READ THIS TO UNDERSTAND WHY THIS PARTICULAR GEN 4 NVME M.2 SSD IS BEING USED: The reason why this particular SSD is being used, isn’t because the SSD is super fast or anything, it’s because of its sustained transfer speeds for writing data. The data bandwidth for Thunderbolt 4 is just under 3000MB/s but no Gen 3 NVMe SSD can sustain that speed. Using a high quality Gen 4 SSD, such as the SN850X, will sustain the maximum data bandwidth that the enclosure will allow. Using a Gen 3 SSD, even one that says it’s faster than 3000MB/s, won’t sustain anywhere near that speed when writing large amounts of continuous data in one go. It’s all down to the caching systems on the drives and the high quality, fast Gen 4 NVMe SSDs generally have better caching and buffering compared to the Gen 3 NVMe SSDs. Some cheaper Gen 4 NVMe SSDs won’t sustain that data rate either. Again, another reason for recommending what may appear to be an unnecessarily expensive SSD. That may also appear to be much faster than what you think you may need. Also, the reason why we only get about 3000MB/s out of Thunderbolt 4 for data and not the 5000MB/s, which is what 40Gb/s is. Is because about 2000MB/s of Thunderbolt 4’s bandwidth/bus speed is taken up for video, even though video is not being used with the enclosure. The separate video bandwidth is just part of the protocols for Thunderbolt 4 and which is why the entire 5000MB/s bus speed of Thunderbolt 4 is not all used for data transferring, even when a video signal is not being used. You can of course use much cheaper Gen 3 NVMe SSDs if you don’t require the fast sustained maximum write speeds. And you can also use smaller capacity SSDs if you don’t require large storage spaces. The reason why I use the 4TB WD SN850X is because it will give me the maximum speed for sustained writing of very large file transfers in one go and I personally need at least 4TB of storage because I use a lot of large, high bandwidth video files. ACASIS TBU401 enclosure at Amazon geni.us/u9A5heL ACASIS TBU405 M1 enclosure with fan at Amazon geni.us/ACASIS-TBU405ProM1 ACASIS website geni.us/ACASIS ACASIS TBU401 enclosure at ACASIS website geni.us/Acasis-TBU401 WD SSDs: SN850X 4TB geni.us/SN850X-4TB SN850X 2TB geni.us/SN850X-2TB SN850X 1TB geni.us/SN850X-1TB MacBook Pro M1 Max geni.us/2F4Vr Laptop stand used with the MacBook geni.us/4JJd7 How To Build The Fastest External Thunderbolt 4 USB4 SSD For Your M1 M2 M3 Apple Silicon Mac MacBook. In this video I'm showing how to build a fast Thunderbolt 4 SSD storage drive which is also USB 4.0 compatible. The same drive also works on Thunderbolt 3 and is perfect for expanding the storage of any M1 M2 M3 Apple Silicon Mac computer, be that a MacBook Pro, MacBook Air or one the desktop Macs such as the Mac Studio or Mac Mini. I would go so far as to say that this is the best external drive for a Mac and the fastest external drive for a Mac. The drive consists of the WD Black SN850X 4TB NVME M.2 SSD and the excellent Acasis TBU401 40Gb/s Thunderbolt 4 USB4.0 to NVMe enclosure. While I'm using it with an Apple Mac MacBook Pro M1 Max in this video. The same drive is also compatible with other hardware platforms and operating systems, such as Windows, Linux and Android etc. I also do a disk speed test using Blackmagic Design's Disk Speed Test utility and I also show a real world disk speed test by moving files to and from the external drive. Video chapters: 00:00 Intro and explanation 01:10 Unboxing the SSD 02:08 Unboxing the enclosure 04:00 Building the drive 10:59 Formatting the drive 15:00 Blackmagic disk speed test 16:42 Real world write speed test 19:29 Real world read speed test 21:48 End summary Please give a thumbs up, share, sub & click the bell for notifications. Here’s the equipment that I use, have used or reviewed that I would recommend. Cameras: amzn.to/3PzC8mI Microphones: amzn.to/3tD6FaM Computers: amzn.to/3tuwHNr Phones: amzn.to/3ttqjWN iPads & Tablets: amzn.to/46t8wxG If this video helped you out you can also send me a coffee donation via PayPal www.paypal.me/DavidHarry My TH-cam equipment & recommendations: Amazon USA amzn.to/3g2Oi3i Amazon UK amzn.to/2ZR6IOV My Amazon Shop links: Amazon USA www.amazon.com/shop/davidharry Amazon UK www.amazon.co.uk/shop/davidharry My global Amazon links: Amazon USA: geni.us/Amazon-USA Amazon UK: geni.us/Amazon-UK Amazon Deutschland: geni.us/Amazon-Deutschland Amazon Canada: geni.us/Amazon-Canada Contact me for product reviews. I DO NOT RESPOND TO VIEWER QUESTIONS. TH-cam@DavidHarry.com www.DavidHarry.com I’m David Harry. Thank you very much for watching this video, take care and goodbye now. Cheers, Dave. #DavidHarry#LiverpoolTV
I've bought the ACASIS M1 Pro (with a fan) and the WD BLACK SN850X 4TB, just assembled everything and I AM AMAZED!!!! 20 gb in 5 secs ... never going back to buying external SD cards ever!!!!!!
I can still remember the ‘good old days’ when we had to rig together a handful of 7200rpm hard drives in RAID 0 to achieve transfer speeds a fraction of what you managed here😳
Hi, Philip. Yes, I used to use a Sonnet 8 drive setup in a striped set and that was nowhere near the read or write speeds of this drive. BTW, technically, 0 isn’t a RAID setup as it has no redundancy. Plus, this drive on a per TB cost is a lot cheaper. It’s just a pity that we can’t add these fast SSDs internally to the Apple Silicon Macs, this SSD would be much closer to 8GB/s for read and write on a good Gen4 M.2 controller. Cheers, Dave.
I have this exact drive and enclosure, using it with a M1 Mac Mini and a M1 Macbook Air and get 2800 Mbps all day long. I am ecstatic with how well it performs. Thank You David!
Hi, Mark. Sorry for the late reply. Yes, this combination of SSD and enclosure is really fast and on any of the Apple Silicon Macs. Thanks for your comment. Cheers, Dave.
Hey @markrussell, is your writing speed also around 2800 Mbps? , which Mac Mini do you have? I would like to try it with my Mac Mini M1 2020 (A2348) but wondering if I can get similar results as yours.
I have an iMac M1, (256gb & 16gb ram) and, I’ve tried the WD SN770 with the Acasis enclosure but, I didn’t get the same speeds as you did. I’ll try the SN850x. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Ben. I also have a T7 (1TB) and the difference is night and day. This 4TB TB SSD combination is between three to four times faster for reading and writing. The biggest benefit for me is that this drive will constantly sustain its maximum write speed. Cheers, Dave.
A very professional video that has taken into account how it will be viewed. Lots of steady close ups showing details and held long enough to take in the relevance. On that basis I subscribed!
Hi. Thank you very much for your comment and I’m glad you liked the video. Thank you very much for the sub, it really does help my channel 👍 Cheers, Dave.
I have no plans whatsoever to make one of these but the youtube algo recommended it to me and I watched whole dang video cos it was so good. You are an excellent teacher sir and explained all of this really well.
I’ve just followed this video with these components (but 2TB) to add storage for my new M2 Studio. Excellent explanation and results, I’m getting much the same speeds as you, thanks very much!
Just got this case and this exact SSD ( but 1 TB for music production files ) for my M3 iMac. This was a super excellent breakdown. Thank you for this.
Hi David! First of all I (as a "bloody German") have to thank you for your very precise pronounciation! It's been a pleasure to listen to your video and I like your accent, though I wonder from which part of the UK it originates. Concerning the read speed you measured with the enclosure one has to consider the write speed of your internal ssd. This has to be faster than the read speed of the external ssd to be able to measure the correct read speed of the TB/USB4 enclosure! By the way, those enclosures with an ASMEDIA AS2464 chipset are both TB4/USB4 compatible with complete downward compatability. Connected to a real USB4 controller in a Win11 laptop or pc you can reach up to 3800 GB/s according to ads for such enclosures such as ZikeDrive Z666 or Adata SE920. So, if you're going to proove these drives in future videos, you're going to need a relatively new laptop or a USB4 controller card for a not too old pc. Your 10 year old optiplex seems a bit too old for this, I think...
Hi. Thank you for your compliment on my pronunciation. However, in my experience, Germans are very good with the English language and many of the English accents. My previous girlfriend was from Ludwigsburg and she thought my accent was "cute" 😆 While you are correct, all the external speeds, read and write, when testing any external drive's speed. Rely on the target drive (the internal drive) being faster than the external drive. In this instance I'd just assumed that most people watching the video would know how fast the internal 1TB was on the Mac, which is over 5000MB/s for read and write. Maybe I should have made that point more clearer. In any event, the Thunderbolt speeds, regardless of the drive used on Thunderbolt (4), are way lower than the internal storage. So what we see in this video is the true speed of the external drive when used with Thunderbolt 4. However, there is a bottleneck with all Thunderbolt drives and that is the Thunderbolt speed/bandwidth for data. While the WD SSD used in this configuration is actually faster than the Mac's internal storage, the SSD is limited by the bandwidth of Thunderbolt (4) and also the chipset inside the enclosure. While the overall bandwidth of Thunderbolt 4 is 40Gb/s, which is 5000MB/s. About 2000MB/s is partitioned for DisplayPort bandwidth, even if you don't use any video data over the connection. This means that regardless of the combination of Thunderbolt enclosure and SSD, you will never get above around 3000MB/s for data bandwidth. I think I may have mentioned some of this stuff in the video description. As for USB4. I'm yet to see anyone demonstrate any USB4 SSD with a Windows system using any USB4 host controller that is any faster than what you get with Thunderbolt 4. Regardless of what may be written or assumed, I have a feeling that USB4 is also held back in the same way that Thunderbolt 4 is, with regard video bandwidth allocation across the bus speed. If you know of any video demonstration that shows higher data speeds, I would be very inserted to see that. Like I said, I've personally never seen any demonstration of USB4 that's faster than TB4 with data speeds/bandwidths. The test with the Optiplex was only to test that the USB compatibility of the exclosure would fall back to USB2 (480Mb/s) and USB3 (5Gb+) and that it was indeed fully compatible as a "generic" USB SSD and not just a Thunderbolt SSD. The test with the Optiplex was obviously not for USB4. Also, I still do not have a Windows machine with native USB4, only a Gigabyte system with an add-on Thunderbolt 3 controller. Cheers, Dave.
Hi, Craig. I'm glad the video was useful and than you very much for the like and sub 👍 I'll be doing more stuff soon about the MBA and also more storage options. Cheers, Dave.
