How To Build The Fastest External Thunderbolt 4 USB4 SSD For Your M1 M2 M3 Apple Silicon Mac MacBook
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- čas přidán 28. 05. 2024
- 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
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I’m David Harry. Thank you very much for watching this video, take care and goodbye now.
Cheers,
Dave.
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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!!
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Amazing, clear and simple explanation.
Hi, Mohamed. Thank you for the kind comment and you are very welcome. Cheers, Dave.
Brilliant! Very clear, nicely paced and straight to the point. 👍
Thank you for your kind works and hopefully the video was useful. Cheers, Dave.
Excellent tutorial, made the process a breeze! Thank you!
I’m glad the video was helpful 👍 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.
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.
Excellent video! Well organized and very thorough!
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!
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.
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
I really like how clear and understandable your English accent is.
Thank you 👍 Cheers, Dave.
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.
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.
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.
Woah your voice audio quality is insane 😱🤯
Def should do a video about it !
Splendid job! Just what I needed, will bookmark this and utilize your links! Have a good one!!!!
Hi, John. I’m glad the video was helpful 👍 Cheers, Dave.
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.
Very good information and well presented. Thank you!
Hi, John. Thank you for your very kind comment and you are very welcome. Cheers, Dave.
thank you for this video!!! great layout and information and test!
Hi. You are very welcome 👍 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.
This was super handy. Thanks!
You are very welcome 👍 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.
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.
Fantastic tutorial and review. I am about to get a MacBook Pro through work and it’ll be my first Apple laptop. As the primary use will be video editing, I knew that the internal 1TB wasn’t enough but I was clueless how to proceed. Thanks to your excellent video, I do now and will be looking at purchasing both the SSD and enclosure used in your demonstration. Cheers!
Hi, Anthony. I’m glad you found the video helpful and I’m sure you will find this drive perfect for video editing. This is my main use for it and it’s been awesome. It’s really fast and it’s great having all that space and not having to worry about filling up the internal drive on the Mac. Cheers, Dave.
Great video. Thanks so much for the very good info. I will bye this enclosure and the WD disk 🙂
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.
Great video and comments section too, found answer about temerature!
Thank You
Great video. Exactly the type of testing I was looking for before purchasing!
I'm glad you found the video helpful 👍 Cheers, Dave.
Brilliant video, thank you!
You’re very welcome. 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.
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.
Thank you very much for this video👍
You are very welcome 👍 Cheers, Dave.
Excellent video, well presented. Thanks for your efforts!
Hi. Thank you for your kind words and comment and you are very welcome 👍 Cheers, Dave.
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.
Fantastic video 👏
Thank you and you are very welcome 👍 Cheers, Dave.
New sub! Amazing results, thank you!
I’m glad you found the video helpful and thanks for the sub 👍 Cheers, Dave.
Great review. Spot on.
Thank you and you are very welcome 👍 Cheers, Dave.
Thank you so much. Very timely information. 😊❤
You are so welcome!
Great video.
Thank you, David.
I have the same laptop, so this is great information.
You are very welcome 👍 and you have a great taste in laptops 😀 Cheers, Dave.
Excellent tutorials. Thank you.
Thank you 👍 I've just responded to your comment/question. I'll try and do the TBU405Pro M1 (the one with the fan) build next week, with the same WD SN850X 4TB SSD. The only problem with the TBU405Pro M1 is that many people will complain about its price. However, when it comes to Thunderbolt nothing is cheap but in my opinion the TBU405Pro M1 and 4TB WD SN850X combination is the best TB4/USB4 drive you can put together. I was using the TBU401 and 4TB WD SN850X for about 9 months solid, and I mean solid. It worked perfectly although it did become hot, however, it never throttled due to heat. I started using the TBU405Pro M1 about 4 months ago and it's been great. I use my MacBook in clamshell mode, basically as a desktop computer, it's under my work desk on some draws and the SSDs sit next to it and when it's really quiet at night you can just about hear the fan in the SSD. In normal day time (noise) use, with the drive on a table in front of you, yes you can hear the fan but it's not loud. Cheers, Dave.
