I have a M.2 PCIe Gen 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD (Western Digital PC SN720 SDAPNTW-512G-1006). My immediate need is to put it in an enclosure and initialize it, and then I will be installing it in a computer. It’s a long story why I can’t just put it in the computer as is.
But in the future I may want to use the enclosure for this or another M.2 SSD.
Looking at the available ports, I think the minimum requirement is USB C 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbps). I’m not looking to spend the extra $ for Thunderbolt 3 (40 Gbps).
Others here have previously recommended some inexpensive Thunderbolt enclosures, but I’ll leave it up to them, since I haven no personal experience with any of them.
Probably very similar to the one @Shamino uses, but doesn’t need tools to install the NVMe SSD.
I also have an OWC Envoy Express TB3 enclosure. It’s OK, but if I were to do that one over I’d be looking at enclosures that implement 40Gbps USB 4. Those enclosures look to be somewhere in the vicinity of $90 USD on Amazon. The USB 4 devices are much faster than the OWC device (which is performance limited by 2 PCIe lanes) at a similar or lower price.
TB4 enclosures used to be quite expensive. No more. At the prices they’re now going, there’s little reason to go with USB3 considering TB4 will also buy you SMART support, which on a Mac you can’t otherwise get. This TB4 enclosure has the best controller you can currently buy and it works just fine for me. $50.
Some folks prefer fans. I don’t like the noise and I’ve not been able to measure a real benefit on TB4 (which caps at ~3+ GB/s anyway). But to each their own. This is the fan version of the above. Also $50.
I’m nit picking here, but these devices are USB4 (40 Gbps) and are compatible with TB3/4.
There are subtle differences between USB4 and TB3/4
USB4 provides 40Gbps speeds over cable lengths of 1m or less. TB4 with TB4 certified cables provide 40Gbps speeds at cable lengths of up to 2m.
USB4 devices are cheaper than TB3/4 devices primarily because they are using USB4 controller chips. Those controllers are not TB controller chips (but are compatible according to TB3/4 specs) and therefore don’t incur the Intel certification tax.
TB4 requires a minimum available data throughput of 32Gbps. USB4 only requires a minimum of 20 – although this doesn’t really come into play when connecting to a TB4 port.
I do agree with @Simon that at the prices of USB4 enclosures, it doesn’t make sense to buy a USB 3 enclosure – especially when SSDs are in the conversation.
That’s all good and fine, but regardless of TB4 or USB4, the very best controller money can buy right now (if we ignore TB5 noise) is the ASM2464PD. And both MAIWO I linked to support exactly that.
If you attach such an enclosure to an Apple silicon Mac they will report as connected through USB4 and, fast flash provided, they will do ~3.2 GB/s which is the best you can expect from TB4/USB4. In fact even over a passive 6’ cable (this surprised me a bit when I tested it with a cheap 6’ passive cable). I have no idea what they report as on Intel Macs – TB3 likely. I haven’t bothered to check on any of my older Macs.
Agreed with you that it’s the best you can buy at this point in time. Regardless of the nit-picky argument (and yes, I admit it’s a nit-picky argument) it’ll connect to the TB/USB4 port of Apple Silicon Macs and run at high speed.
Update: some new research indicates that the ASM2464 chip has achieved TB4 certification by Intel. Perhaps my initial impressions and research weren’t extensive enough, and the argument that “it costs more because it needs the Intel tax may have just gone out the window”. I wonder if ASMedia’s custom chipset has reduced costs by integrating pieces that added costs to older chipsets.
I’m curious to see what the ASM2464 chip identifies on that TB3-equipped Intel Mac. Let us know what you find out.
I’m thinking my iMac’s hard disk crash on Friday evening changes things. Since I’m now running on my OWC Envoy Express, and the internal drive is toast, I have no bootable backup. (I do have a bootable 4 TB HDD but it would be miserable to use.). And my primary Time Machine is on the same SSD.
This tells me that unless I get the iMac’s Fusion Drive repaired again, I need a new Thunderbolt 3 external SSD to act as the backup. Or, make it the primary and revert the Envoy back to backup status.
So what I should do is buy this enclosure with that in mind, and shop for a NVMe at Cyber Monday.
Update: I ordered the MAIWO, despite Amazon’s warning that it is a “Frequently returned item”. I wonder why? It is hard to tell from the comments, due to how Amazon mixes comments together from different products.
