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 UA-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. UA-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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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 ua-cam.com/video/YAa9WwIUKk4/v-deo.html I have just bought an M4 Pro Mac mini and will be testing some Thunderbolt 5 peripherals with it soon. Cheers, Dave.
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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.
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.
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!
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.
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 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.
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!!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!!
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 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.
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!
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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
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?
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 liked this video but I have a question. Can I build something similar to this but at 8TB? I would like to use it as an external backup for my photo library. If this wouldnt work, what would you recommend?? Thanks for the video. I'm a new subscriber !!!
Hi. Yes, you can put together an 8TB SSD drive but it will either be very expensive or not the fastest. You can put a 8TB NVMe inside an enclosure or a 8TB SATA inside an enclosure. Any 8TB NVMe is going to be very fast, there isn’t really a slow NVMe when it comes to 8TB. However, using a Samsung 8TB QVO SATA inside a SATA to USB C enclosure is going to be way cheaper but way slower. Although, saying slower is subjective as the speed of a QVO drive is still going to be very good for daily use. I actually use a 4TB Samsung QVO for one of my backup drives. While QVO drives will slow down during writhing when doing large data dumps, the read speeds are still very respectable at around 450MBs when moving large files, such as video files. Don’t forget, regardless of the SSD type, when you are writing hundreds or thousands of very small files, they will all take a hit on speeds, even the fastest NVMe SSDs. If you are only moving a few hundred GBs of data a time, then the speeds of any SSD probably don’t really become an issue. Although, a good NVMe is definitely going to be noticeably faster. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry , this is VERY good info. Since I’ll only be downloading my photos after a shoot, I won’t be working it too hard. Plus, after using a HHD drive for years, any SSD drive would be MUCH faster. Thanks for the info. I really appreciate it.
@@DavidHarry How about those "quad NVMe PCIe cards"? I'm seeing them on amazon for $50 and the prices of "eGPU Thunderbolt 4 enclosures" have dropped too. Putting these together might get super speeds and super sizes.
What an EXCELLENT video, thank you. I am currently in the market for an SSD (hence why I came across your video - no doubt due to the alogorithms after my looking at a Samsung T7 video), but my first SSD "dabble" was a stupid SanDisk 500GB that failed after a few months, which makes me extremely wary about losing more valuable data (Resolve and Logic). So, one year on from your video, what SSD component do you now recommend or would it still be the same, the SN850X? Thanks I forgot to ask... what is the encoloure like for protection? Not that anyone wants to drop anything, but it happens. So, how strong and protective are they? I see some SSDs advertise a drop to the floor of approx. 2 or 3 feet. If not so great, then can I add a protective rubber layer or case?
Thanks 👍 Funny enough, after seeing this video ACASIS sent me some of their products to review. I have a new enclosure with a fan in it to review, which I will try and do soon. As for the drive in this video. I’ve been using it solid for about 10 months as my main video drive for my laptop. During that time it’s been perfect. It does heat up a lot, which is due to the Gen 4 SSD. However, it never throttles and always maintains that fast write speed and the read speed, although, for me it’s the write speed that’s important. The newer enclosure with the fan definitely keeps the SSD (SN850X) cooler. However, it’s no faster than the enclosure in this video, just cooler and better made, although it is more expensive. As for dropping the drive, I wouldn’t know but I’m guessing that I wouldn’t be too happy if I did drop it 😆 I wouldn’t add a rubber layer to a drive like this, it will totally screw up its thermal dissipation and probably cook the SSD. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry Hi David, many thanks for your reply. Yes, I was looking on the Acasis website last night and what else is available only because I saw that there is an SN850X heatsink and I wanted to see if there was a larger enclosure that would accomodate the thicker sized SSD, but I'm not sure there is. Building an SSD is completely new to me, so I am researching and learning fast all because of your video. It certainly opened my eyes. I've never built anything before because I've been on Macs for 30 years (I didn't really need to), and it was always the Windows users who were doing that, but an SSD is a different kettle of fish :) I saw in your Dock that you use Resolve, and that is my main concern when editing music videos and recording songs, so I will take what you say as gospel with regards to the throttling and unecessary extra padding. Thank you. My other main concern is what would happen to my data once I shelve it and then try to mount and use it after, let's say, several years. I know that the mechanical drives have an eventual shelf life at some point, so I'd like to find a failsafe way of storing my music and videos for long into the future. Do you already have a video on shelf life for external drives? You are worth your weight in gold and you're a good man, so I just subscribed.