Many thanks for this video, which I found invaluable for guiding me through the build process. Enjoying my new WD/Acasis drive and have measured 2793 MB/s write and 2785 MB/s read, which is all very impressive. Thank you!!
Thank you again David! I just got a second one. This time I got the fan version of the Acacis enclosure. I was going to get the 2T WD drive but it had some odd reviews on the net so I just got a second 1T.
Hi, Neil. That's awesome 👍 I'm just about to do another video but with the same enclosure that you've just used, the one with the fan in it. I recently tested another enclosure by a different manufacturer and it was slightly faster than the Acasis ones but it was only last with one SSD and terrible with all my others. Having tested a bunch now I'd have to say that the Acasis ones are a fairly safe bet for compatibility. Cheers, Dave.
Hi Dave, just been through the process of setting up an External SSD (Acasis/WD combination) as per your video - excellent result - your help was much appreciated... Many thanks.
Hi. No, I've never been involved in the teaching profession, other than producing science videos for certain UK curriculum. Although, in those instances I was only producing and dealing with shooting and post production and not the narrative etc. However, thank you for your comment, it would suggest that I'm doing something that's hopefully easy to follow and disseminate. Cheers, Dave.
You are very welcome 👍 Yes, the real world test is very important, especially with a large amount of data as I done in this video, as this definitely showed that the speed did not drop. The problem with synthetic tests is that they only tend to test the initial buffer capabilities, which are smaller than moving a lot of data in one go. Cheers, Dave.
Thanks for the visual demo on that Acadia enclosure. I was following the enclosed pamphlet instructions, but wasn’t quite getting it until watching your video. Amazing speeds on my Mac Studio. Thank you for the help!
I'd add to David's warnings. Choose a Gen 4 x 4 drive for best results and look at reviews. You can't go wrong with the Samsung 980/990 Pro but of course they are more expensive - the EVOs seem to bottleneck quite quickly.. Above all, choose a drive like the Samsung that runs relatively cool as the cooling on these cases is all passive. Steer away from the Sabrent case. It works but has a recessed Thunderbolt port - only the cable that comes with the drive actually fits the case.
Hi. Definitely 👍 People underestimate why certain drives are expensive, Samsung 990 Pro, WD SN850X etc. You're not so much paying for a "fast" drive but a fast drive that can sustain its write speeds. I've seen far too many comments where people are complaining about the recommendation of the SSD saying it's too expensive or "no one needs that kind of speed". The simple fact is that if someone didn't need the speed then they wouldn't be looking at a Thunderbolt solution and would just go USB-C. And yes, heat is an issue with all these fast Gen4 SSDs. I'll be doing a video soon with another ACASIS enclosure that has a fan you can manually turn off on and. Thanks for the comment 👍 Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarryPS - to really understand the read speed you have to test the write speed of the Mac internal drive. That could be your bottleneck with it’s own write speed. I know they are very fast but still that could be it’s top sustained write speed.
@@mondotv4216 Hi. The internal storage on the Mac is way faster than the data bus speed of TB4, this is simply common knowledge and I’ve already done videos about this. The limit in this setup, or the bottleneck, is the limit of the bus speed for TB4 for data transferring (which is the net bandwidth after the DP bandwidth has been taken into account). As both the Mac’s internal storage and the WD SN850X’s transfer speeds are way in excess of the TB4 bus speed for data. What we see here is essentially the hard stop for TB4. Cheers, Dave.
Excellent video David! I’m watching this a year after you posted it. Do you have any updated recommendations for SSDs or enclosures? I don’t need blazing speed but want a reliable Gen 4 4TB or 8TB. I’m particularly interested in gaining a few ports such as USB A and or more USB C/Thunderbolt for a new M4 Mac Mini. Thank you
Hi. Thanks. Here’s a similar build using a cheaper SSD th-cam.com/video/YAa9WwIUKk4/w-d-xo.html I have just bought an M4 Pro Mac mini and will be testing some Thunderbolt 5 peripherals with it soon. Cheers, Dave.
I went this route then found your video. Made me feel justified lol. I'm using a Samsing 980 (not pro) but so not getting quite the same speeds (around 1.8-2GB/S) still excellent though.
Yes, it’s good to see the higher capacity SSDs starting to come down in price. I was also looking at the Crucial P5 Plus. However, this WD only cost slightly more as I got it during a sale. For using inside one of these USB4 enclosures, I’m quite sure the read and write speed of this WD and the P5 Plus will be very similar, as they are both way faster than USB4 and Thunderbolt. The WD also worked out better for me in case it ever goes inside a computer further down the line, as its sustained write speed is important to me for video capture. Cheers, Dave.
Most mini-PCs and these USB enclosures are not designed with clearance for heat-sinks, not even low profile heat sinks. The industry needs to allow heat-sinks.
Just going to buy my first mac mini this is just what i was looking for, to boost the drive size without paying apple my next years wages just for a small upgrade 😂 subbed and ty ❤
Hi Antonia. Yes, this is cheaper than the 4TB upgrade from Apple 😂 You can always use a cheaper NVME SSD in the enclosure to get the costs down and it will still be fast. I got this particular NVME because it has one of the highest sustained write speeds of any NVME out there. You could see how well this NVME sustained the write speed on the real world test, it didn’t slow down at all over almost 500GB of files. I also need the high sustained write for video capturing as well, although most people don’t necessarily need that function. A bigger internal Apple drive will be faster, however, the speed on this drive is probably enough for most people and as you said, it’s cheaper. Checkout the Crucial P5 Plus and P3 Plus NVME SSDs, these are a fair bit cheaper for the 4TB versions. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry thanks 🙏 for the detailed response Dave I liked what you were doing so I will make sure to pick those parts up and share the love ofc thank you again
Wonderful video. Thanks. I have mini mac from late 2014 and it has problems with my 34" LG ultrawide screen, so I shall buy a new mini mac. I think the m2 with lowest storage 256gb and 8 ram. And then I will use your external ssd instead. Can I boot from the external drive or would it be better to have programs inside the mini mac and boot from there and use the external drive for Fotos and videos
You can boot off either, internal or external. In certain instances, depending on the Mac, this external SSD is actually faster than the Regardless of the potential speed gain with the external, for a single boot system I would boot from the internal. Cheers, Dave.
Alright Tone. If you're going to put one together yourself, I'd strongly recommend the enclosure I used and just get whatever NVME SSD is best for you size wise, they're all going to be fast. This enclosure is great as you can use it on USB C devices as well and share the drive across loads of different devices, depending on the format of the drive. While there are some very good Thunderbolt 3 only enclosures out there. They are a bit more limiting as they can't be used on any USB interfaces. Cheers, Dave.
I would only recommend RAID for this type of Thunderbolt system if it’s redundancy you are after. You would gain no extra speed, as a good single NVMe drive is already faster than Thunderbolt. Cheers, Dave.
I have an enclosure similar that will also work on USB 3.0 or better. It doesn't like 2.0. I tried. It does have a type C connector. I like that a lot of them are made of aluminum and are machined really nicely too.
Pretty much the exact same items I'm using! I've got the Acasis enclosure and a Western Digital Blue SN570 and the speed is fantastic with them. Had problems with a much cheaper enclosure (around £20) which said it should get 40GBps but literally the drive pretty much stalled when put in it. Tried a friends enclosure too which he knows works on his computer (a PC) but that too had the same problem. Looks like either Mac doesn't like the cheaper enclosures or there's something they're not doing right which when connected to a Mac makes the drive pretty much halt. Using this same sort of setup though is soooo fast though! Mac Mini M2 Pro
Hi, Mark. Yes, the enclosure makes all the difference. I have another Thunderbolt enclosure and while the same WD SSD is still very impressive in that enclosure, it’s not as fast as it is in the Acasis. I’ve also tried a number of USB C enclosures with this WD SSD and it won’t go anywhere near the 10Gb/s that the USB C enclosures are supposed to do. This just means that those USB C enclosures aren’t as fast as they say they are, or at least their chipsets aren’t that good. I also have an Intel NUC with Thunderbolt and a Windows PC with Thunderbolt and both are really fast with this Acasis and the WD SSD. I suppose the bottom line in this instance, is that you do definitely get what you pay for, in a good way. Thanks for your comment 👍 Cheers, Dave.
Hey thanks for the info, great job! I have tried several different thunderbolt enclosures and the best I ever got was 2800mb/s. Even with the new Mac Studio M2 , same thing. I Tried a similar setup on a new windows pc and the best I got was 3800mb/s. Not sure why Apple limits the speed. Cheers!
Hi, Thomas. Yes. I have a Mac Mini M1 16GB/256GB and this drive works perfectly with it and it's 16x the storage capacity of the Mac's internal storage. Cheers, Dave.