It looks like their comments merge together the 20 Gbps, 40 Gbps, 40 Gbps with internal fan, and 40 Gps with external fan models.
Looking at the one-star ratings, I think most of the complaints are that it runs very hot - and according to some, even while the device is idle.
I have no experience with this product, but in general…
SSDs in general do run hot, but if it’s not running so hot as to cause thermal throttling, this should not be a major issue. My Orico unit (10 Gbps USB3) also gets hot when under load, but it never throttles and cools down again when idle.
Things to keep in mind for any M.2 SSD enclosure (not just this one):
Your SSD will generate a lot of heat.
Your enclosure should include a thermal pad. You must use it.
If yours didn’t include one, or if opening the enclosure after installation damaged your pad, you must get another. Fortunately, they’re not expensive. If the pad you get is too large, cut it to size. If it’s too small, use two (maybe cutting the second one to fit).
When installing the pad, remember to peel away the plastic backing from both sides of the pad. It should stick to both the SSD and the enclosure’s lid.
If your pads come in different thicknesses, pick one thick enough to contact both the SSD and the enclosure, but not so thick that it becomes hard to close the enclosure.
Do not remove the “label” from the SSD. This is actually a heat spreader. If you remove it, you will void its warranty and will likely create thermal problems. Stick your thermal pad to it.
If your device gets hot enough to trigger thermal throttling (you’ll notice a big performance hit when under load) or if the heat just bothers you, get an enclosure with a fan.
Anything that moves air across the case’s heat sink is good.
Reviews may help you pick something that’s not too noisy
Don’t place your SSD in an enclosed space where it can’t get airflow. Even passive cooling needs some way to dissipate the heat.
Avoiding direct sunlight (especially in the summer) is probably also a good idea, just to keep ambient heat levels down.
That’s interesting. The M.2 SSD in the ThinkPad P15 I’m using for work has no thermal pads. Is that because it is cooled by fans? Current temp of the SSD is 109.4°F, but I’m not stressing it at all right now.
[Update: I just checked the original M.2 stick that was the ThinkPad. There’s definitely no silicone pad stuck on it. I’ll take a closer look in the SSD bay later this week; I can’t find pictures online that show it with the plastic flap that covers it pulled back.]
Also interesting is that the SSD in the external OWC Envoy Express, with passive cooling, is always about 10°F lower than the internal SSD component of the Fusion Drive. Even now, when I’m booted from the Envoy and the internal SSD isn’t mounted! (Right now internal SSD is 91°, Envoy is 82°.)
Maybe it’s because I have the Envoy sitting on the aluminum case of an external DVD drive, kind of like an enormous passive heat sink.
Computers with sufficient airflow (like laptops and desktops) may not have thermal pads. But you’ll see many desktop systems (especially performance/gaming systems) with heat sinks attached to the SSDs with thermal paste or a pad in between them.
But for an external SSD enclosure with no airflow, then not having a pad will trap heat inside instead of transferring it to the case. It might not overheat, but I wouldn’t want to take a chance.
Maybe people are returning their MAIWO enclosures due to incorrect packaging. You’re supposed to get 2 silicone and 1 aluminum pads. My box has 1 silicone and 2 aluminum pads.
And you can’t contact MAIWO for support using their Contact form, because it throws a fleeting error in Chinese that the mobile phone number format is incorrect.
False alarm. While the “What’s in the box” lists “2x Silcone [sic] Thermal Pad”, and Package Content says “2x Silicone Heat Pads”, and “About this Item” says “Two pieces of silicone thermal pads and one piece of aluminum thermal pad equips with the 40Gbps enclosure” and the 6th image (Multiple Heat Dissipation), at first glance, appears to show the stick sandwiched between two silicone pads, and the Installation Step graphic step 1 says to “Paste silicone heat pad on the back side of SSD”…
…the enclosed Instructions for Use say to just put one silicone pad on the top of the stick.
On closer look, the 6th image shows the 2nd pad between the circuit board and the case, so it presumably is already installed. Which makes sense to me now, since there wouldn’t be a lot of heat dissipation between the stick and the circuit board.
I now know why people are returning the MAIWO enclosure:
Connecting the MAIWO…
MacBook Pro (Apple Silicon M2 Pro, with TB4 ports): kernel panic as soon as tried to mount, repeated kernel panics when tried to boot with drive still connected (note that this is even with the drive initialized as exFAT and empty).