@@GigiUK Hi. Although the TBU401 enclosure is great with the SN850X SSDs and is designed to dissipate its heat. If the amount of heat being generated is just going to be something that gnaws away at the back of your head, I would recommend the TBU405Pro M1, which is the one with the fan. That setup will be the next Thunderbolt SSD drive build video that I do. However, I only use the SN850X because it gives maximum read and write speeds constantly, which I personally need for the high volume and bitrates of the ProRes files that I use. You could always use a "slower" SSD, such as a Gen 3, and for most use you may not even see a big difference in short sustained speeds. Plus, with a typical Gen 3 the heat will be lower as well. It's also worth noting that there is generally a substantial, even huge, difference between your average Gen 3 NVMe read and write speeds compared to a fast Gen 4. However, these differences would only really be noticeable when connected direct to a Gen 4 M.2 socket on the motherboard of a PC. However, as the bit rate for transferring data across Thunderbolt 3 or 4 from an enclosure is a lot lower, usually a maximum of about 2900MB/s. Even a fast Gen 3 will top out at there about the same speed as a high end Gen 4. With Thunderbolt enclosures, the Thunderbolt bus and the enclosure essentially become the limiting factor (bottleneck) and not so much the SSD. Although, a high quality NVMe will have the advantage of high constant sustained speeds, such as the SN850X. Whereas, a more budget NVMe may give you a quick burst of high transfer speeds but quite quickly settle down on a much lower constant sustained speed. I have just built a "budget" Thunderbolt drive, consisting of a TBU401 enclosure and a 4TB Crucial P3. I managed to get these at the right time on Amazon for a combined total of £250. Now, while this drive doesn't really compete toe to toe with any of the ACASIS enclosures with an SN850X. This "budget" build really shocked me with how well it performs. I had previously used a P3 SSD in a Windows system that I had built for a friend and the performance was only mediocre for the P3. However, when it's formatted to APFS for Mac, for some reason that I don't quite understand right now, it performs way better than it did as a storage SSD in a Windows PC. Now while the format type of any SSD can result in noticeable performance gains. This P3 SSD formatted to APFS was absolute night and day compared to it being formatted to ExFAT as far as its write performance was concerned and its read performance was also improved, although not as much as the write performance. I will try to do a video about that build as soon as I can. The problem I have at the moment is that I was quite ill for a couple of months at the end of last year and I am way behind on my iPhone and Mac videos, which I need to catch up on and I have also now just bought the new Samsung S24 Ultra and need to make a load of videos about that while it's popular. However, I will try and do these other Thunderbolt SSD build videos as soon as I can. As for shelf life. Yes, all SSD NAND storage chips will lose charge over time and therefore impact the stored data and result in file corruption. How long that period of time is, I don't know as I've never had an SSD disconnected from a computer (power source) for more than about 18 months. Although, on a practical level, I would imagine that manufacturers would factor a few years or so for such things, as a minimum, for a high quality SSD but it may actually be longer. However, I personally use traditional mechanical drives for my long term and archival storage. I use a couple of WB 18TB drives that are manual mirrors (duplicates) of each other for redundancy. Hopefully some of this extra information is useful for you and thank you so much for the subscription 👍It really does help the channel. BTW. I don't usually engage like this with the comments. I'm just waiting for a long video to render 😆 Which is why I have the time for the comments. Cheers, Dave.
