read and write while a program is in use.
This is where I’ve seen the CPU or GPU being maxed out (you can also see this with iStat) and therefore the read and write wasn’t even close to the max speed of the actual drive because those were the bottlenecks vs. the SSD being the issue.
@@KevinRossRN Gotcha! will try iStat Menus and test while running a logic session to see if I can provide more info. I would really love anything even approaching the 2-3k read/write speeds I'm seeing in the (synthetic) benchmarks.. but I would also love to avoid spending hundreds on something that will not outperform my current setup. I've clearly reached my limitations with the samsung extreme pro v2 drive (rated for 2k mb/s, but performing at less than half of that).
Thanks for the video. Seems to be down to the enclosure. Apple are pointing to enclosure firmware over phone support. Seen USB 3.1 v2 working close to the 10Gb throughput at 850MB read/writes in another channel here.
That’ll be interesting if it is. However, once the M1X comes out, I’ll be sure to test it against the M1 since the M1X is supposed to have a higher wattage chip. 🤷♂️
If you see this, do you have any idea why the acasis with a WD SN 750 would not be recognized or show up in my M1 iPad Pro when connected ? Thank you in advance
What file format are you using? And have you tested it on another device?
Why is USB in an Apple Mac mini M1 always an issue and way too slow, giving between 300 and 800 Mbyte/s? I really was not able getting more then that, even with NVME enclosure and SSD.
Which enclosure are you using?
I just went on a similar long adventure just trying to figure out how to get 10gbps to work at full speed on Dell computers. The 10gbps port is actually USB 3.1 gen1x2. I couldn't find anything with those specs, so I moved up to a 20gbps enclosure and finally capped off over 1GB/s transfers. Two of my laptops have Thunderbolt 3 ports though, so now I'm looking at what might work best all around.
Does the USB4 enclosure open up to the 40gbps speed on a Thunderbolt 3 port?
The older TB3 enclosures seem to need multiple controllers built in, or they drop down to 5gbps on non TB3 ports, or don't connect at all. I tried to pay attention for most of your video, but it's a lot of information to hold onto for my ADHD brain. So, if you covered that, I apologize.
So on TB3 ports you’ll find that the rated 20Gbps enclosures will only be supported at Gen 2 speeds of 10Gbps, which is just how they fall back on the communication protocol.
And USB4 is supposed to give you theoretical speeds of 40Gbps on TB3 ports, but the actual throughput will be dependent on the machine’s TB controller. So in the M1 Macs we’re finding that these are a bit “slower” than advertised due to the low power chip, although they can be pushed much harder and ultimately faster.
Now, depending on the board/controller in a PC, USB4 should still give you TB3 speeds, but I have updated videos on this subject and what we’ve been finding is that it really depends on the enclosure and the particular computer it’s connected to. Are you mostly looking for something for large file transfers?
Hey Kevin, just found out your channel and I'm really liking your job.
I just purchased the Acasis USB 4 and WD Black SN750 1TB. On my 2018 Intel Mac Mini I can't get write speeds above 1200MB/s.
Did you experience the same thing from an intel Mac?
Could it be a limitation on the Intel Mac Mini or MacOS Catalina?
Anyone in the community had the same issue?
Thanks and keep up the good work!!
Welcome friend!
Funny enough, I am running tests right now as I type this. I’m comparing the 970 EVO Plus to the SN750 in this enclosure on multiple devices.
Which file format are you using and which benchmark software?
@@KevinRossRN I tried synthetic benchmarks Black Magic and Amorphous Disk Mark and the SN750 formatted as APFS and ExFAT but with pretty much the same results. Write tops at 1160MB/s and Reads at 2600+ MB/s. I noticed also that the acasis gets pretty hot to the touch and actually stays hot even when idle (DriveDX showing 60 degrees Celsius during benchmarking). It may be coincidence but it seems like the write speeds I get from the enclosure are pretty much identical to the write speeds I get from the internal 256GB ssd.
Update . Just tested with a 10GB test file copying over from the internal ssd to the external enclosure. It was finished in ~8.8s so its around 1.135 GB/s , pretty much the same number I'm getting from the benchmarks.
So I need to run a few more final tests, but on my MBP (2017) running Catalina I’m getting about 2795 read and 2572 Write on APFS.
I’m going to be performing a large folder transfer of about 260GBs.
I’ll report back.
How does one find out the cache speeds of the various SSD options used with these external enclosures? Does this depend on the enclosure used, or the SSD?
It’s the SSD. You can usually find that on the manufacturer’s specs listed on their site, depending on which one you’re interested in.
Thanks for the ton of info ! Will definitely help me buying ! However incase someone who knows his stuff reads my comment, I will share my problem. I have a macbook air with m1 chip and it's the base 250 gigs model. I am planning to buy a seagate firecuda 1 tb ssd but really confused on whether I should buy just the adapter chip without enclosure ( I would be fine with just ssd attached to an adapter without casing barebones) to save me a lot of money. Or will I have to invest in a good enclosure ? Thing is I am unable to find a legit adapter which supports thunderbolt 4 speeds and the firecuda will be bottlenecked if I don't do that.