Acasis TBU401 enclosure at Acasis geni.us/ACASIS-TBU401 Acasis TBU401 enclosure at Amazon geni.us/u9A5heL WB Black SN850X 4TB geni.us/v0dr MacBook Pro M1 Max geni.us/2F4Vr Laptop stand used with the MacBook geni.us/4JJd7 Best Fastest External SSD for M1 M2 Mac & Speed Test, Build Your Own Super Fast NVMe Thunderbolt SSD How To Build The FASTEST External Portable Thunderbolt USB4.0 SSD For Your M1 M2 Mac So in this video I'm showing how to build a fast USB4.0 external NVME ssd drive that's 4TB in size. The same drive also works on Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 and is perfect for expanding the storage of your Apple Silicon ARM Mac computer, be that one of the MacBooks or one the desktop Macs such as the Mac Studio or Mac Mini. This drive works with all the M1 and M2 models and so far, this is the fastest external for my Mac that I have come across. I would go so far as to say that this is the best external drive for a Mac The drive consists of the super fast WD Black SN850X 4TB NVME M.2 SSD and the excellent Acasis TBU401 40Gb/s USB4.0 enclosure that's also compatible with Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4. While I'm using it with an Apple Mac MacBook Pro M1 Max in this video. The same drive is also compatible with other hardware platforms and operating systems, such as Windows, Linux and Android etc. In the video I show how you how to build the drive, which is really straight forward and easy. I also do a disk speed test using Blackmagic Design's Disk Speed Test utility and I also show a real world disk speed test by moving files to and from the external drive. Video chapters: 00:00 Intro and explanation 01:10 Unboxing the SSD 02:08 Unboxing the enclosure 04:00 Building the drive 10:59 Formatting the drive 15:00 Blackmagic disk speed test 16:42 Real world write speed test 19:29 Real world read speed test 21:48 End summary Please give a thumbs up, share, sub & click the bell for notifications. The stuff I mostly use to produce my videos Cameras: Sony FDR-AX100 geni.us/SONY-FDR-AX100 Sony ZV-1 geni.us/SONY-ZV-1 Sony A7iii geni.us/Sony-A7-iii GoPro Hero 11 geni.us/GoProHero11Black-USA DJI Action 2 geni.us/DJI_Action-2 Microphones & Preamps: Sennheiser ME64 with K6 geni.us/Sennheiser-K6-And-ME64 Shure SM7B geni.us/SHURE_SM7B Various RODE Microphones geni.us/Rode-Microphones Triton Fethead geni.us/Triton-Fethead Behringer U-Phoria UMC2020HD geni.us/BehringerUMC202HD HDMI Capture Device: Atomos Ninja V geni.us/Atomos-Ninja-V Elgato 4K60 Pro MK2 geni.us/Elgato-4K-60-Pro-MK2 Elgato 4K60 S+ geni.us/Elgato-4K60-SPlus BlackMagic Ultrastudio Recorder 3G geni.us/UltraStudioRecorder3G Computer & Software: Apple MacBook Pro M1 Max geni.us/MacBook-Pro-M1-Max Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve Studio geni.us/DaViniciResolveStudio My Amazon links are affiliate links. Using these links does not cost you anything. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This gives me a small commission when buy using my product links, at no cost to you. These commissions help my channel and their use is greatly appreciated. You can also send me a coffee donation via PayPal www.paypal.me/DavidHarry My TH-cam equipment & recommendations: Amazon USA amzn.to/3g2Oi3i Amazon UK amzn.to/2ZR6IOV My Amazon Shop links: Amazon USA www.amazon.com/shop/davidharry Amazon UK www.amazon.co.uk/shop/davidharry My global Amazon links: Amazon USA: geni.us/Amazon-USA Amazon UK: geni.us/Amazon-UK Amazon Deutschland: geni.us/Amazon-Deutschland Amazon France: geni.us/Amazon-France Amazon España: geni.us/Amazon-Espana Amazon Italia: geni.us/Amazon-Italia Amazon Canada: geni.us/Amazon-Canada Contact me for product reviews. I DO NOT RESPOND TO VIEWER QUESTIONS. TH-cam@DavidHarry.com www.DavidHarry.com I’m David Harry. Thank you very much for watching this video, take care and goodbye now. Cheers, Dave. #DavidHarry#LiverpoolTV
Thanks for this video! I have been running ideas since I got my m1 some time ago, and for now was relying on 2 external SSD... I make the mistake of saving money and got the 256 mac mini.. Wich is amazing but editing video on the Mac drive is crazy, only can do one at a time.. This video came in just perfect! Was reluctant to trust but, the acasis enclosure is just a rockstar! thanks for this. Hope you have a good day
Quick question @davidharry. You think it will be same speed and write as the one in my mac mini m1? is the first one released year and a half ago I think so.. I´ve just do drum tutorials, 3 cameras, some neon things elements, but mainly is 30 seconds to 2 minutes. Exporting has never take me more than a couple of minutes or 30 to a full video with a lot of things (using the internal drive) Thanks
Hi, Jason. This drive should be the same speed on a Mini as the Mini has the same Thunderbolt interface as my MacBook. All the M1 devices use the same same basic chipsets, it’s just basically the core counts and internal storage that are different. I don’t know if the copy speeds between the internal to external storage will be the same, as the MacBook has a faster internal drive. Cheers, Dave.
Is it much easier and less heat sink work to buy the more expensive one with the fan. What are the pros of the fan unit and do you recommend it if the money is not an object.
The TBU405Pro M1 keeps the SSD much cooler, it's no easier to use, they're both easy to use. I'd recommend the TBU405Pro M1 for hot running Gen 4 SSDs. I'll be doing a video about it soon.
A very good presentation, BUT maybe I missed the part where you explained the difference between your real world numbers (bravo) and the 40Gbsec printed on the enclosure cover. On what planet is that available? that would be 5GB/sec if I understand the nomenclature (Gbs and GBs) and it’s still 2GBs slower than advertised.
FYI, you might want to sticky a note here about this: When you transfer files from the external drive/enclosure back to the Mac, you are effectively measuring the write speed of the Mac as that's your bottle neck. No the write speed of the drive/enclosure unit.
So one slight remark on your further absolutely splendid review. With your real life test, shouldn/t you keep in mind that when copying back from the external ssd to the internal ssd speed is actually limited by the write speed of the internal mac ssd rather than solely the read speed of your external ssd? I think both speeds weigh in on the actual transfer speed.
Hi, Paul. Yes, you are correct, both the read and write speeds of the external drive will be affected by the source drive (internal). I had mistakenly assumed that the only people who would have been interested in this video would have been those who had this laptop and that they would already know the speed of its SSD. I will be doing a similar video soon with a different ACASIS enclosure and will be sure to show a speed test of the internal SSD so people know it’s much faster than the Thunderbolt connection. In any event, the internal SSD is faster than 5000MB/s for read and write. Which means that it is not a bottleneck and the speeds shown in the test are indeed the maximum that any Thunderbolt 4 SSD can reach. Cheers, Dave.
It may have been a bit slower for read because it may have heated up slightly after your write speed tests, temperature may make a little difference aside from the methods the Mac uses for write and reads.
Just for info, I have the exact same SSD & enclosure as you are using. The drive is connected to my Window 11 PC via Thunderbolt 4 PCIe card. Using Blackmagic I get close to the Read/Write speeds as you are getting on the Mac (2550 MB/s write, 2750 MB/s read).
I do own three of those Acasis cases for Windows and Mac. There are two big disadvantages: The cooling goes to the lid and not the case itself and the read and write rates heavily depend on the used SSD brand. Samsung 970 pro is recommended, 970 evo is not. WD SN750 runs very bad and Samsung 980 pro runs better, but is overkill for this case. My feelings are very mixed with that case. Now trying Samsung 990 pro and WD SN 850X
@@heythere6983Hi😊 So, Samsung 980 pro were running the best. All WD SSDs 770, 750, 850x are not really recommended, as they show good benchmark values beforehand, but when using them daily and copying a folder with many files or the photo mediathek onto it or emptying the garbage bin, the WD always are breaking down in working rates to a total stopp like on Windows machines, continuing with some 0-24 KB/s😂. But remember: You will never achieve speeds or rates over 3000MB/s, although 3800MB/s should be possible.
Hello David. Thanks for this comprehensive review video! I love it so much! I have ordered this combination of Acasis enclosure (TBU401) and SN850X 4TB SSD. But I have one question to ask you, about thermal pad. I noticed that you just inserted the 1mm thermal pad that included in the package onto the SSD surface. Is it enough for heat dissipation? In other words, does this 1mm thernal pad successfully contact the case lid and SN850X 4TB SSD surface? So overall, is the temperature of this SSD normal without overheating after running for a certain period of time? Thanks for your reply!!
Awesome video, I have been sitting on the fence deciding which combo of enclosure & ssd to use but this has helped me to finally make my decision 😁. Any update as how’s its all still running ,, Thanks
KDE Neon has a widget that can monitor the temp of your motherboard SSD. I don't believe there is any support for monitoring the temp of SSDs in USB enclosures.
you can call it read speed but it's also writing to your internal drive. It's reading and writing to a slower interface. Black magic speed test your internal drive to verify its slowness compared to the external.
The internal drive is way faster than the Thunderbolt bandwidth for data, as is the actual SSD. So in this instance it’s the Thunderbolt data bus speed that’s the limiting factor, not the internal storage or the WD SSD.
Thanks a lot for all the explanations and for real transfer of hundreds of gigabytes, most people only uses less than five gigabytes and doing such makes speed result to not match real values, some NVMe and almost all SSD tend to drop down write speed after a few gigabytes. That is really a great combination of enclosure, bus speed and NVMe.
Hi, I know this video is a year old now but still very relevant - thanks. A quick question: Will this be good to boot from on my Imac 2019 Fusion Drive, which is running a little slow? Many thanks
The nvme choice is important. I tried using an AData 4x4 and got significantly worse performance than a slower Samsung 3x4 did. The AData would initially start staffers faster at 3700mb/s but after 1gb of data was transferred it slowed down to around about 300mb/s. Where the Samsung would hold a constant 2300m/s throughout.
Speed is fantastic but in total $600 is a lot. I use a Samsung T7 2TB (1000 / 1050 MB/s and am satisfied. The 4TB version with same speed in approx. the price of the Acasis enclosure: 273 Euro
Yes, it is expensive but it’s way faster than the T7s and is an absolute must for certain types of video editing. Since I made the video, the price to build this drive setup is now about 30% less and I imagine it will keep dropping. Cheers, Dave.
Hi. You are very welcome. If you are just doing general data backing up to the external drive and not needing it to be super fast for the sustained write speed for things like high bandwidth video recording and editing. You can use a cheaper and smaller capacity NVMe ssd inside the enclosure and it will still be great for day to day use. Cheers, Dave.
Have you ever got more than two of these NVMe/PCIe SSD’s working on the same machine? The Mac Mini Pro has four USB-C/Thunderbolt ports but in my experience only two mount at any one time. Apple say’s nothing about limiting PCIe connections to two - In theory four should be able to mount and run, but in my experience only ever find two are recognised and run… 🤨
Hi. I have had similar issues with multiple TB and USB SSDs connected to my MacBook. I think the issue is that the Mac isn't capable of supplying the total current that's necessary to power all the drives at the same time. I'm not sure but I think the Mac is splitting two TB ports from one controller and not using completely individual controllers for each TB port. If so, this may explain why the current/power isn't enough once too many drives are connected, as the current/power is being shared and isn't enough after a certain point. Cheers, Dave.
Thanks for the video, very interesting tests. However, I would like to ask you if using this combination of box and SSD would increase the performance of the Mac in terms of responsiveness to commands and startup when turned on if I were to install the operating system on it. Sorry for my English, Google translate helps me. Thank you
Hi, No, this SSD or any SSD will not speed up the performance/processing of any computer. It will however allow you to read and write data quickly, which may appear to speed up processing if disk access speed is a bottleneck. Cheers, Dave.
Read is always faster than write. Read slower than write suggests you were write limited on your Mac book. Which in turn might suggest you could have been write limited by the MacBook as well. In any case these are pretty good results. But the really performer here is the WD black. My older WD black in TB3 throttles at 70gb. But it achieves 2300/2800 W/R.
Read isn't always faster. You obviously didn't understand what was going on in the video, as this SSD not only has a large fast cache but also very fast NANDAs can obviously be seen in the 100% sustained write speed with almost 500GB of data. Plus TB3 and 4 have to be used to get this performance, there is no other solution that beats this for external storage on any Apple Silicon device.
@@DavidHarry I was not trying to diminish your results. This is a fast combination. My point was that if you are pursuing speed, pay attention to the cache because many ssds, including expensive ones, are cache limited and only faster for smaller files. I would also say that spending money on the big cache with either of tb3, tb4, or USB4 from any provider is likely to get you within 10% of the fastest combination - so research the NVME cache before spending more money getting the last 10% out of the USB4. I am also aware that some nvme's perform worse on certain brand enclosures, even thought they are fast.