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.
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 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 ua-cam.com/video/S7BNXo_-Mvk/v-deo.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.
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.
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.
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.
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 ua-cam.com/video/cblyGVFcFn4/v-deo.html Cheers, Dave.
Great video! Thx. But I have questions. You use a drive what is able to read/write 7300 for a Thunderbolt connection what is limited to 2700. Isn't that overkill? As I have another use case I need a disk with fast approach speeds for loads of small files. What benchmark is there for quick access speeds? Thx for the help thus far. 🙏
Hi. The reason for this WD SSD is because it sustains the maximum write speed. Many other SSDs will have a high write speed for only so many GBs during a data transfer and will then slow down far below 2700MB/s. The constant maximum write speed of this WD SSD is perfect for capturing high bandwidth video and also the large folder transfers that I do between it and the Mac. For instances of testing an SSD’s read and ability ability for large amounts of very small files, for instance, web server files/folders and things like database fires etc. I’m not sure but there will be a number of test applications for measuring such random read/write characteristics. However, due to its DRAM and NAND type, this WD SSD will also be one of the best SSDs for those tasks as well. Cheers, Dave.
No, it’s not the SSD’s extra bandwidth above the bandwidth of the Thunderbolt bus acting like a buffer, it’s the SSD’s own buffer/cache system. I also use Windows systems that have M.2 on them. With a lot of SSDs, while their published specifications may say that they are able to do 6000 MB/s, as a for instance, and given that that speed is slower than the Gen 4 M.2 slot/bus speed on the motherboard. You would expect the 6000MB/s to be maintained indefinitely as it’s less than the M.2 slot’s bandwidth. But most of these SSDs will drop way below that peak speed when writing large amounts of data because the SSD itself can’t sustain a buffer within itself to write the data consistently. A lot of people on UA-cam don’t test drives properly when doing speed tests, they do synthetic tests which are useless as the test doesn’t account for long write sessions, just short bursts. This is why my tests use large folders of real data and timed to get the bit rate/bandwidth. If you need the SSD for serious work, there’s no cutting corners and the best SSDs are more expensive for a very good reason. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry First of all, thank you for your quick and clear replies. It is not often that we get such service. It is much appreciated. I think I got it now. Thx. I'm not using large files that often. I'm a DJ with a large music collection and need to update the database sometimes and that takes like forever. If I could speed that up, it would save me lots op time. I was wondering if a SSD twice the price was worth it.
Great explanation, thank you! I followed the same components you used and am blown away by how fast the SSD is. However: It gets really hot and I am concerned that this will damage the SSD in time. Do you have any tips for that? And does yours get super hot as well?
Hi, Martin. I’m glad the video was helpful. Yes, mine heats up as well and sometimes feels uncomfortably hot. However, all Thunderbolt SSDs do this and the ones with faster SSDs or more modern SSDs such as Gen 4, heat up more. I have two other TB drives/enclosures and they too heat up a lot and these use different enclosures. The only thing I can suggest is to disconnect the drive when not in use, even when you power down your Mac. For whatever reason, even when my MacBook is turned off, the drive is active and is still warm. I totally understand what you are saying about potential damage over time due to heat. However, NVMe SSDs are actually designed to run warmer than traditional SATA SSDs. Apparently, it’s supposedly not recommended to over-cool them, as their performance isn’t as good, which does sound counter intuitive. The big problem I have is that I need these very high speeds that this particular combination can achieve, for my video recording and editing. So I just put up with the heat issue, even though it is disconcerting. There maybe actively cooled enclosures available, however, they will require external power and won’t be anywhere near as convenient, if they do exist. Sorry I can’t be anymore helpful. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry Thanks a lot, very insightful. I wonder if I should maybe put a bunch of thermal paste on top of the SSD so that it covers the SSD and touches the inside of the enclosure as well. Not sure how well thermal paste really helps though. Have you ever tried that? And thanks again!