Maybe someone can chime in here that’s tried it. The Acasis is compatible with the FireCuda and they (Acasis) confirmed this themselves.
I can’t speak to a non-enclosure setup and if you’re doing anything intensive then I’d be concerned with thermals because of lack of thermal management, but maybe your workflow isn’t that intense.
Ken, I saw a video some time ago that compared a spinning disk (7200rpm) with an older SSD when working off them in FCPX and the difference was minimal. I know we are talking apples to oranges but this hype around all of this productivity stuff is way out of line. The money we spend to get seconds to minutes saved is maddening. I take coffee breaks that I will never get back in productivity loss.
Yeah, this all has to be measured for each workflow and user. As the tests show, the differences aren’t really there for an export. And FCP has a really good option to work off of a NAS with spinning drives due to Symlinks. Scrubbing through and cutting definitely needs a bit more responsiveness from the drive, but again, that’s why I don’t just work from Synthetic benchmarks only because it comes down to how it’s working for me at the end of the day.
As far as getting back time, I’ve been getting back way more time in performance from the actual machine.
In your experience what's more reliable? SSD well known brands (Samsung, WD, etc) or enclosures with a SN750? I hear a lot about disconnections (G-drives), and just plain ssd's dying (Lacie), others slowing down (Samsungs X3)... I see a lot of opinions, but nothing concrete. Like if you need reliability, then get this path. If you need to save money, probably this is better (at the risk of...), or whatever.
If you're looking to save money in the short-term, then an external SSD that's already built (like a SanDisk Extreme, Samsung T5/T7) are a great option. I've used them for years.
The advantage of these enclosures is that the NVMe SSD that goes in them can be customized. So for instance I tested the WD SN750 which is a gen 3 PCIe SSD that is supposed to be "slower" than the Silicon Power PCIe Gen 4 SSD, which theoretically is faster, but in this case doesn't make a difference.
But as a long-term example. I've purchased that WD SN750 and Silicon Power for these enclosures. And, when an updated enclosure comes out, or I'm actually able to take full advantage of the advertised speeds as these chipsets get updated, then I've always got the SSD (separate) that I can move to another enclosure.
Another benefit with these SSDs and enclosures is that let's say I wanted to take that SSD and put it in a PC or NAS/Backup drive to be used there. So, the long-term return on the separate NVMe SSD can be better, but again, the prices of these pre-built solutions are great, they're usually really reliable, and will still be fine in most workflows.
The issue is not Thunderbolt but the BSD implementation of the PCI sleep mode, which puts thunderbolt drives and other things into a hibernation state to save on power. The tools are less than 3 years old and all derived from open source code built on cortex cores not Apple cores. So it will probably be buggy until the next version of Mac OS. I haven’t had any real issues with M1 & thunderbolt except the 2 seconds most drives take to start writing if they have been idle for a while. I’m pretty sure this will get better over time but ARM & BSD Unix have only really been building tools for about 3 years so I expected it to be far worse than it actually is.
Really appreciate you weighing in here. Would be great if this could be remedied in an update. My thoughts were along the lines of that trace distance of the retimer and controller to be able to adequately repeat that signal from the port, and especially being concerning with such a low watt chip.
But again, helpful. Appreciate you dropping by with that bit of knowledge.
@@KevinRossRN Yea I think it's growing pains Apple depends heavily on the BSD community for the the vast majority of their toolkit. But BSD developers didn't have any ARM based machines with Thunderbolt to work and test with so Apple most likely took the BSD PCI implementation and patched it to work as USB4 because the only real developer based ARM machines are single board computers and the Pinebook Pro and none of them have Thunderbolt controllers. But I truly expected the M1 to be really bad but it's been actually really nice. I enjoy your content and keep up the the great work.
Thanks friend. Appreciate having you here. And yes, as I had mentioned that even though we’re not getting that advertised throughput , the machine has really been awesome. Such a time saver on my end.
Hey Kevin, Thanks for doing this! Subscribed...
I tried 4 different 2tb drives with varying speeds in Acasis. The fastest so far is the Sabrent Rocket 4.0. WD SN750 write speeds can never get above 1190 in Black Magic or 970 in AJA...
In addition, the enclosure gets SO hot it burns my hand to touch and it would disconnect in the middle of Carbon Copy Cloner task. The temps would get that hot without any activity within 5 minutes...
Also, it never connects on the first try, I have to unplug/plug 3-4 times before it mounts. I have macOS Monterey on my M1Max MacBook Pro and 2018 Intel Mac Mini, both are Thunderbolt3 capable and both show the same behavior. I tried both the original and the Caldigit cables with same result. Any thoughts on that?
That’s awesome you’re getting decent performance on that Sabrent. It was funny because originally those SSDs were the worst performers, but not sure if there was an update that helped that communication protocol. So as far as the heat, is that with the Sabrent in there?
Also, when plugging in does the green light not illuminate, or is it lighting up but it’s just not mounting?