Thank you Dave. Very good. I had already thought the TBU405Pro M1 before I reached out to you. Done deal. Thanks
@@DavidHarry
@@sutv6754 Great choice 👍 I’m sure you will be very happy with it. Cheers, Dave.
great vid mate. what i needed
Hi. I'm glad the video was useful 👍 Cheers, Dave.
Did it like you explained. Thank you !!!
Awesome, I'm glad the video was helpful and you are very welcome 👍 Cheers, Dave.
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.
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 good information! thank sir :D
You are very welcome 👍 Cheers, Dave.
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.
Great video Tuco Salamanca
Tuco Salamanca 😂 I just wish I was half as cool as he was. Cheers, Dave.
Thanks for this video! I have seen a lot of these and it's the best of them all.
You are very welcome 👍 Cheers, Dave.
Great video David, thanks for that mate
Thank you and you are very welcome 👍 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.
Great video!!!
Thank you, Joe. 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
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.
Great stuff
Thank you and you are very welcome. Cheers, Dave.
SICK VIDEO BROTHER
Sick comment 👍 Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry I have my enclosure and ssd coming today, you're the man! Thanks for the info!
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!!
Really nice video. Thank you
Glad you liked it!
very useful. thank you and subscribe
Nice one, James. I'm glad the video was useful and thanks for the sub, it's very appreciated. 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.
WoW ,thanks for this vidéo, best regards
Hi, Rene. You are very welcome 👍 Cheers, Dave.
Gr8 video thank u!!
You are very welcome 👍
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.
well made vid, great chapters
Nice one, Matt 👍 Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry hey David, do you know where the bottle necking comes from. these are great speeds from a External.
i am wondering tho. the ssd is up to 7000. the enclosure even faster.
and then your max disk speed lands up a little under 3000.
@@mattduncan5500 Hi Matt. Actually, there's no bottleneck. With Thunderbolt part of the bandwidth is allocated for video, DisplayPort over Thunderbolt. The difference between the drive speed and the 40Gb/s bandwidth of Thunderbolt 3 and 4 is the allocated bandwidth for video, plus there'll likely be a small amount of system and bus overhead. This is why you wont see a Thunderbolt SSD that's faster than this combination, until we get to Thunderbolt 5. Cheers, Dave.
@@mattduncan5500 BTW Matt. The enclosure is not faster than the SSD. The enclosure is 40,000 Megabits per second, the SSD is 7000 Megabytes per second. There are 8 bits to one byte when measuring capacity and speed, so in Megabytes, the enclosure, or Thunderbolt 4, is only 5000 Megabytes. Megabits is written with a lowercase b , Mb, and Megabytes is written with a capital/uppercase B, MB. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry ahhhhh, legend. i misread. i thought the Enclosure was much faster.
ik got yah, so we're basically limited by the speed of thunderbolt at the moment.
but for those going into the motherboard, with a tower maybe. they should able to get much faster again ?
Excellent thank you!
You're very welcome! 👍 Cheers, Dave.
Thank you so much for this perfect video on this topic! There is never too much information or details for me when it comes to this type of experience. Is there a more economical way to do this? I am interested in getting a few external ssd for my music production but this one is way too expensive for my budget. If I can get a samsung t7 2 TB for 199$ what is the point of paying $ for this one $782? I might as well pay the Mac upgrade.
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.
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.
Loved the content.
Living in Dubai I checked the prices of the enclosure and SSD which came to roughly 2500 dh
A SanDisk extreme pro 1 tb drive is 400 dh.
So admittedly I'd be getting a fraction of the write speeds but I'd get 6tb for the same money.
Now. To be honest those prices quoted are simply because im in Dubai.