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.
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.
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. 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.
Hey David, I know you posted this a while ago, but I’m wondering if this setup would also be compatible with the current iPad Pro? I’m interested in getting something like this, but I would would need a drive that works with both my MacBook Pro and iPad Pro. Any ideas, would be hugely appreciated.
Hi. I also use this on my iPads and the APFS format is best, as it works with the iPads and Mac. If you plan on using the drive with anything else other than Apple devices, such as Windows, then use ExFAT as this is almost a universal format that most nearly everything will see. Cheers, Dave.
Speed is fantastic but in total $600 is a lot. I use a Samsung T7 2TB (1000 / 1050 MB/s and am satisfied. The 4TB version with same speed in approx. the price of the Acasis enclosure: 273 Euro
Yes, it is expensive but it’s way faster than the T7s and is an absolute must for certain types of video editing. Since I made the video, the price to build this drive setup is now about 30% less and I imagine it will keep dropping. Cheers, Dave.
Thank you so much for this perfect video on this topic! There is never too much information or details for me when it comes to this type of experience. Is there a more economical way to do this? I am interested in getting a few external ssd for my music production but this one is way too expensive for my budget. If I can get a samsung t7 2 TB for 199$ what is the point of paying $ for this one $782? I might as well pay the Mac upgrade.
I wanna make one as a backup for my iPad in case I ever need to take it into apple care. If i don’t got a computer can I use the iPad in anyway to set up the drive
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.
Simply invaluable, but I'm still having some issues. Would you mind chiming in with your thoughts? I have a M1 Macbook Pro with a new Acasis enclosure and a Sabrent 2TB NVMe SSD. I'm a video editor and just tried to transfer a 450GB folder of footage from a Lacie harddrive. The Blackmagic speed test showed 2700+ (for the new SSD) but when I tried to copy it took over an hour...is this an issue with my new SSD? Maybe since I'm copying from a Lacie? Or perhaps since my Mac is almost full?
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.
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?
Hi. It’s an external drive and you use it as you would any external drive. If you are recording video, for instance, you can record direct to the external drive. Cheers, Dave.
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.
@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.
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.
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#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 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 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 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
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 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.
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 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.
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.
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 ua-cam.com/video/YAa9WwIUKk4/v-deo.html I have just bought an M4 Pro Mac mini and will be testing some Thunderbolt 5 peripherals with it soon. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Woah your voice audio quality is insane 😱🤯
Def should do a video about it !
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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!!
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 👍
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.
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 👍
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 !!
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.
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.
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.
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).
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
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! 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
Great video. Exactly the type of testing I was looking for before purchasing!
I'm glad you found the video helpful 👍 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 liked this video but I have a question. Can I build something similar to this but at 8TB? I would like to use it as an external backup for my photo library. If this wouldnt work, what would you recommend?? Thanks for the video. I'm a new subscriber !!!
Hi. Yes, you can put together an 8TB SSD drive but it will either be very expensive or not the fastest. You can put a 8TB NVMe inside an enclosure or a 8TB SATA inside an enclosure. Any 8TB NVMe is going to be very fast, there isn’t really a slow NVMe when it comes to 8TB. However, using a Samsung 8TB QVO SATA inside a SATA to USB C enclosure is going to be way cheaper but way slower. Although, saying slower is subjective as the speed of a QVO drive is still going to be very good for daily use. I actually use a 4TB Samsung QVO for one of my backup drives. While QVO drives will slow down during writhing when doing large data dumps, the read speeds are still very respectable at around 450MBs when moving large files, such as video files. Don’t forget, regardless of the SSD type, when you are writing hundreds or thousands of very small files, they will all take a hit on speeds, even the fastest NVMe SSDs. If you are only moving a few hundred GBs of data a time, then the speeds of any SSD probably don’t really become an issue. Although, a good NVMe is definitely going to be noticeably faster. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry , this is VERY good info. Since I’ll only be downloading my photos after a shoot, I won’t be working it too hard. Plus, after using a HHD drive for years, any SSD drive would be MUCH faster. Thanks for the info. I really appreciate it.