Hi. I get that you weren’t trying to diminish the results but you’ve not understood that all your concerns weren’t applicable for this setup. The reason why I made the point of the real world testing and not just synthetic, was because it shows perfect caching. The write test was done with almost 500GB of files and the sustained speed maxed out at over 2800MB/s. This proves how good this particular WD SSD is handling the cache. It also shows that maximum speed for Thunderbolt is being used. Different enclosures and SSD combinations will never get these results, whether that be the chipset in the enclosure or the SSD’s cache or NAND. All the research was done for this particular pairing and it is definitely the fastest you’ll get for an Apple Silicon Mac while maintaining 100% write speeds for large file movements. I have a number of TB and USB C enclosures and a number of SSDs. So I can absolutely guarantee this pairing of this enclosure and SSD. Plus the tests conclusively proved this anyway. Cheers, Dave.
Hi David Wicked video and explanation Is this setup basically a DIY version of a Samsung t7 shield or Sandisk Pro ssd etc....?? Can I buy this setup and use it to transfer and save 4K 60fps videos from my Samsung s23 Ultra and GoPro 12 as well ??
Hi, Brian. Yes, the end result here would be just like using a T7 but a lot faster. I have a 1TB T7 and this drive is about 4 to 5 times faster. You can use this drive with an S23 Ultra, depending on what SSD inside it and if it's formatted to something that the S23 Ultra will understand, such as ExFAT. You can not use any external SSD with any GoPro, the GoPros do not write direct to external SSDs via their USB ports. Check out my videos, I have a bunch of stuff including the S23 Ultra, iPhone 15 Pro Max and Apple and Samsung tablets etc. You may find something interesting in there. Cheers, Dave.
@@brianmagicman3556 Hi, Brian. Not directly from the GoPro. You would have to put the GoPro's SD card into a computer and then back off the video files to the external SSD. Cheers, Dave.
Hi. This combination will work with any Mac that has USB C or Thunderbolt 3 or Thunderbolt 4. The speeds will be slower on USB C but it will work. You can also use a USB A to USB C cable as well. Cheers, Dave.
I used an orico nvme enclosure along with a Samsung 2tb 980 Pro, but now ideally need a 4tb solution. Due to cost of 4tb nvme drives I opted to buy a 4tb Samsung evo ssd. This option is probably my next step, as the thunderbolt access on the new m chip macs is really fast. I'm accessing my photo archives instantously with nvme storage.
Hi. I also have a 4TB Samsung QVO SATA SSD inside a USB C enclosure. While this is really good for general storage and is cheaper, the QVO series drop really low for sustained writing. This WD SSD and Thunderbolt enclosure are in a completely different league and is seriously fast, even compared to other Thunderbolt SSDs. If speed and write times are your main concern, I’d definitely consider this combination. Cheers, Dave.
Just bought Acasis enclosuer as it dropped to £135 on amazon. Just need a good 4tb nvme. Reading comments it can get quite hot, I found the orico thunderbolt enclosuer got warm, but dissipated the heat quite well. If it's an issue I can pop it on my portable desk fan. Any recommended 4tb nvme for this enclosure?
Very good and complete video David. I have a slightly different version of the Acasis enclosure (TBU405) with a 2TB Samsung 980 Pro NVME inside. I assembled it about 7 months ago and it works flawlessly. It does get warm but I would not classify it as hot. My read and write speeds are similar to yours. Thx again.
Hi, Rick. This one also gets very warm as well. I've put together many external drives, USB and TB, and every TB/NVMe drive has always run at least warm. The faster the NVMe SSD, such as Gen 4, the more heat they produce. It's just one of those things unfortunately. Another thing that is also a bit odd, which may also happen with your one. When the Mac is idle the TB drive is still warm, even if it's not doing anything. Also, when the Mac is powered off, the drive is warm. I've now had to get used to disconnecting the drive after powering down the Mac. This may not be so much of an issue for most MacBook users but mine gets used exclusively as desktop computer connected to a monitor and mouse/keyboard etc. When the M1 Max was released, there wasn't a desktop yet with that configuration, which is why I bought a laptop to use as a desktop. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry My SanDisk extreme also always stays warm/hot even when not in use but attached to the computer, not sure if this is a Mac issue or issue on the externals. Worse I am always getting the message that the drive was not properly disconnected when it wasn't disconnected at all.
Thank you for providing such a clear and concise video. I have bought the same SSD and enclosure, but my iMac does not see the WD_Black SSD within Disk Utility. I'm not sure if you could answer this David, but does this set up run only via the silicon chips regarding Apple computers, or can an iMac (Intel chipset) work too? I will be connecting the SSD in to a Mac Mini Pro, but thought I could format the SSD on my iMac. Maybe I have misunderstood something. Would welcome your input Mr Harry!
Hi. This drive will work with may Mac that has USB C or Thunderbolt 3 or 4, it doesn’t matter if it’s ARM (Apple Silicon) or X86 (Intel). I use this drive with Windows as well on USB C or TB3. If Disk Utility does not see the drive, try changing the cable your connecting to the Mac with. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry Thanks for the information. I tried another cable without luck. I’m going to take the SSD and enclosure to a local computer store for them to test. I’ve a feeling the enclosure maybe the issue. Although, I don’t see any visible damage.
How fast is the SSD inside your Mac that you are transferring from / to? It needs to be much faster than the Thunderbolt SSD for a fair test, our you could be limited by the speed of that. However, you are still getting fantastic results! Sorry if I missed it if you have that here, I just skipped to the speed test. I guess in any case you are ultimately limited by the 40Gb/s of TB4, or 5000MBps ( minus some overhead )
Hi Mark. I did mention that the Mac’s internal drive was much faster. And yes, the limiting factor here is the TB bandwidth and not the host or target drives 👍 Cheers, Dave.
Only thing that sucks is you're only getting only a 1/3 of the drives actual speed if you were to put it into a PC. It's possible you could save some money and get a slower Gen3 drive or slower gen 4 and get the same speed in the enclosure as those top out at 3000-5000MB.
@@DavidHarry True most cheaper Gen 3 Drives are at about max out at 2000-3000MB/s, But the max Spec of TB3 limits you to 5000MB/s anyway. Did you try an SN770? It's GEN4, but it's much cheaper. I bought a 2tb one for 115USD last week.
It’s not the speed of the drive that determines the sustained speed, it’s the cache and RAM. The SN770 is fast for a short burst but can’t sustain the high write speeds of the SN850X.
So the biggest benefit of building your own SSD over buying say a Sandisk with the same amount of storage is in its speed and load times right? Because it costs more to build your own and I'm not a gamer so I want to be certain.
This type of self build definitely has the advantage of speed, and that's what you are paying for. You could also put together a drive that uses a standard USB C enclosure and while it would be cheaper it would be a lot slower. Cheers, Dave.
Great video! Would this setup be suitable/reliable for booting and all day running (OS and all apps & files) of an m1 or m3 iMac, instead of using the internal?
![BOWKYLION - วิงวอน (ex-change) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cLdnZWDaO-w/mqdefault.jpg)
READ THIS TO UNDERSTAND WHY THIS PARTICULAR GEN 4 NVME M.2 SSD IS BEING USED:
The reason why this particular SSD is being used, isn’t because the SSD is super fast or anything, it’s because of its sustained transfer speeds for writing data.
The data bandwidth for Thunderbolt 4 is just under 3000MB/s but no Gen 3 NVMe SSD can sustain that speed. Using a high quality Gen 4 SSD, such as the SN850X, will sustain the maximum data bandwidth that the enclosure will allow. Using a Gen 3 SSD, even one that says it’s faster than 3000MB/s, won’t sustain anywhere near that speed when writing large amounts of continuous data in one go.
It’s all down to the caching systems on the drives and the high quality, fast Gen 4 NVMe SSDs generally have better caching and buffering compared to the Gen 3 NVMe SSDs. Some cheaper Gen 4 NVMe SSDs won’t sustain that data rate either. Again, another reason for recommending what may appear to be an unnecessarily expensive SSD. That may also appear to be much faster than what you think you may need.
Also, the reason why we only get about 3000MB/s out of Thunderbolt 4 for data and not the 5000MB/s, which is what 40Gb/s is. Is because about 2000MB/s of Thunderbolt 4’s bandwidth/bus speed is taken up for video, even though video is not being used with the enclosure. The separate video bandwidth is just part of the protocols for Thunderbolt 4 and which is why the entire 5000MB/s bus speed of Thunderbolt 4 is not all used for data transferring, even when a video signal is not being used.
You can of course use much cheaper Gen 3 NVMe SSDs if you don’t require the fast sustained maximum write speeds. And you can also use smaller capacity SSDs if you don’t require large storage spaces.
The reason why I use the 4TB WD SN850X is because it will give me the maximum speed for sustained writing of very large file transfers in one go and I personally need at least 4TB of storage because I use a lot of large, high bandwidth video files.
ACASIS TBU401 enclosure at Amazon geni.us/u9A5heL
ACASIS TBU405 M1 enclosure with fan at Amazon geni.us/ACASIS-TBU405ProM1
ACASIS website geni.us/ACASIS
ACASIS TBU401 enclosure at ACASIS website geni.us/Acasis-TBU401
WD SSDs:
SN850X 4TB geni.us/SN850X-4TB
SN850X 2TB geni.us/SN850X-2TB
SN850X 1TB geni.us/SN850X-1TB
MacBook Pro M1 Max geni.us/2F4Vr
Laptop stand used with the MacBook geni.us/4JJd7
How To Build The Fastest External Thunderbolt 4 USB4 SSD For Your M1 M2 M3 Apple Silicon Mac MacBook.
In this video I'm showing how to build a fast Thunderbolt 4 SSD storage drive which is also USB 4.0 compatible. The same drive also works on Thunderbolt 3 and is perfect for expanding the storage of any M1 M2 M3 Apple Silicon Mac computer, be that a MacBook Pro, MacBook Air or one the desktop Macs such as the Mac Studio or Mac Mini.
I would go so far as to say that this is the best external drive for a Mac and the fastest external drive for a Mac.
The drive consists of the WD Black SN850X 4TB NVME M.2 SSD and the excellent Acasis TBU401 40Gb/s Thunderbolt 4 USB4.0 to NVMe enclosure.
While I'm using it with an Apple Mac MacBook Pro M1 Max in this video. The same drive is also compatible with other hardware platforms and operating systems, such as Windows, Linux and Android etc.
I also do a disk speed test using Blackmagic Design's Disk Speed Test utility and I also show a real world disk speed test by moving files to and from the external drive.
Video chapters:
00:00 Intro and explanation
01:10 Unboxing the SSD
02:08 Unboxing the enclosure
04:00 Building the drive
10:59 Formatting the drive
15:00 Blackmagic disk speed test
16:42 Real world write speed test
19:29 Real world read speed test
21:48 End summary
Please give a thumbs up, share, sub & click the bell for notifications.
Here’s the equipment that I use, have used or reviewed that I would recommend.