@@KevinRossRN Yes, enclosure is hot with the Sabrent Rocket 4.0. The green light stays solid while the drive is connected and it starts blinking when it mounts. Unfortunately this doesn’t always happen, it’s a bummer that it works so intermittently, it’s very fast when it works. I don’t really know which device to blame, I am on my second copy of the Sabrent NVME (still hot and not mounting) and the second copy of Acasis is coming on Monday…
Interesting. I think it’s definitely unfortunate that these sometimes feel as if we’re beta testing them.
I’ll be curious to see what you find when the enclosure comes on Monday.
I think some of these drives don’t do well in these small enclosures because they run hot as it is, but in a PC you’ve got plenty of options for cooling. I think this is also one of the reasons we won’t be seeing full support for these Gen 4 SSDs in enclosures because the thermal management would be a nightmare. Some just run really hot even when they’re not even under full load. It would likely take an enclosure with a built in heat sink.
@@KevinRossRN I see, maybe I am better off putting a slower NVMe in this Acasis enclosure? The Sabrent Rocket 3 was my number 2 choice by speed (I believe it’s a PCI 3 version). In my testing, the SN750 was a distant last place in terms of the write speed, the Samsung Evo Plus came in 3rd with write speed in 1300s…
Have you considered the Samsung 980? I need to find the comment thread , but someone on here said he got something like 2700/2800 on both read and write. I was pretty surprised to hear it.
I got (following your review here) the Acasis USB4 with the WD Black 750 as you have here... OK the 2tb NVMe.
I am getting GREAT READ speeds on my M1 Mini, BUT only 900 on the WRITE speed.
I seem to find alot of others reporting the same with the M1 Mini.. (on another review I read that there is a difference when you use a HDMI monitor running at the same time as the THUNDERBOLT 3 being used for the Ext. enclosure when both are connected to the M1 Mini... So I am awaiting my new THUNDERBOLT 4 dock from OWC which I will run my HDMI monitor off).
Back to my question.. How were you getting such high WRITE speeds off the Acasis from the same set up as mine?
Thank you.
So I did a video here on those Thunderbolt 4 docks: ruclips.net/video/Cl-W029t4LQ/видео.html
If you can saturate the ports then you'll get better (overall) performance. I've also been notified that the most recent SN750 SSDs seem to get throttled because the cache gets filled quickly. I have two of these SSDs and haven't experienced this issue, but others have. I'm looking into it, and I can't say with certainty that they may have had some manufacturing changes on these newer SN750s.
As far as the HDMI trick, I meant to add this to my video as I found this out later in my testing. Have you tried to just plug in an HDMI cable right from the mini? It should actually get you some additional performance.
@@KevinRossRN thanks Kevin.. at the moment the HDMI is connected into the Mini where I think coming out the dock may perform better... as for saturating the ports.. sorry I am not that computer techie.. what does that mean?
So in my latest video I mention that these ports need to be pushed because these chips are under powering the TB controllers. The dock helps push that a little, but in my testing I found that the more I had connected and actively doing something the faster the throughput….basically you should get a much higher write speed.
I bought a SN750 and Acasis enclosure I only get half of the speeds you are displaying in a 2020 Mac mini M1 base model
What results are you getting and which benchmark software?
So you’re showing transfer speeds of 1,126 to 3,118 MBps or 1.1 to 3.1 GBps, when even USB 3 can handle 5 GBps. What am I missing here? Why do we even need USB 3.2 or Thunderbolt 3-4?
Well you probably don’t need it. I’ve talked about this several times, and even in my latest video from last month with a real world scenario between 3.1 Gen 2 and TB3…
However on these Macs a 3.1 Gen 2 at best will be just under 1GB/s because TB3 won’t support a 2x2 at 20Gb/s throughput.
So it’ll either be 3.1 Gen2 or TB3 and then it comes down to workflows of moving very large files more often than not. Also the advantage of TB would be setting it up in RAID and increasing that throughput.
But the programs are only going to read and write so fast, so there is a point of diminishing returns in some scenarios.
But again, even though something is rated at 5GB/s…we’re just not seeing that throughput on these devices.
@@KevinRossRN Thanks. I do understand if you're daisy chaining devices it will use more bandwidth but from what I can discern there aren't any HDDs or SSDs that come anywhere close to the using the Bandwidth provided by USB 4 or Thunderbolt 3, yet. As I read somewhere recently "...that means, for the time being, the new standard is very much aimed at encouraging the industry to update its hardware."
In my latest testing they also have to be able to manage the thermals of these faster SSDs in these enclosures. But yes, the SSDs are pretty much unable to be pushed to their advertised read and write through Thunderbolt.
So, if it comes down to sheer budget at the moment, the non DIY enclosures are plenty.
I've got an updated video on a combo that seems to work pretty well on these M1 Machines: ruclips.net/video/kNUQOIt2oqQ/видео.html
Can a SDD with a read speed of up to 7000mb/s (ex Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus, Samsung 980 PRO) get to that speed on these enclosures? I see that the enclosures are rated for much lower read/write speeds.
Exactly. They are much lower. Depending on the enclosure, possibly 2800 read and write give or take.