So its a local problem.
Alright buddy, happy new year. Those prices aren’t just local to where you are, that WD drive is also expensive here as well. While the Sandisks work out cheaper, they’re nowhere near as fast as this drive. Which is a big problem for me as I do a lot of high bitrate capturing and the Sandisks can’t reach or sustain some of the speeds I need. Plus, for me personally, I’m sick of using multiple drives for stuff. Having 4TB to work with without disk swapping is a lot more practical for what I do. I’ve started consolidating all my drives. I’ve bought some WD 18TB mechanical drives for long term storage and archiving and have two 4TB SSDs for my day to day and mid term stuff. I’m now staring to back off all my old separate 1, 2, 4 and 8GB mechanical and SSD drives and then only use these 4 and 18TB moving forward. Cheers, Dave.
Thanks for the post. Can you use this external 4TB as the boot/start drive on a Mac Mini M2?
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.
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.
Nice video! Exactly what I was looking for my M1 Max. Does the Acasis enclosure come with a thunderbolt 4 cable or I’ll have to purchase one separately? M1 Max has thunderbolt 4 ports if I’m not mistaken so I can take advantage of the fast transfer speeds.
It comes with a TB3 cable which is exactly the same as TB4 cable as far as data speeds are concerned, they're both capable of 40Mb/s. 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.
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?
Great video, David. Is it possible to copy Windows and Mac OS applications and the boot programs from the PC and MacBook Pro M2 Max to the drive and boot from the drive on those tow operating systems?
Hi. Yes, you can run applications from the external drive. You can also dual boot using a separate MacOS/Windows installation on the external drive. I’ve done this in the past with this MacBook, dual booted it to another instance of MacOS and also used Win11 ARM on Parallels from the external drive. This was so I could leave my internal drive as clean as possible with my main couple of bits of production software and use the external OS/boot drive for testing stuff and for Parallels/Windows. This video may be useful czcams.com/video/cblyGVFcFn4/video.html Cheers, Dave.
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 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?
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.
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.
would of been cool if you tested your internal as well, so we had a comparison of speeds :)
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.
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.
Any idea what speed we would have if use with encryption on macOS?
Great video David and very informative 👍🏾
I have just ordered this exact enclosure but am waiting to see which is the best drive to put in. I have an M1 macbook air and have heard that the WD Black you used is better/faster than the Samsung 970s and 980s. Just wondering if you have any info or opinions about that?
Many thanks, Ade 😊
Hi, Ade. I also have a 1TB 970 EVO Plus and although it is fast on its own in a PC, it’s quite a bit slower than this WD in the Acasis for writing. Form what I remember it was about 1600 write and about 2400 read. Like I said, the 970 is faster than that in one of my Windows PCs but slower with the Acasis. I don’t know about the 980, I’ve never had one. The thing with my drive is that it has to be the fastest it can be for sustained writing because I record very high bit rate video to it. Other drives are perfectly fine for most day to day use, I’m sure you’ll have no problems with one of your Samsungs. Cheers, Dave.
Thanks for your reply Dave 😊 I think I'll go with the Samsung 980 pro as I've always had good experiences with Samsung products. I'll mainly be using it on my M1 macbook air for editing 4k video footage from my gopro hero 10 and my DJI mini 3 pro using Final Cut pro X.
Do you have an affiliate link for that drive?
I'd like to help the channel out if possible.