Cameras: amzn.to/3PzC8mI
Microphones: amzn.to/3tD6FaM
Computers: amzn.to/3tuwHNr
Phones: amzn.to/3ttqjWN
iPads & Tablets: amzn.to/46t8wxG
If this video helped you out you can also send me a coffee donation via PayPal www.paypal.me/DavidHarry
My TH-cam equipment & recommendations:
Amazon USA amzn.to/3g2Oi3i
Amazon UK amzn.to/2ZR6IOV
My Amazon Shop links:
Amazon USA www.amazon.com/shop/davidharry
Amazon UK www.amazon.co.uk/shop/davidharry
My global Amazon links:
Amazon USA: geni.us/Amazon-USA
Amazon UK: geni.us/Amazon-UK
Amazon Deutschland: geni.us/Amazon-Deutschland
Amazon Canada: geni.us/Amazon-Canada
Contact me for product reviews. I DO NOT RESPOND TO VIEWER QUESTIONS.
TH-cam@DavidHarry.com
www.DavidHarry.com
I’m David Harry. Thank you very much for watching this video, take care and goodbye now.
Cheers,
Dave.
#DavidHarry#LiverpoolTV
I've bought the ACASIS M1 Pro (with a fan) and the WD BLACK SN850X 4TB, just assembled everything and I AM AMAZED!!!! 20 gb in 5 secs ... never going back to buying external SD cards ever!!!!!!
I can still remember the ‘good old days’ when we had to rig together a handful of 7200rpm hard drives in RAID 0 to achieve transfer speeds a fraction of what you managed here😳
Hi, Philip. Yes, I used to use a Sonnet 8 drive setup in a striped set and that was nowhere near the read or write speeds of this drive. BTW, technically, 0 isn’t a RAID setup as it has no redundancy. Plus, this drive on a per TB cost is a lot cheaper. It’s just a pity that we can’t add these fast SSDs internally to the Apple Silicon Macs, this SSD would be much closer to 8GB/s for read and write on a good Gen4 M.2 controller. Cheers, Dave.
Right? I used a G-Drive forever. I built one of these and transfer speeds for using FCPX and music creation have improved by a LOT
I RAID'ed two 74GB Raptor 10k RPM drives. You can hear it hard at work!!
I really like how clear and understandable your English accent is.
Thank you 👍 Cheers, Dave.
I mean, he's from England. That's were it all comes from.
@@77dris it's not so obvious I tell you, I live here, West Midlands, English can be difficult to understand in many places of England
I have this exact drive and enclosure, using it with a M1 Mac Mini and a M1 Macbook Air and get 2800 Mbps all day long. I am ecstatic with how well it performs. Thank You David!
Hi, Mark. Sorry for the late reply. Yes, this combination of SSD and enclosure is really fast and on any of the Apple Silicon Macs. Thanks for your comment. Cheers, Dave.
Thanks for sharing I will do it to
Hey @markrussell, is your writing speed also around 2800 Mbps? , which Mac Mini do you have? I would like to try it with my Mac Mini M1 2020 (A2348) but wondering if I can get similar results as yours.
I have an iMac M1, (256gb & 16gb ram) and, I’ve tried the WD SN770 with the Acasis enclosure but, I didn’t get the same speeds as you did. I’ll try the SN850x. Thanks for sharing.
How’s the temperature when moving large files?
I cancelled my order or t7 shield 4tb and went with this route instead. Now waiting for these to arrive and set it up. Thank you!
Hi Ben. I also have a T7 (1TB) and the difference is night and day. This 4TB TB SSD combination is between three to four times faster for reading and writing. The biggest benefit for me is that this drive will constantly sustain its maximum write speed. Cheers, Dave.
A very professional video that has taken into account how it will be viewed. Lots of steady close ups showing details and held long enough to take in the relevance. On that basis I subscribed!
Hi. Thank you very much for your comment and I’m glad you liked the video. Thank you very much for the sub, it really does help my channel 👍 Cheers, Dave.
I have no plans whatsoever to make one of these but the youtube algo recommended it to me and I watched whole dang video cos it was so good. You are an excellent teacher sir and explained all of this really well.
Thank you 👍 Cheers, Dave.
I have viewed lots of videos on this subject over the past month and this one is-without doubt-the best of them all, by a country mile. Well done! 👍
Nice one, Keith. Thank you for your kind words 👍 and I hope the video was useful for you. Cheers, Dave.
I’ve just followed this video with these components (but 2TB) to add storage for my new M2 Studio. Excellent explanation and results, I’m getting much the same speeds as you, thanks very much!
Awesome 👍 I’m glad the video was useful. Cheers, Dave.
Just got this case and this exact SSD ( but 1 TB for music production files ) for my M3 iMac. This was a super excellent breakdown. Thank you for this.
Hi David! First of all I (as a "bloody German") have to thank you for your very precise pronounciation! It's been a pleasure to listen to your video and I like your accent, though I wonder from which part of the UK it originates.
Concerning the read speed you measured with the enclosure one has to consider the write speed of your internal ssd. This has to be faster than the read speed of the external ssd to be able to measure the correct read speed of the TB/USB4 enclosure!
By the way, those enclosures with an ASMEDIA AS2464 chipset are both TB4/USB4 compatible with complete downward compatability. Connected to a real USB4 controller in a Win11 laptop or pc you can reach up to 3800 GB/s according to ads for such enclosures such as ZikeDrive Z666 or Adata SE920. So, if you're going to proove these drives in future videos, you're going to need a relatively new laptop or a USB4 controller card for a not too old pc. Your 10 year old optiplex seems a bit too old for this, I think...
Hi. Thank you for your compliment on my pronunciation. However, in my experience, Germans are very good with the English language and many of the English accents. My previous girlfriend was from Ludwigsburg and she thought my accent was "cute" 😆
While you are correct, all the external speeds, read and write, when testing any external drive's speed. Rely on the target drive (the internal drive) being faster than the external drive. In this instance I'd just assumed that most people watching the video would know how fast the internal 1TB was on the Mac, which is over 5000MB/s for read and write. Maybe I should have made that point more clearer. In any event, the Thunderbolt speeds, regardless of the drive used on Thunderbolt (4), are way lower than the internal storage. So what we see in this video is the true speed of the external drive when used with Thunderbolt 4.
However, there is a bottleneck with all Thunderbolt drives and that is the Thunderbolt speed/bandwidth for data. While the WD SSD used in this configuration is actually faster than the Mac's internal storage, the SSD is limited by the bandwidth of Thunderbolt (4) and also the chipset inside the enclosure. While the overall bandwidth of Thunderbolt 4 is 40Gb/s, which is 5000MB/s. About 2000MB/s is partitioned for DisplayPort bandwidth, even if you don't use any video data over the connection. This means that regardless of the combination of Thunderbolt enclosure and SSD, you will never get above around 3000MB/s for data bandwidth.
I think I may have mentioned some of this stuff in the video description.
As for USB4. I'm yet to see anyone demonstrate any USB4 SSD with a Windows system using any USB4 host controller that is any faster than what you get with Thunderbolt 4. Regardless of what may be written or assumed, I have a feeling that USB4 is also held back in the same way that Thunderbolt 4 is, with regard video bandwidth allocation across the bus speed. If you know of any video demonstration that shows higher data speeds, I would be very inserted to see that. Like I said, I've personally never seen any demonstration of USB4 that's faster than TB4 with data speeds/bandwidths.
The test with the Optiplex was only to test that the USB compatibility of the exclosure would fall back to USB2 (480Mb/s) and USB3 (5Gb+) and that it was indeed fully compatible as a "generic" USB SSD and not just a Thunderbolt SSD. The test with the Optiplex was obviously not for USB4. Also, I still do not have a Windows machine with native USB4, only a Gigabyte system with an add-on Thunderbolt 3 controller.
Cheers, Dave.
Just bought a new 1TB M2 MBA yesterday. Ordering this exact same setup for it today. Thank you for the fine review mate. Liked and subbed
Hi, Craig. I'm glad the video was useful and than you very much for the like and sub 👍 I'll be doing more stuff soon about the MBA and also more storage options. Cheers, Dave.
Many thanks for this video, which I found invaluable for guiding me through the build process. Enjoying my new WD/Acasis drive and have measured 2793 MB/s write and 2785 MB/s read, which is all very impressive. Thank you!!
Hi. You are very welcome and I’m glad the video was useful 👍 Cheers, Dave.
can i ask what WD you are using ? please and thankyou
Excellent tutorial, made the process a breeze! Thank you!
I’m glad the video was helpful 👍 Cheers, Dave.
Thank you again David! I just got a second one. This time I got the fan version of the Acacis enclosure. I was going to get the 2T WD drive but it had some odd reviews on the net so I just got a second 1T.
Hi, Neil. That's awesome 👍 I'm just about to do another video but with the same enclosure that you've just used, the one with the fan in it. I recently tested another enclosure by a different manufacturer and it was slightly faster than the Acasis ones but it was only last with one SSD and terrible with all my others. Having tested a bunch now I'd have to say that the Acasis ones are a fairly safe bet for compatibility. Cheers, Dave.
Hi Dave, just been through the process of setting up an External SSD (Acasis/WD combination) as per your video - excellent result - your help was much appreciated... Many thanks.
Hi, Peter. I'm glad the video was helpful and you are very welcome. Cheers, Dave.
Woah your voice audio quality is insane 😱🤯
Def should do a video about it !
I sure hope you are, or were a teacher. You really have a gift for teaching. Excellent video. By far the best one I watched on this subject.
Hi. No, I've never been involved in the teaching profession, other than producing science videos for certain UK curriculum. Although, in those instances I was only producing and dealing with shooting and post production and not the narrative etc. However, thank you for your comment, it would suggest that I'm doing something that's hopefully easy to follow and disseminate. Cheers, Dave.
Really interesting review. I have appreciated the real world test, because most people tend to do only synthetic tests, which could be not so useful.
You are very welcome 👍 Yes, the real world test is very important, especially with a large amount of data as I done in this video, as this definitely showed that the speed did not drop. The problem with synthetic tests is that they only tend to test the initial buffer capabilities, which are smaller than moving a lot of data in one go. Cheers, Dave.
Excellent guide here! Your attention to detail is impressive both in the video and in the text notes written. Great work!
Thank you for your very kind comment 👍 Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry Same... Came for the video subbed for the text notes!
Just the right information I was looking for delivered in a professional, clear way. Liked and subscribed!
Nice one, thank you for your kind words and I'm glad the video was useful. Thank you for the like and sub 👍 Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry no worries, thanks for the reply 👍
Thanks for the visual demo on that Acadia enclosure. I was following the enclosed pamphlet instructions, but wasn’t quite getting it until watching your video. Amazing speeds on my Mac Studio. Thank you for the help!
I’m glad the video was helpful. Cheers, Dave.