KR man you are a cutting edge rocker for sure. Do you have a degree in computer science or electronics? In Awe!
Ha! Not even close. Just someone who likes to know how things work I guess. From a very young age I used to take things apart and put them back together. Just sharing what I know, whatever that may be. 🤷♂️😉
Would love to know your thoughts on the Seagate FireCuda Gaming Dock for the M1 Mac, as a device for creatives with the m.2 slot.
Great question. So I assume you’re talking about the TB3 version, which I did look at and would be interested to test.
Where I think this dock could really shine for the M1 is that it isn’t bus powered, but rather has that power brick that can help push that throughput, and this is based off of some research that other creators have gotten better throughput if they run their SSDs through a powered dock.
@@KevinRossRN Correct! I'm referring to the TB3 version. Maybe put an SN750 and then a PCIe 4.0 drive in there to test out the response. Curious about that throughput as well. :)
I’ll see if I can get my hands on one. The options are ever growing😀
Does it make a difference how fast your external SSD is when you are video editing? For example will it make the actual editing process smoother if your external SSD is 1000+mbps vs 500mbps? Or does it only make a difference to rendering/exporting times?
It depends on what video editing software you’re using, but it depends.
As an example a 1000MB/s has performed the same as my NVMe drives that are rated at 3000+MB/s because the editing program can only read and write the data so fast.
You may notice a negligible difference in the 500MB/s as I do have these drives as well. On the M1 Mac I notice it more because the throughput is limited on the TB3 ports, so that 500MB/s is hanging in the mid 300s.
For the price (based on what I’ve seen) many of the 1000MB/s drives are within a few dollars 20-30USD give or take.
I consistently get about the same performance with editing on these 1000MBs drives as I do on the faster ones.
I used the Samsung T5 for years without issue.
Also, in my latest video, I was able to edit on an external spinning HDD without issue, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it for sustained work.
@@KevinRossRN Thanks for the super thorough and rapid response. You're the man! I am new to editing and I am noticing that when I have more than a few tracks of video in my timeline in Davinci Resolve that it gets really glitchy and freezes quite a lot. I wasn't sure if that was because its in 4k 10bit 4:2:2, h.265 or if it had something to do with the media files being stored on my 500gb samsung t3. While its probably because of the codec, I was wondering if upgrading my SSD to one of these NVME's would make a significant difference? Thanks again Kevin!
Happy to help. Are you editing in Davinci on the M1 Mac?
@@KevinRossRN I am! Macbook air. 16gb RAM
Gotcha. I have noticed that in resolve I am getting similar results as you. Interesting too that I was even getting some lag and chop when trying to cut BRAW 🤷♂️
Possible it’s a mix of the codec and the optimization of Davinci. I hope it gets better because I do like that editor.
Hello Kevin, I just bought a new Mac Book Pro with M1 Pro, as of December 1st 2021, what would be your recommandation for the SSD and the enclosure?
Congrats! What are you mostly using it for?
@@KevinRossRN video Editing, back up, and would like to use the computer SSD for the APP/Software vs the external SSD to store and work on my files (photoshop, Lightroom, ADOBE PREMIER Pro AND Final Cut Pro)
So I did an updated video last month on SSDs. I think you might be surprised by what I found…or maybe not.
This Acasis drive I reviewed is still going strong in my rotation. I typically use the SN750 in it with good results, but someone from the community got a deal on the 980 Pro: amzn.to/31j4xHa
And it’s working quite well. I also love the Sabrent enclosure: amzn.to/3ob1XMs
But it’s not Thunderbolt, but I’ve been working off that as well with no issues.
@@KevinRossRN thanks Again, really appreciate your generosity!
No sweat. Glad to help.
Great video.
Do you have any experience with huge photoshop swap files on these media’s. I’m specifically trying to take some of the r/w workload to an external drive,
I keep my PS and LR media on an external because as you know, that raw data just sucks up all the storage.
@@KevinRossRN yes that's true. I brought it up, because og recent apple M1 MacBooks seem to memory swap so much disk space it wears out the disk. I was thinking of getting a fast tb3 drive to compensate the usage and lower the wear and tear. Not sure it's a bright idea. What do you guys think?
I mean those SSDs in the Mac should be fine for quite some time, and PS loves that RAM, which is why I got 16GBs, so there’s less swap happening.
But that being said, a TB3 enclosure, or even a 3.2 Gen 2 drive would help to have as your scratch/media source.