Intel iMac with TB3 port: 246x appears in Thunderbolt/USB4 device tree in Thunderbolt 3 mode, but drive doesn’t appear in Disk Utility so can’t initialize it
Same iMac but using an iPhone USB-C charging cable > USB-C to USB-A adapter > USB-3 hub > iMac USB 3 port: drive appears in Disk Utility and can initialize
MBP using the iPhone charging cable: Drive mounts
Drive mounts on both MBP and iMac using a USB 3.1 cable (USB-C), at 10 Gbps
iMac using a .8m Thunderbolt 3 cable: No drive visible
MBP using the .8m Thunderbolt 3 cable: Kernel panic
People are returning it because it is garbage. The Thunderbolt / USB4 interface doesn’t work.
The only positive note is I did achieve my goal for this week, which was to use it to initialize the M.2 stick before I put it in the ThinkPad. (If I didn’t init it first very bad things would happen.)
Any enclosure that results in a KP should be returned immediately.
The fact that you can get a faulty USB4/TB4 enclosure to “work” when you connect it with an iPhone cable or a “charging cable” is that such a cable forces the controller to fall back to USB3 (or even USB2). Even if that works and even if you see 3.1 deliver its full ~1 GB/s, it still doesn’t make sense to settle for that, since a significant part of why you’d pay 3-5 as much for a TB4/USB4 enclosure over a simple USB3 enclosure is that you want to see ~3 GB/s rather than just ~1 GB/s.
If somebody needs just ~1 GB/s (for example for a TM drive that will be throttled anyway), you can get a decent enclosure for far less (like these: $15, $17, $19). The only thing you’ll then be giving up is SMART support (requires TB on the Mac).
That’s part of the problem. Most enclosures based on ASM2464PD controllers are Chinese no-names.
This $80 enclosure has a decent rep. But I’ll say right away I have never bought or used one myself. And it’s also a Chinese no-name. And again, some folks report getting DOAs.
I was looking for a Thunderbolt drive and was surprised to see that the USB4 OWC Express 1M2 only gets TB 3/4 speeds (40 Gbps) when connected to a USB4 port. If you connect it to a TB 3 port, you only get USB 3.1 speed (10 Gbps). So the conclusion there is you can’t just think of USB 4 as “TB 4, but better”. You have to look closely at the specs.
The surprise is that for high-speed drives, like an NVMe SSD, what you really want is TB3, not TB4! (Unless you’re on a PC, in which case you do want TB4 because with TB3 on a PC you don’t know what you’re getting.) The explanation, in a nutshell, is TB4 is more about hubs, not high speed data consumption.
[Update: On closer look, this applies to combo devices that are drives + hubs. OWC is saying that such as device gets better drive performance if its TB3. For a drive that is just a drive, TB4 wouldn’t have a disadvantage.]
So right now I’m looking at the OWC Envoy Pro FX, which is TB3 at 40 Gbps, with real-world 2,800 MB/s. This is better than my OWC Envoy Express, with is also TB3 but is rated by OWC as 1,553 MB/s real-world. Could be that the Express contains an Aura P12 Pro (PCI 3.1 x4) while the Pro FX is Aura Pro IV (PCIe 4.0 x4).
And now the topic has drifted way off into another drive interface comparison.
…Has TidBITS ever published a deep-dive into TB3 vs. TB4 vs. USB 4?
This happens when an enclosure does not have the right bridges. You want both a USB4 bridge and a TB3 bridge because otherwise, the USB bridge will fall back to 3.1’s 10 Gbps when connected to TB3. You are not the first person to come across an enclosure that tries to skimp on that.
Of course this is usually only a concern for folks using older Macs. Newer Macs with TB4 ports will get the full 40 Gbps thanks to USB4. But if you have eg. a 2020 Intel MBP with only TB3 ports, this can become a real issue.
The problem with just resorting instead to “TB3 bridges” or enclosures is that that usually means at best a Titan Ridge controller (JHL7440) which results in no better than ~2.8 GB/s. In contrast to falling back to USB3.1’s 10 Gbps that’s great, but compared to the ~3.2 GB/s you get if you can truly exploit an ASM2464PD controller, that’s not negligible. Ultimately, it really just boils down to what kind of Macs you plan on attaching to.