I'd add to David's warnings. Choose a Gen 4 x 4 drive for best results and look at reviews. You can't go wrong with the Samsung 980/990 Pro but of course they are more expensive - the EVOs seem to bottleneck quite quickly.. Above all, choose a drive like the Samsung that runs relatively cool as the cooling on these cases is all passive. Steer away from the Sabrent case. It works but has a recessed Thunderbolt port - only the cable that comes with the drive actually fits the case.
Hi. Definitely 👍 People underestimate why certain drives are expensive, Samsung 990 Pro, WD SN850X etc. You're not so much paying for a "fast" drive but a fast drive that can sustain its write speeds. I've seen far too many comments where people are complaining about the recommendation of the SSD saying it's too expensive or "no one needs that kind of speed". The simple fact is that if someone didn't need the speed then they wouldn't be looking at a Thunderbolt solution and would just go USB-C. And yes, heat is an issue with all these fast Gen4 SSDs. I'll be doing a video soon with another ACASIS enclosure that has a fan you can manually turn off on and. Thanks for the comment 👍 Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarryPS - to really understand the read speed you have to test the write speed of the Mac internal drive. That could be your bottleneck with it’s own write speed. I know they are very fast but still that could be it’s top sustained write speed.
@@mondotv4216 Hi. The internal storage on the Mac is way faster than the data bus speed of TB4, this is simply common knowledge and I’ve already done videos about this. The limit in this setup, or the bottleneck, is the limit of the bus speed for TB4 for data transferring (which is the net bandwidth after the DP bandwidth has been taken into account). As both the Mac’s internal storage and the WD SN850X’s transfer speeds are way in excess of the TB4 bus speed for data. What we see here is essentially the hard stop for TB4. Cheers, Dave.
Excellent video David! I’m watching this a year after you posted it. Do you have any updated recommendations for SSDs or enclosures? I don’t need blazing speed but want a reliable Gen 4 4TB or 8TB. I’m particularly interested in gaining a few ports such as USB A and or more USB C/Thunderbolt for a new M4 Mac Mini. Thank you
Hi. Thanks. Here’s a similar build using a cheaper SSD th-cam.com/video/YAa9WwIUKk4/w-d-xo.html I have just bought an M4 Pro Mac mini and will be testing some Thunderbolt 5 peripherals with it soon. Cheers, Dave.
I went this route then found your video. Made me feel justified lol. I'm using a Samsing 980 (not pro) but so not getting quite the same speeds (around 1.8-2GB/S) still excellent though.
This is the best explanation on this subject I have watched, thank you very much
Hi, Mike. You are very welcome, it's my pleasure buddy 👍 Cheers, Dave.
nice , I just ordered yesterday somthing similar , nice to see the prices for SSD-s are a bit more affordable , I took a crucial 4TB with 300euro
Yes, it’s good to see the higher capacity SSDs starting to come down in price. I was also looking at the Crucial P5 Plus. However, this WD only cost slightly more as I got it during a sale. For using inside one of these USB4 enclosures, I’m quite sure the read and write speed of this WD and the P5 Plus will be very similar, as they are both way faster than USB4 and Thunderbolt. The WD also worked out better for me in case it ever goes inside a computer further down the line, as its sustained write speed is important to me for video capture. Cheers, Dave.
Well done David. I have just set up my Acadia drive to my MacBook Pro and your video was very helpful. Thank you very much.
Hi. I'm glad the video was helpful 👍 Cheers, Dave.
Most mini-PCs and these USB enclosures are not designed with clearance for heat-sinks, not even low profile heat sinks. The industry needs to allow heat-sinks.
great tutorial; recently acquired a Samsung 4 TB SSD and a Acasis enclosure - had to refresh my memory since I built a 2 TB external SSD a while ago.
I’m glad the video was helpful 👍
Everything was shown very well. Especially practice tests with large files. Thank you for this video
Thank you and you are very welcome. Cheers, Dave.
Just going to buy my first mac mini this is just what i was looking for, to boost the drive size without paying apple my next years wages just for a small upgrade 😂 subbed and ty ❤
Hi Antonia. Yes, this is cheaper than the 4TB upgrade from Apple 😂 You can always use a cheaper NVME SSD in the enclosure to get the costs down and it will still be fast. I got this particular NVME because it has one of the highest sustained write speeds of any NVME out there. You could see how well this NVME sustained the write speed on the real world test, it didn’t slow down at all over almost 500GB of files. I also need the high sustained write for video capturing as well, although most people don’t necessarily need that function. A bigger internal Apple drive will be faster, however, the speed on this drive is probably enough for most people and as you said, it’s cheaper. Checkout the Crucial P5 Plus and P3 Plus NVME SSDs, these are a fair bit cheaper for the 4TB versions. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry thanks 🙏 for the detailed response Dave I liked what you were doing so I will make sure to pick those parts up and share the love ofc thank you again
Wonderful video. Thanks. I have mini mac from late 2014 and it has problems with my 34" LG ultrawide screen, so I shall buy a new mini mac. I think the m2 with lowest storage 256gb and 8 ram. And then I will use your external ssd instead. Can I boot from the external drive or would it be better to have programs inside the mini mac and boot from there and use the external drive for Fotos and videos
You can boot off either, internal or external. In certain instances, depending on the Mac, this external SSD is actually faster than the Regardless of the potential speed gain with the external, for a single boot system I would boot from the internal. Cheers, Dave.
Well Done my friend. Real world examples, excellent, Thank you
Glad you enjoyed it
thank you for your patients to explain it thoroughly!
You are very welcome 👍 Cheers, Dave.
Thank you David, hands down the best video on the subject
It’s my pleasure and I’m glad the video was useful 👍 Cheers, Dave.
So great... exactly the information I was looking for, and extremely clear and easy to follow. Huge bonus points for the Dave Lister style delivery 🤣
I’m you liked the video 👍 Smeghead 🤣 Cheers, Dave.
This video came in time. It's about time I get another external. I will go this route when I do!
Alright Tone. If you're going to put one together yourself, I'd strongly recommend the enclosure I used and just get whatever NVME SSD is best for you size wise, they're all going to be fast. This enclosure is great as you can use it on USB C devices as well and share the drive across loads of different devices, depending on the format of the drive. While there are some very good Thunderbolt 3 only enclosures out there. They are a bit more limiting as they can't be used on any USB interfaces. Cheers, Dave.
I'd love to have RAID version of that enclosure (similar to the old WD My Passport Pro Duo). It would be the best pro solution on the go.
I would only recommend RAID for this type of Thunderbolt system if it’s redundancy you are after. You would gain no extra speed, as a good single NVMe drive is already faster than Thunderbolt. Cheers, Dave.
Wow David, that is amazingly easy. I just followed your instructions and am all set up in no time. Thank you so much.
Nice one, Neil 👍 I'm glad the video was useful and thank you for your comment. Cheers, Dave.
I have an enclosure similar that will also work on USB 3.0 or better. It doesn't like 2.0. I tried. It does have a type C connector. I like that a lot of them are made of aluminum and are machined really nicely too.
Pretty much the exact same items I'm using! I've got the Acasis enclosure and a Western Digital Blue SN570 and the speed is fantastic with them. Had problems with a much cheaper enclosure (around £20) which said it should get 40GBps but literally the drive pretty much stalled when put in it. Tried a friends enclosure too which he knows works on his computer (a PC) but that too had the same problem. Looks like either Mac doesn't like the cheaper enclosures or there's something they're not doing right which when connected to a Mac makes the drive pretty much halt. Using this same sort of setup though is soooo fast though!
Mac Mini M2 Pro
Hi, Mark. Yes, the enclosure makes all the difference. I have another Thunderbolt enclosure and while the same WD SSD is still very impressive in that enclosure, it’s not as fast as it is in the Acasis. I’ve also tried a number of USB C enclosures with this WD SSD and it won’t go anywhere near the 10Gb/s that the USB C enclosures are supposed to do. This just means that those USB C enclosures aren’t as fast as they say they are, or at least their chipsets aren’t that good. I also have an Intel NUC with Thunderbolt and a Windows PC with Thunderbolt and both are really fast with this Acasis and the WD SSD. I suppose the bottom line in this instance, is that you do definitely get what you pay for, in a good way. Thanks for your comment 👍 Cheers, Dave.
Great video. Exactly the type of testing I was looking for before purchasing!
I'm glad you found the video helpful 👍 Cheers, Dave.
Hey thanks for the info, great job! I have tried several different thunderbolt enclosures and the best I ever got was 2800mb/s. Even with the new Mac Studio M2 , same thing. I Tried a similar setup on a new windows pc and the best I got was 3800mb/s. Not sure why Apple limits the speed. Cheers!
Thanks for the info! 👍 Cheers, Dave.
Awesome video!
I have a new Mac mini M1 w/256 gb internal hd
Would this hardware work on that as well?
Hi, Thomas. Yes. I have a Mac Mini M1 16GB/256GB and this drive works perfectly with it and it's 16x the storage capacity of the Mac's internal storage. Cheers, Dave.
Great video! This was fantastic, now I’m feeling confident!!
Awesome, I’m glad the video was useful 👍 Cheers, Dave.
This is a great review. For future ssd test, include temperature and stress testing for thermal performance and throttling.
Acasis TBU401 enclosure at Acasis geni.us/ACASIS-TBU401
Acasis TBU401 enclosure at Amazon geni.us/u9A5heL
WB Black SN850X 4TB geni.us/v0dr
MacBook Pro M1 Max geni.us/2F4Vr
Laptop stand used with the MacBook geni.us/4JJd7
Best Fastest External SSD for M1 M2 Mac & Speed Test, Build Your Own Super Fast NVMe Thunderbolt SSD
How To Build The FASTEST External Portable Thunderbolt USB4.0 SSD For Your M1 M2 Mac
So in this video I'm showing how to build a fast USB4.0 external NVME ssd drive that's 4TB in size. The same drive also works on Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 and is perfect for expanding the storage of your Apple Silicon ARM Mac computer, be that one of the MacBooks or one the desktop Macs such as the Mac Studio or Mac Mini.
This drive works with all the M1 and M2 models and so far, this is the fastest external for my Mac that I have come across. I would go so far as to say that this is the best external drive for a Mac
The drive consists of the super fast WD Black SN850X 4TB NVME M.2 SSD and the excellent Acasis TBU401 40Gb/s USB4.0 enclosure that's also compatible with Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4.
While I'm using it with an Apple Mac MacBook Pro M1 Max in this video. The same drive is also compatible with other hardware platforms and operating systems, such as Windows, Linux and Android etc.
In the video I show how you how to build the drive, which is really straight forward and easy.
I also do a disk speed test using Blackmagic Design's Disk Speed Test utility and I also show a real world disk speed test by moving files to and from the external drive.