Hi Kevin, great in-depth (enough) video - thank you ! I'm also trying to find a solution to migrate from my Intel Mac (iMac & Hack) based Video editing to my M1 Mac mini. My Intel (Hack) used 3 x ADATA 2TB NVMe's on a HighPoint NVMe to PCIe x8 Gen3.0 card with MacOS software RAID giving me 6TB storage at 7000MBs r/w performance - happiness. On the M1 Mac, I hoped to get 5600MBs read and ~3000Mb write performance (external storage) using the same MacOS RAID 0 via 2 x OWC USB4 hubs (one per M1 Mac mini USB4/TB port) with 2 NVME's on one hub and one on the other. I wasn't sure if the 2 Mac mini USB4/TB controllers share the same CPU side bus bandwidth (ie 2800MBs USB4/TB3 throughput), but they seem to be able to access "some" more bandwidth than the 2800MBs per port, therefore: RAIDing across the USB4 ports should increase the bandwidth. Currently I get 3100MBs read from the 3 x NVMe's (OS RAID), but it seems my Acasis USB4 NVMe enclosures don't like my ADATA SX8200 Pro (3500/3000MBs r/w) NVMe. Presently each NVMe enclosure individually struggle at about 1000MBs r/w - sad. I've discussed this issue with Acasis who suggested I change NVMe brand - more sad. Secondly, I am not sure if Acasis are delivering different guts inside their USB4 NVMe enclosures - mine (model TBU401) show they only connect to the M1 Mac mini (Sys Info->Thunderbolt/USB4 tab as "mode:Thunderbolt 3", whereby my OWC USB4 hubs connect to the Mac as "mode:USB4" as expected ? Another RUclips video showed the Acasis USB4 NVMe enclosure connected as "USB4 SSD".. confusing what is being delivered ? Interestingly, my Acasis USB4 NVMe enclosures arrived with a sculptured rubber post to secure the NVMe in the enclosure rather than a standoff and screw, however the NVMe top heatsink area is now not level with the case for good heat sinking, so a bit of wiggling is required before you shut the lid. Love any thoughts on this direction/issues ? Cheers j
I just got the replacement enclosure from Acasis, but need to bust it open and run some tests, which I'll update the community here on those results.
I'm also waiting to see if I can pick up one of those updated Docks from Caldigit so I can also test the throughput as it seems like these M1's are just hungry for more power to clean up that signal with the retimer. I've poured over forums to find similar results when it comes to these enclosures, but some have just stopped at running a black magic test and calling it good from there, which you know my thoughts on that 😆
Per some of these forums many are reporting this to Apple, which some have said they've gotten responses indicating the engineers have been notified, which I'm unsure of how a software/firmware update will help if it's the issue of the retimer's distance to the controller (on the chip). Hard to say.
But, now that I have two USB4 enclosures, let me at least run those tests to see if something has changed with this latest batch. I know other manufacturers have typically defaulted to trying another SSD in their enclosures, specifically the SN750 since it seems to be the one that's widely tested, which I picked that up to confirm and compare to my Silicon Power Gen 4.
I'll circle back around.
@@KevinRossRN Hi Kevin, thank you. When you connect the Acasis USB4 NVMe enclosure to your M1 MacMini (MacOS 11.2.2), in the Mac Sys Information->Thunderbolt/USB4 tab, do you see "Device Name: Tahini Creek" and "Mode: Thunderbolt 3" ? I expected "Mode:" should be "USB4" for the Acasis USB4.0 NVMe model TBU401. When I connect a OWC USB4 hub to the M1 Mac TB/USB4 port it says "Mode: USB4". I think this "Mode:" info was added in MacOS 11.2.2. FYI, I did a couple more tests with S/W RAID0 across both TB/USB4 ports and just reached 4600Mbs reads, 3200MBs writes. But writes are not constant.. Soon I'll reformat the RAID drives chunk size down to 128K - ie: the TB packet size. But promising... Thx Jeff
I am getting Tahini Creek, which is also aligned with Titan Ridge, and TB3. Let me update the OS.
I’ll circle back around, and do appreciate this data by the way.
@@KevinRossRN A little update: I tried two ADATA SX8200Pro 2TB each in a ACASIS enclosure - one connected to the M1 left TB port and one to the M1 right port. I used macOS software RAID 0 with 16K slice and got interesting performance most of the time: AmorphousDiskMark (at 4GiB) showed SEQ1M QD8 R/W: 5,750 / 3,200 MB/s while BMD (at 4GB) showed R/W: 3,245 / 3,010 MB/s. This speed should be enough for high end video editing. I also found the M1 has some smarts going on for auto adjusting thunderbolt/usb performance - the harder I pushed the Thunderbolt bus the better the throughput (ie inserted a Hub and added a 5K TB3 monitor) - I expect this is due to the new M1 storage controller. The down side is you sometimes see very poor performance until you exercise the Thunderbolt bus. The same 2 x ADATA NVMe's in a macOS Intel PCIe x8 slot (x4 switched for each NVMe) runs at a pretty constant R/W: 7,000 / 5,200 MB/s. I tried to isolate if certain NVMe or NVMe->Thunderbolt controller are better or worse, and this became a rabbits hole since the M1 definitely plays with each one differently - sorta learning how to max each storage device out over time, than cuts back for power saving or bandwidth control ? Even testing the WD Black SN750, famed to be the M1's most happiest NVMe, I also saw R/W: 2,800/2,500 MB/s somedays and a lousy R/W 2,100 / 800 MB/s other days. I am also battling a problem with 2 or more NVMe's connected via Thunderbolt to the M1 crashing a lot at boot up or connecting the devices. I tried different NVMe's and enclosures - very noticeable with 3 or more NVMe's - all crash the M1. Apple is kindly involved with this one. Hope this helps all.