Best wishes, Ade 👍🏾
Hi Ade. This channel used to do lots of microphone and camera stuff, my background is actually audio and video post and I have had loads of cameras. As for GoPro and DJI, I have the Hero 11 and Action 2 and the files from those will be absolutely no problem at all for any SSD that you put in the Acasis. In fact, any of your typical camera files that use H.264 and H.265 will also be easy to edit from most SSDs in this enclosure and with multiple streams. Your Mac is likely to bottleneck before your SSD does with those types of camera files if using multi streams/tracks for comps etc. I do a lot of 4K 60FPS Pro Res 422 capturing and even the 970 would handle that quite easily. Basically, I doubt you'll have any problems at all. The WD that I use is so I can go right up to 8K 60 Pro Res 4444 XQ for some of my game capture files and renders as well as the high sustained write/capture speed/bit rates that I need for my Blackmagic HDMI/Thunderbolt interfaces. Although, these are not typical uses for these Thunderbolt SSDs and the WD SSD is completely unneccesary for most video editing. Don't forget, video editing is all about sustained read speeds, again, this is why it's unlikely that you'll have any problems as long as the SSD is fully compatible with the enclosure. Just double check to see if Acasis have an SSD recommendation list. I don't have any affiliate links for the Samsung drives but thanks for the offer, that's kind of you 👍 All the best with your setup. Cheers, Dave.
BTW, Ade. Here's an older video I done with a different TB enclosure and the 970, it may be interesting to see the difference compared to this Acasis setup czcams.com/video/S7BNXo_-Mvk/video.html Don't forget, when you your cameras say that they are for instance 100Mb/s per second for their video files. That's megabits and there are 8 Megabits in a Megabyte, the big M and small b mean Megabits, the big M and big B mean Megabytes. So when you see a speed test that is saying for instance 1000MB/s Megabytes per second, as in my speed tests, this is actually 8000Mb/s Megabits per second. When you consider that your GoPro is averaging around 70Mb/s Megabits bits per second and the Hero 11 can only max out at around 100Mb/s Megabits per second. Then when a "slow" Thunderbolt SSD is "only" doing for instance 1000MB/s Megabytes per second for the read, thats 8000Mb/s Megabits per second and it only needs to read at a maximum of 100Mb/s Megabits per second for one GoPro clip, you can see why you'll never have any problems with the even the slowest Thunderbolt SSD and most nearly every camera file format our there as far as playback and editing is concerned. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry Thanks very much Dave 😁
Subscribed 👍🏾
HI, I am having a issue with his setup and intel Mac. The enclosure with disk is not recognised when I plug it in. It works only when the enclosure is already attached to the Mac before system start. Any thoughts / ideas how to solve it ?
good video.
Thank you 👍
Very explanation
Thanks for liking
A _tiny_ trace of silicone spark plug grease (AKA Dow Corning #4) will help those wee rubber bits slip into their exact right place.
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
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.
@DavidHarry Hope you are doing well, my friend. Just have one question. I see you placed the thermal pad on top of the SSD while it is upside down, meaning the pads are under the SSD. How effective can this be, as heat rises. Hmmm?
Hi, Robert. While heat via convection does indeed rise. These pads are designed to make a thermal contact between the hottest parts of the SSD, the storage and controller chips, directly to the aluminium. Once put together, the entire case is a heat sink and also helps dissipation from for any directly transfers or converted heat from the SSD and also the circuit board inside the enclosure. 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 !!
Thanks David for this tutorial!
What about if I used ACASIS with Samsung 970 EvoPlus SSD - 1TB
Is it give me the same speed in R/W ?
Hi. I actually used to have that same Samsung SSD and it didn't perform as well as the WD SSD. I cant remember now what the speeds were but they were definitely slower by a fair margin. If I remember correctly it was the write speed that was very noticeably slower. BTW if you decide to use a Gen 4 NVMe SSD then I would recommend the ACASIS TBU405Pro M1. Gen 4 NVMe SSDs can run very hot and the TBU405Pro M1 has a fan in it to help with the cooling. I will be doing a video soon about the TBU405Pro M1 and also another video with the TBU401 using a 4TB Crucial P3 Gen 3 NVMe SSD. This P3 combination is essentially the cheapest 4TB Thunderbolt drive you cam put together and it's also fast, not as fast as the WD but much better value for money if absolute speed isn't your main priority. Cheers, Dave.