Video chapters:
00:00 Intro and explanation
01:10 Unboxing the SSD
02:08 Unboxing the enclosure
04:00 Building the drive
10:59 Formatting the drive
15:00 Blackmagic disk speed test
16:42 Real world write speed test
19:29 Real world read speed test
21:48 End summary
Please give a thumbs up, share, sub & click the bell for notifications.
The stuff I mostly use to produce my videos
Cameras:
Sony FDR-AX100 geni.us/SONY-FDR-AX100
Sony ZV-1 geni.us/SONY-ZV-1
Sony A7iii geni.us/Sony-A7-iii
GoPro Hero 11 geni.us/GoProHero11Black-USA
DJI Action 2 geni.us/DJI_Action-2
Microphones & Preamps:
Sennheiser ME64 with K6 geni.us/Sennheiser-K6-And-ME64
Shure SM7B geni.us/SHURE_SM7B
Various RODE Microphones geni.us/Rode-Microphones
Triton Fethead geni.us/Triton-Fethead
Behringer U-Phoria UMC2020HD geni.us/BehringerUMC202HD
HDMI Capture Device:
Atomos Ninja V geni.us/Atomos-Ninja-V
Elgato 4K60 Pro MK2 geni.us/Elgato-4K-60-Pro-MK2
Elgato 4K60 S+ geni.us/Elgato-4K60-SPlus
BlackMagic Ultrastudio Recorder 3G geni.us/UltraStudioRecorder3G
Computer & Software:
Apple MacBook Pro M1 Max geni.us/MacBook-Pro-M1-Max
Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve Studio geni.us/DaViniciResolveStudio
My Amazon links are affiliate links. Using these links does not cost you anything. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This gives me a small commission when buy using my product links, at no cost to you. These commissions help my channel and their use is greatly appreciated.
You can also send me a coffee donation via PayPal www.paypal.me/DavidHarry
My TH-cam equipment & recommendations:
Amazon USA amzn.to/3g2Oi3i
Amazon UK amzn.to/2ZR6IOV
My Amazon Shop links:
Amazon USA www.amazon.com/shop/davidharry
Amazon UK www.amazon.co.uk/shop/davidharry
My global Amazon links:
Amazon USA: geni.us/Amazon-USA
Amazon UK: geni.us/Amazon-UK
Amazon Deutschland: geni.us/Amazon-Deutschland
Amazon France: geni.us/Amazon-France
Amazon España: geni.us/Amazon-Espana
Amazon Italia: geni.us/Amazon-Italia
Amazon Canada: geni.us/Amazon-Canada
Contact me for product reviews. I DO NOT RESPOND TO VIEWER QUESTIONS.
TH-cam@DavidHarry.com
www.DavidHarry.com
I’m David Harry. Thank you very much for watching this video, take care and goodbye now.
Cheers,
Dave.
#DavidHarry#LiverpoolTV
Thanks for this video! I have been running ideas since I got my m1 some time ago, and for now was relying on 2 external SSD... I make the mistake of saving money and got the 256 mac mini.. Wich is amazing but editing video on the Mac drive is crazy, only can do one at a time.. This video came in just perfect! Was reluctant to trust but, the acasis enclosure is just a rockstar! thanks for this. Hope you have a good day
Quick question @davidharry. You think it will be same speed and write as the one in my mac mini m1? is the first one released year and a half ago I think so.. I´ve just do drum tutorials, 3 cameras, some neon things elements, but mainly is 30 seconds to 2 minutes. Exporting has never take me more than a couple of minutes or 30 to a full video with a lot of things (using the internal drive) Thanks
Hi, Jason. This drive should be the same speed on a Mini as the Mini has the same Thunderbolt interface as my MacBook. All the M1 devices use the same same basic chipsets, it’s just basically the core counts and internal storage that are different. I don’t know if the copy speeds between the internal to external storage will be the same, as the MacBook has a faster internal drive. Cheers, Dave.
Great content and definitely with a pleasant crystal voice !
Thank you 👍
Is it much easier and less heat sink work to buy the more expensive one with the fan. What are the pros of the fan unit and do you recommend it if the money is not an object.
The TBU405Pro M1 keeps the SSD much cooler, it's no easier to use, they're both easy to use. I'd recommend the TBU405Pro M1 for hot running Gen 4 SSDs. I'll be doing a video about it soon.
A very good presentation, BUT maybe I missed the part where you explained the difference between your real world numbers (bravo) and the 40Gbsec printed on the enclosure cover. On what planet is that available? that would be 5GB/sec if I understand the nomenclature (Gbs and GBs) and it’s still 2GBs slower than advertised.
FYI, you might want to sticky a note here about this: When you transfer files from the external drive/enclosure back to the Mac, you are effectively measuring the write speed of the Mac as that's your bottle neck. No the write speed of the drive/enclosure unit.
You are totally wrong.
So one slight remark on your further absolutely splendid review. With your real life test, shouldn/t you keep in mind that when copying back from the external ssd to the internal ssd speed is actually limited by the write speed of the internal mac ssd rather than solely the read speed of your external ssd? I think both speeds weigh in on the actual transfer speed.
Hi, Paul. Yes, you are correct, both the read and write speeds of the external drive will be affected by the source drive (internal). I had mistakenly assumed that the only people who would have been interested in this video would have been those who had this laptop and that they would already know the speed of its SSD. I will be doing a similar video soon with a different ACASIS enclosure and will be sure to show a speed test of the internal SSD so people know it’s much faster than the Thunderbolt connection. In any event, the internal SSD is faster than 5000MB/s for read and write. Which means that it is not a bottleneck and the speeds shown in the test are indeed the maximum that any Thunderbolt 4 SSD can reach. Cheers, Dave.
Very good real-world test! I just ordered two of the same! Thanks!
Hi. I'm glad you liked the video and you are very welcome 👍. Cheers, Dave.
It may have been a bit slower for read because it may have heated up slightly after your write speed tests, temperature may make a little difference aside from the methods the Mac uses for write and reads.
Just for info, I have the exact same SSD & enclosure as you are using. The drive is connected to my Window 11 PC via Thunderbolt 4 PCIe card. Using Blackmagic I get close to the Read/Write speeds as you are getting on the Mac (2550 MB/s write, 2750 MB/s read).
I do own three of those Acasis cases for Windows and Mac. There are two big disadvantages: The cooling goes to the lid and not the case itself and the read and write rates heavily depend on the used SSD brand. Samsung 970 pro is recommended, 970 evo is not. WD SN750 runs very bad and Samsung 980 pro runs better, but is overkill for this case. My feelings are very mixed with that case. Now trying Samsung 990 pro and WD SN 850X
So in general, what setup would you recommend?
Probably why he's using a WD drive instead of the Samsung's?
@@heythere6983Hi😊 So, Samsung 980 pro were running the best. All WD SSDs 770, 750, 850x are not really recommended, as they show good benchmark values beforehand, but when using them daily and copying a folder with many files or the photo mediathek onto it or emptying the garbage bin, the WD always are breaking down in working rates to a total stopp like on Windows machines, continuing with some 0-24 KB/s😂. But remember: You will never achieve speeds or rates over 3000MB/s, although 3800MB/s should be possible.
Hello David. Thanks for this comprehensive review video! I love it so much! I have ordered this combination of Acasis enclosure (TBU401) and SN850X 4TB SSD. But I have one question to ask you, about thermal pad. I noticed that you just inserted the 1mm thermal pad that included in the package onto the SSD surface. Is it enough for heat dissipation? In other words, does this 1mm thernal pad successfully contact the case lid and SN850X 4TB SSD surface? So overall, is the temperature of this SSD normal without overheating after running for a certain period of time? Thanks for your reply!!
Brilliant! Very clear, nicely paced and straight to the point. 👍
Thank you for your kind works and hopefully the video was useful. Cheers, Dave.
Awesome video, I have been sitting on the fence deciding which combo of enclosure & ssd to use but this has helped me to finally make my decision 😁.
Any update as how’s its all still running ,,
Thanks
Hi. Yes, the drive is still working great 👍 I'll be doing another video soon with an enclosure that has a fan in it for extra cooling. Cheers, Dave.
KDE Neon has a widget that can monitor the temp of your motherboard SSD. I don't believe there is any support for monitoring the temp of SSDs in USB enclosures.
you can call it read speed but it's also writing to your internal drive. It's reading and writing to a slower interface. Black magic speed test your internal drive to verify its slowness compared to the external.
The internal drive is way faster than the Thunderbolt bandwidth for data, as is the actual SSD. So in this instance it’s the Thunderbolt data bus speed that’s the limiting factor, not the internal storage or the WD SSD.
Thanks a lot for all the explanations and for real transfer of hundreds of gigabytes, most people only uses less than five gigabytes and doing such makes speed result to not match real values, some NVMe and almost all SSD tend to drop down write speed after a few gigabytes.
That is really a great combination of enclosure, bus speed and NVMe.
Hi,
I know this video is a year old now but still very relevant - thanks.
A quick question:
Will this be good to boot from on my Imac 2019 Fusion Drive, which is running a little slow?
Many thanks
I have the Apple M1 Pro, do you think it will work with that aswell??
The nvme choice is important. I tried using an AData 4x4 and got significantly worse performance than a slower Samsung 3x4 did. The AData would initially start staffers faster at 3700mb/s but after 1gb of data was transferred it slowed down to around about 300mb/s. Where the Samsung would hold a constant 2300m/s throughout.
This is why I used the WD SSD.
Speed is fantastic but in total $600 is a lot. I use a Samsung T7 2TB (1000 / 1050 MB/s and am satisfied. The 4TB version with same speed in approx. the price of the Acasis enclosure: 273 Euro
Yes, it is expensive but it’s way faster than the T7s and is an absolute must for certain types of video editing. Since I made the video, the price to build this drive setup is now about 30% less and I imagine it will keep dropping. Cheers, Dave.
David, thank you for this meticulous explanation which is superbly helpful. I am also in search of ssd for my Macbook Pro M1 Pro
Hi. You are very welcome. If you are just doing general data backing up to the external drive and not needing it to be super fast for the sustained write speed for things like high bandwidth video recording and editing. You can use a cheaper and smaller capacity NVMe ssd inside the enclosure and it will still be great for day to day use. Cheers, Dave.
Excellent explanations and ordering of your presentation. I have to subscribe!
Hi, Frank. I'm glad you liked the video and thank you for the subscription 👍 Cheers, Dave.
This was super handy. Thanks!
You are very welcome 👍 Cheers, Dave.
Have you ever got more than two of these NVMe/PCIe SSD’s working on the same machine? The Mac Mini Pro has four USB-C/Thunderbolt ports but in my experience only two mount at any one time. Apple say’s nothing about limiting PCIe connections to two - In theory four should be able to mount and run, but in my experience only ever find two are recognised and run… 🤨
Hi. I have had similar issues with multiple TB and USB SSDs connected to my MacBook. I think the issue is that the Mac isn't capable of supplying the total current that's necessary to power all the drives at the same time. I'm not sure but I think the Mac is splitting two TB ports from one controller and not using completely individual controllers for each TB port. If so, this may explain why the current/power isn't enough once too many drives are connected, as the current/power is being shared and isn't enough after a certain point. Cheers, Dave.