This is very helpful friend. I’ve got an Anker TB4 hub that I’ve been testing to run similar benchmarks with and also pushing all of the ports simultaneously, and did notice a bump in performance when that occurred, but I suppose the question is how often that’s going to happen for most users 🤷♂️
This is a great breakdown though and I’ll continue to hang out in that rabbit hole a bit longer with my testing as well. 🤙🤘
Would love to know how all this info equates to the new apple MacBook Pro’s , as I need an external SSD for the new 16” MacBook Pro I’ve just ordered 🤔
Coming very soon friend. It’s the next video I’ll post.
@@KevinRossRN Ah thats great!👍🏽
See you soon.
Ok so they are pretty similar in practice, hows it pan out cost wise?
The SanDisk would be cheaper in the short term. The long term advantage and savings with the enclosure and NVMe SSD is that you can use that SSD in another enclosure, or a computer that can accept the NVMe. It could also be placed in a NAS setup that accepts NVMe SSDs. So, customizable, cheaper in the long run, but performance in this use case is pretty similar.
You know, this is Apple's fault. You shouldn't have to stew over port applications and speed. That's like picking oil for your car. Oil is oil. This confuses the community and in the long run will not benefit anyone. BUT, it makes me suspect that Apple will be coming out with an M2 product that will address all of these concerns and Apple hopes you'll buy one of those when they appear sooner than we think. That's a shame because I know there are plenty out there that can barely afford an M1 thinking they're getting the latest and greatest. It's like the memory which is not expandable on these devices. IOW, you can't buy the cheaper one with the plan of upgrading to 16GB.
So does that mean that people are going to wait? Maybe if they're not desperate for a new machine. But this is quite aggravating.
Now, seriously, did you understand everything Kevin explained? Not his fault. This is the material he has to work with. But in the days of Firewire there was less ambiguity. You had FW400 or you had FW800. The connectors could be different though. And USB2.0 started off great until the connectors AND bandwidth went a dozen directions. Now when you say USB-C you have no idea what's in there since that's just a connector.
I'll never figure out the rationale.
wait so these usb 4 enclosures let a nvme ssd achieve similar speeds to internal, while being external?
The 'usb 3.2 gen 2' nvme ssd enclosures on amazon seem to only get 1GB/s meanwhile if you stuck those nvme ssds inside your computer they'd be getting around 2.5 /3
If they were in the computer and on the board, as long as the board would support that throughput (example would be PCIe Gen4), then yes. But there’s a bottleneck between the controller, the retimer, and then obviously the fact that it’s external and has to travel through that connection to the board and NVMe in the enclosure.
@@KevinRossRN So, using a SDD with a transfer speeds of up to 5000-7000mb/s (ex Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus, Samsung 980 PRO) would be pointless since using an external enclosure will limit the speeds to about 1GB/s?
In a USB-C Gen 2 enclosure it’ll limit them to about those speeds, but a USB4 or TB3 enclosure will be double that and then some, but yeah, you still won’t get the full read and write on that SSD in an enclosure.
What are your thoughts on the Sabrent Rocket XTRM-Q? I think the price and performance kinda sits between the Sandisk and the enclosure package.
I think the only thing that others have stated is that it randomly disconnects, but I haven’t tested this one. I’ve been meaning to take this one for a spin though.
@@KevinRossRN Yeah it doesn't seem to be very stable now. Probably I'll wait for the next gen to see how it goes, because the enclosure + an ssd are still a bit expensive to me
It might be best to wait or choose another. But if you can wait, then I believe we’ll start seeing more stability here.
@@KevinRossRN Yes I'm not in a rush right now, just got a great deal for an used Mac mini so I'm looking into some storage options. Btw the new Apple event is happening in 3 days and I'm very excited to see if the new Mac mini rumors are true!
That would be awesome, right? I love the M1 mini.
I am going to buy the new M1 iMac but want to buy the best/fastest external ssd with it. So I am looking for the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 2 TB or the Samsung 980 Pro 2 TB. But what casing do I need, is the Fledging Shell Thunder fast enough or do I need something else? Tips please!
Big congrats on preordering the M1 iMac. So as per this video you're aware that the controllers/retimers with these M1's are a bit underpowered, so just be mindful of the NVMe you're getting because the Gen 4 SSDs are way more than you need.
So I'm consistently using the Fledging and the Acasis. They both perform the exact same when it comes to transfers and video editing. The one difference with the Acasis is that I can use it on the iPad since it's USB/TB4.
It really depends on what you're using the external drive for. Sabrent's NVMe is decent and that Rocket 4 Plus is great. The Sabrent enclosures however are hit or miss based on all of the feedback I've been getting from creators and others in the community.
The Samsung SSDs are also super fast as well, but again depending on what you're doing you also want to make sure the SSD's cache is decent and doesn't create a massive bottleneck when that cache fills up. The 4 plus, the 980 and even the Western Digital 850 are pretty much at the top as far as the specs, but again these are also Gen 4 SSDs so definitely don't expect to get 5000-7000 read and write speeds.
@@KevinRossRN ok, thx for your reply! I want to order today but the Acasis is not available in my country, I also have a iPad Pro so if it also can connect to that it would be great. Do you know some good alternatives? I am going to use the ssd for video editing in Final Cut Pro. You think the Sabrent or Samsung are overkill? What drive would you recommend? I am also looking at the Sabrent Rocket XTRM-Q www.amazon.nl/Sabrent-Thunderbolt-Externe-3-2-modus-SB-XTMQ-2TB/dp/B08BZ2FXTF/ or the Samsung X5 www.amazon.nl/Samsung-Draagbare-Externe-Solid-State/dp/B07GL8NF14/
@@KevinRossRN I eventually went for the iMac with 2TB storage ( yeah I’m ripped off) and 16GB Ram. Maybe I will need some extra storage in the future but for now I’m set.
That’s awesome you got the iMac. Not ripped off if it works for you. Look forward to hearing what you think of it when it comes in.
@@KevinRossRN Yeah I’m also very curious, I now have a 2013 27” iMac. So the speedbump will be enormous.
No one else adds the knives. Next time can you add some German steel as well?
Ha! I think I can work something out on that German steel.
Always need to throw something else in besides the benchmarks. 😉
Great to have you here.
So glad I found this Video, am looking for an external ssd to edit from on my M1 macbook air as I saved the extra money i would have spent on the disk space upgrade and instead got the 16 gb version. So I have just bought an ssd case that supports 2000mbps and connects with a usb 3.2 2x2 cable.
After testing the speed on the blackmagic speedtester it only showed about 700 write and 900 read.
Confused, because i thought the Thunderbolt 4 on my macbook is downwards compatible with usb3.2 2x2 I now have the suspicion that something is wrong with either the cable or the case as the ssd i have built into the case goes all the way up to 3200 mbps, so that is not the problem.
As Sandisk has a discount on their external ssd's in my country at the moment, I am now thinking of getting their extreme pro version which goes up to 2000 mbps as well.
Now my question after watching your video is does the M1 Macbook air throttle the incoming usb 3.2 2x2 connection to 1000mbps which causes my ssd to be slower? Because if that is the case, then the Sandisk Version would have the exact same problem as well.
So the only way I can get a speed of 2000mbps would then be to get a thunderbolt 3 or thunderbolt 4 case and insert my ssd in there? is this correct or am I understanding that wrong😅.
I will now continue to watch more of your videos on this topic and hope I can get a reply soon.
Thank you for that in advance and by the way: you've got a happy subscriber in me😁
Hi Julian, welcome to the community and congrats on your M1.
So I recently did a test with a TB4 hub from Anker and there is definitely something happening with the communication protocol with these (M1) thunderbolt3/USB4 ports.
These controllers on the SoC can definitely be pushed really hard, however this seems to be the issue (for most). The harder you push them, generally speaking, the better they seem to perform. The Gen 2 protocol seems to take a massive hit in synthetic benchmarks, however the write speed can also be tough on the TB3 NVMe enclosures as well, except when they get pushed a bit harder and then you'll notice that bump in performance.
Here's what I'll say and I'm continuing to test. The M1 is really an amazing piece of kit for a lot of tasks, especially for editing. However, there does seem to be or has been some engineering oversight on the controllers and retimers when it comes to the full capability of what Thunderbolt 3 should actually perform at, but in this case isn't reaching out of the box without adding a hub or tasks that really push that throughput.
Now when it comes to FCPX tasks the program is going to be limited by that read and write and it's not going to fully saturate that bandwidth. I've gotten peak read and write speeds when rendering of anywhere from 1,000-1,300 MB/s on the internal drive....I'd have to double check my notes, but that is also not sustained because the CPU and GPU are going through that timeline and settle somewhere in the neighborhood of let's say 400-500MB/s and sometimes lower.
So in my testing I might shave a minute or a couple when using the internal. Sometimes it's more, but not a massive jump. However the interesting thing is that the more I pushed these drives when connecting the Anker hub, I was however able to get almost exact render/export times on the TB4 enclosure as I was on the internal because I was trying to saturate that throughput as much as possible with other tasks.
But again, I'm still trying to find a USB-C Gen 2 external drive that actually gets close to the advertised performance, but haven't found that yet. The SanDisk extreme is a drive I use quite often, but synthetic benchmarks are much lower, however in real world it doesn't really impact my work.
I would say however that if you have the SSD and if it's within your budget, I have continued to have great luck with these thunderbolt enclosures, but I can only speak about the Acasis and the Fledging.
Every now and again the quality control on a cable or an enclosure may have missed something because I had someone reach out about a slower Fledging enclosure, but once they got the replacement sent to them then their results were the same as mine.
A very long winded reply, and I wish I had THE answer here, but until we get these next chips I don't really have a similar (ARM) device to test this against. The early bluetooth issues certainly got more attention because it impacted more folks day-to-day whereas us "tech" enthusiasts seem to be focused on these controllers on the chip, which hey, I'm right there with you. WIth two dedicated lanes we should be flying on these machines.