Thanks for the video, very interesting tests. However, I would like to ask you if using this combination of box and SSD would increase the performance of the Mac in terms of responsiveness to commands and startup when turned on if I were to install the operating system on it. Sorry for my English, Google translate helps me. Thank you
Hi, No, this SSD or any SSD will not speed up the performance/processing of any computer. It will however allow you to read and write data quickly, which may appear to speed up processing if disk access speed is a bottleneck. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry Thank you !!
Amazing, clear and simple explanation.
Hi, Mohamed. Thank you for the kind comment and you are very welcome. Cheers, Dave.
Read is always faster than write. Read slower than write suggests you were write limited on your Mac book. Which in turn might suggest you could have been write limited by the MacBook as well. In any case these are pretty good results. But the really performer here is the WD black. My older WD black in TB3 throttles at 70gb. But it achieves 2300/2800 W/R.
P.S. My experience is that TB3 is really fast already, and I would spend money on SSD with larger cache over buying up from TB3 to TB4.
Read isn't always faster. You obviously didn't understand what was going on in the video, as this SSD not only has a large fast cache but also very fast NANDAs can obviously be seen in the 100% sustained write speed with almost 500GB of data. Plus TB3 and 4 have to be used to get this performance, there is no other solution that beats this for external storage on any Apple Silicon device.
@@DavidHarry I was not trying to diminish your results. This is a fast combination. My point was that if you are pursuing speed, pay attention to the cache because many ssds, including expensive ones, are cache limited and only faster for smaller files. I would also say that spending money on the big cache with either of tb3, tb4, or USB4 from any provider is likely to get you within 10% of the fastest combination - so research the NVME cache before spending more money getting the last 10% out of the USB4. I am also aware that some nvme's perform worse on certain brand enclosures, even thought they are fast.
Hi. I get that you weren’t trying to diminish the results but you’ve not understood that all your concerns weren’t applicable for this setup. The reason why I made the point of the real world testing and not just synthetic, was because it shows perfect caching. The write test was done with almost 500GB of files and the sustained speed maxed out at over 2800MB/s. This proves how good this particular WD SSD is handling the cache. It also shows that maximum speed for Thunderbolt is being used. Different enclosures and SSD combinations will never get these results, whether that be the chipset in the enclosure or the SSD’s cache or NAND. All the research was done for this particular pairing and it is definitely the fastest you’ll get for an Apple Silicon Mac while maintaining 100% write speeds for large file movements. I have a number of TB and USB C enclosures and a number of SSDs. So I can absolutely guarantee this pairing of this enclosure and SSD. Plus the tests conclusively proved this anyway. Cheers, Dave.
Any idea what speed we would have if use with encryption on macOS?
You have excellent narration :) thanks for your video
Thank you and you are very welcome 👍 Cheers, Dave.
Great video and comments section too, found answer about temerature!
Thank You
Hi David
Wicked video and explanation
Is this setup basically a DIY version of a Samsung t7 shield or Sandisk Pro ssd etc....??
Can I buy this setup and use it to transfer and save 4K 60fps videos from my Samsung s23 Ultra and GoPro 12 as well ??
Hi, Brian. Yes, the end result here would be just like using a T7 but a lot faster. I have a 1TB T7 and this drive is about 4 to 5 times faster. You can use this drive with an S23 Ultra, depending on what SSD inside it and if it's formatted to something that the S23 Ultra will understand, such as ExFAT. You can not use any external SSD with any GoPro, the GoPros do not write direct to external SSDs via their USB ports. Check out my videos, I have a bunch of stuff including the S23 Ultra, iPhone 15 Pro Max and Apple and Samsung tablets etc. You may find something interesting in there. Cheers, Dave.
@DavidHarry Ahh ok
So basically I would NOT be able to transfer any GoPro footage from the micro sd card of the GoPro to the DIY ssd drive, no ?
@@brianmagicman3556 Hi, Brian. Not directly from the GoPro. You would have to put the GoPro's SD card into a computer and then back off the video files to the external SSD. Cheers, Dave.
Excellent information and just wanted to know if this combination works with MacBook Pro 2017 ?
Hi. This combination will work with any Mac that has USB C or Thunderbolt 3 or Thunderbolt 4. The speeds will be slower on USB C but it will work. You can also use a USB A to USB C cable as well. Cheers, Dave.
A _tiny_ trace of silicone spark plug grease (AKA Dow Corning #4) will help those wee rubber bits slip into their exact right place.
I used an orico nvme enclosure along with a Samsung 2tb 980 Pro, but now ideally need a 4tb solution. Due to cost of 4tb nvme drives I opted to buy a 4tb Samsung evo ssd. This option is probably my next step, as the thunderbolt access on the new m chip macs is really fast. I'm accessing my photo archives instantously with nvme storage.
Hi. I also have a 4TB Samsung QVO SATA SSD inside a USB C enclosure. While this is really good for general storage and is cheaper, the QVO series drop really low for sustained writing. This WD SSD and Thunderbolt enclosure are in a completely different league and is seriously fast, even compared to other Thunderbolt SSDs. If speed and write times are your main concern, I’d definitely consider this combination. Cheers, Dave.
See the WD BLACK SN850X 4TB
Dropped as low as £244 on prime day, so prices going in right direction.
Just bought Acasis enclosuer as it dropped to £135 on amazon. Just need a good 4tb nvme. Reading comments it can get quite hot, I found the orico thunderbolt enclosuer got warm, but dissipated the heat quite well. If it's an issue I can pop it on my portable desk fan. Any recommended 4tb nvme for this enclosure?
Excellent video! Well organized and very thorough!
SICK VIDEO BROTHER
Sick comment 👍 Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry I have my enclosure and ssd coming today, you're the man! Thanks for the info!
Very good and complete video David. I have a slightly different version of the Acasis enclosure (TBU405) with a 2TB Samsung 980 Pro NVME inside. I assembled it about 7 months ago and it works flawlessly. It does get warm but I would not classify it as hot. My read and write speeds are similar to yours. Thx again.
Hi, Rick. This one also gets very warm as well. I've put together many external drives, USB and TB, and every TB/NVMe drive has always run at least warm. The faster the NVMe SSD, such as Gen 4, the more heat they produce. It's just one of those things unfortunately. Another thing that is also a bit odd, which may also happen with your one. When the Mac is idle the TB drive is still warm, even if it's not doing anything. Also, when the Mac is powered off, the drive is warm. I've now had to get used to disconnecting the drive after powering down the Mac. This may not be so much of an issue for most MacBook users but mine gets used exclusively as desktop computer connected to a monitor and mouse/keyboard etc. When the M1 Max was released, there wasn't a desktop yet with that configuration, which is why I bought a laptop to use as a desktop. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry My SanDisk extreme also always stays warm/hot even when not in use but attached to the computer, not sure if this is a Mac issue or issue on the externals. Worse I am always getting the message that the drive was not properly disconnected when it wasn't disconnected at all.
Thanks for the post. Can you use this external 4TB as the boot/start drive on a Mac Mini M2?
Thank you for providing such a clear and concise video. I have bought the same SSD and enclosure, but my iMac does not see the WD_Black SSD within Disk Utility. I'm not sure if you could answer this David, but does this set up run only via the silicon chips regarding Apple computers, or can an iMac (Intel chipset) work too? I will be connecting the SSD in to a Mac Mini Pro, but thought I could format the SSD on my iMac. Maybe I have misunderstood something. Would welcome your input Mr Harry!
Hi. This drive will work with may Mac that has USB C or Thunderbolt 3 or 4, it doesn’t matter if it’s ARM (Apple Silicon) or X86 (Intel). I use this drive with Windows as well on USB C or TB3. If Disk Utility does not see the drive, try changing the cable your connecting to the Mac with. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry
Thanks for the information. I tried another cable without luck. I’m going to take the SSD and enclosure to a local computer store for them to test. I’ve a feeling the enclosure maybe the issue. Although, I don’t see any visible damage.
Great video ! Have you had any experience with the dual bay nvme cases ?
Sorry, no, I've not used any of the multi-bay exclosures. Cheers, Dave.
Great video Tuco Salamanca
Tuco Salamanca 😂 I just wish I was half as cool as he was. Cheers, Dave.
How fast is the SSD inside your Mac that you are transferring from / to? It needs to be much faster than the Thunderbolt SSD for a fair test, our you could be limited by the speed of that. However, you are still getting fantastic results! Sorry if I missed it if you have that here, I just skipped to the speed test. I guess in any case you are ultimately limited by the 40Gb/s of TB4, or 5000MBps ( minus some overhead )
Hi Mark. I did mention that the Mac’s internal drive was much faster. And yes, the limiting factor here is the TB bandwidth and not the host or target drives 👍 Cheers, Dave.
Fantastic video 👏
Thank you and you are very welcome 👍 Cheers, Dave.
Thank you so much. Very timely information. 😊❤
You are so welcome!
Excellent video, well presented. Thanks for your efforts!
Hi. Thank you for your kind words and comment and you are very welcome 👍 Cheers, Dave.
Only thing that sucks is you're only getting only a 1/3 of the drives actual speed if you were to put it into a PC. It's possible you could save some money and get a slower Gen3 drive or slower gen 4 and get the same speed in the enclosure as those top out at 3000-5000MB.
Hi. I’ve tried a number of cheaper Gen 3 drives but these don’t have the same sustained high write speeds. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry True most cheaper Gen 3 Drives are at about max out at 2000-3000MB/s, But the max Spec of TB3 limits you to 5000MB/s anyway.
Did you try an SN770? It's GEN4, but it's much cheaper. I bought a 2tb one for 115USD last week.
It’s not the speed of the drive that determines the sustained speed, it’s the cache and RAM. The SN770 is fast for a short burst but can’t sustain the high write speeds of the SN850X.
Thanks for this. Good clear and non-confusing video. Just made me spend some money - lol.
Hi, Norman. I’m glad the video was helpful and you are very welcome. Cheers, Dave.
So the biggest benefit of building your own SSD over buying say a Sandisk with the same amount of storage is in its speed and load times right? Because it costs more to build your own and I'm not a gamer so I want to be certain.
This type of self build definitely has the advantage of speed, and that's what you are paying for. You could also put together a drive that uses a standard USB C enclosure and while it would be cheaper it would be a lot slower. Cheers, Dave.
Great video! Would this setup be suitable/reliable for booting and all day running (OS and all apps & files) of an m1 or m3 iMac, instead of using the internal?
Yes, absolutely
Do you know (have you checked) what the temperature of the disk was after the copy was completed?
I bought this enclosure and the same SSD. Are you happy with using just the 1 thermal pad? Did you ever end up adding the second one or try to?