I was really hoping for a software update that could be address this communication protocol, but there is definitely something within the hardware that isn't allowing this throughput unless you completely stress the machine.
Not sure if this is helpful, but wanted to just drop a bit of what I know so far.
@@KevinRossRN thank you so much for the detailed answer😊 although i am still not sure what I am going to get now, i surely am closer😁. Thanks alot
Happy to help where I can. Best of luck on what you decide and that it works for you. 😉🤙🤘
Thanks!
I insist…Thank you. 😉
there are a lot of figures been thrown out here, i'd love a slide at the end of a section that shows the numbers right beside each other or something like that. but great vid nontheless
Yeah, sometimes I do throw those visuals in. Sometimes after days or weeks of testing, the project gets a little over the top in the edit and those visuals take a bit of work to incorporate sometimes and but the end I get pretty shredded.
However, I will be putting more of those visuals into upcoming videos and certainly appreciate the feedback 👍
@@KevinRossRN no worries! i know its more work so it's whatever you'd like. A little short voice summary i think would be an alternative too and could be easier too
All good friend. The feedback is helpful. I’ll likely be incorporating a spreadsheet into my notes that I can hopefully bring in those visuals much easier. We’ll get there 😉
I'm curious 🤔, Would Using PCIe (gen 4) SSDs make things any faster !? 🤔
Ooh and Great Video 👍, really no one talks about render/export times when talking about external SSDs 🙂
Thanks! So I was testing a Gen 4 vs a Gen 3 and there’s no real difference. It’s a limitation of the board in these enclosures (for one), and there is some limitation with these thunderbolt controllers. I did however release a video today discussing the “benefit” of using a thunderbolt hub, which can speed things up a bit with real world renders/exports.
@@KevinRossRN yeah saw it , it explains a lot 🤔
Coolio. Glad it helped and also thankful to have you around here. 🤙
Hi Kevin, I bought an Acasis USB 4.0 enclosure for my M1 MacBook Air. I get good speeds with a SanDisk Extreme Pro NVME SSD. 2400 write, 2700 read. But even when I don't access the drive or after I eject the drive, the enclosure stays warm and the green led is on. Is something like this normal?As if the SSD gets warm even when ejected. How do your enclosures behave?
If you don’t fully unplug it from the device, there’s still a power draw occurring even if you don’t see it in your drive utility.
It’s just something we’re seeing more often with these DIY enclosures.
@@KevinRossRN Thanks for your answer.Do you remember if the led on your Acasis case goes off after some time and if it goes into sleep mode? It is about 35-40 degrees Celcius idle. Maybe it's caused by the Sandisk Extreme Pro (identical to the WD SN750 Black). In the Sabrent case it also stays warm, but at less temperature.
Yeah, the LED typically remains on and it’s possible that the particular SSD could be drawing more, but these are definitely a little different than those pre-built solutions….based on my testing.
@@KevinRossRN It seems there is also no auto sleep mode as on some pre built external ssd like the Samsung T7. But the speed is stunning.
Yeah, I use these for the speed and expandability.
Please Guide me with your knowledge which Enclosure to buy for my M1 Mac Mini !!!
I use them both equally. Do you think you’ll ever use either one of these on anything other than the Mac?
@@KevinRossRN mostly mac mini and occasionally pc, but speed is Important as I want to run parallels virtual machine from it
Both will have plenty of speed. If you’re going with a PC as well, and you don’t have Thunderbolt on the PC, then the Acasis is the way to go because it’s USB4.
I purchased the USB4 enclosure to use with a pcie 4.0 Sabrent Rocket 4 plus ans it didn't work. I'm not sure if it's a compatibility issue or if the enclosure was a fake, but it was purchased from Amazon UK
I was actually considering testing this very SSD, however the community here seems to have mixed results with Sabrent SSDs in these enclosures. When you plug the enclosure in are you able to go into the system settings and see the enclosure plugged into the TB port?
@@KevinRossRN it's weird on first try it will see it and allows me to format it. But then if I eject the drive and insert it - nothing, zilch. Even in system info it does not detect anything hooked up, even though the green led is lit up. This is on a macbook pro M1. This exact thing happened twice as I purchased both items again to rule out so I'm abut stumped going forward.
That’s very interesting and frustrating at the same time. So when you go into system report and down to Thunderbolt/USB4, and then clicking Bus 0 or Bus 1, there’s nothing that shows up?
@@KevinRossRN the Acasis is showing now in system report and correctly reporting as a 40Gps upstream but didn't work with the sabrent storage. I finally solved the issue by getting a TB3 sabrent case and it works fine albeit at much lower speeds due to the limitations of the case but is a higher quality construction. So to sum up the Rocket 4 plus and the Acasis do not play ball . Hope that helps other users.
I really appreciate you updating the community here. I was about to purchase that SSD today, but decided to hold. This seems to be a common issue with some of these enclosures.
Unfortunate because it seems Sabrent makes great drives.