@@DavidHarry How about those "quad NVMe PCIe cards"? I'm seeing them on amazon for $50 and the prices of "eGPU Thunderbolt 4 enclosures" have dropped too. Putting these together might get super speeds and super sizes.
I have the Apple M1 Pro, do you think it will work with that aswell??
What an EXCELLENT video, thank you. I am currently in the market for an SSD (hence why I came across your video - no doubt due to the alogorithms after my looking at a Samsung T7 video), but my first SSD "dabble" was a stupid SanDisk 500GB that failed after a few months, which makes me extremely wary about losing more valuable data (Resolve and Logic). So, one year on from your video, what SSD component do you now recommend or would it still be the same, the SN850X? Thanks
I forgot to ask... what is the encoloure like for protection? Not that anyone wants to drop anything, but it happens. So, how strong and protective are they? I see some SSDs advertise a drop to the floor of approx. 2 or 3 feet. If not so great, then can I add a protective rubber layer or case?
Thanks 👍 Funny enough, after seeing this video ACASIS sent me some of their products to review. I have a new enclosure with a fan in it to review, which I will try and do soon. As for the drive in this video. I’ve been using it solid for about 10 months as my main video drive for my laptop. During that time it’s been perfect. It does heat up a lot, which is due to the Gen 4 SSD. However, it never throttles and always maintains that fast write speed and the read speed, although, for me it’s the write speed that’s important. The newer enclosure with the fan definitely keeps the SSD (SN850X) cooler. However, it’s no faster than the enclosure in this video, just cooler and better made, although it is more expensive. As for dropping the drive, I wouldn’t know but I’m guessing that I wouldn’t be too happy if I did drop it 😆 I wouldn’t add a rubber layer to a drive like this, it will totally screw up its thermal dissipation and probably cook the SSD. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry Hi David, many thanks for your reply. Yes, I was looking on the Acasis website last night and what else is available only because I saw that there is an SN850X heatsink and I wanted to see if there was a larger enclosure that would accomodate the thicker sized SSD, but I'm not sure there is. Building an SSD is completely new to me, so I am researching and learning fast all because of your video. It certainly opened my eyes. I've never built anything before because I've been on Macs for 30 years (I didn't really need to), and it was always the Windows users who were doing that, but an SSD is a different kettle of fish :)
I saw in your Dock that you use Resolve, and that is my main concern when editing music videos and recording songs, so I will take what you say as gospel with regards to the throttling and unecessary extra padding. Thank you.
My other main concern is what would happen to my data once I shelve it and then try to mount and use it after, let's say, several years. I know that the mechanical drives have an eventual shelf life at some point, so I'd like to find a failsafe way of storing my music and videos for long into the future. Do you already have a video on shelf life for external drives?
You are worth your weight in gold and you're a good man, so I just subscribed.
@@GigiUK Hi. Although the TBU401 enclosure is great with the SN850X SSDs and is designed to dissipate its heat. If the amount of heat being generated is just going to be something that gnaws away at the back of your head, I would recommend the TBU405Pro M1, which is the one with the fan. That setup will be the next Thunderbolt SSD drive build video that I do.
However, I only use the SN850X because it gives maximum read and write speeds constantly, which I personally need for the high volume and bitrates of the ProRes files that I use. You could always use a "slower" SSD, such as a Gen 3, and for most use you may not even see a big difference in short sustained speeds. Plus, with a typical Gen 3 the heat will be lower as well.
It's also worth noting that there is generally a substantial, even huge, difference between your average Gen 3 NVMe read and write speeds compared to a fast Gen 4. However, these differences would only really be noticeable when connected direct to a Gen 4 M.2 socket on the motherboard of a PC. However, as the bit rate for transferring data across Thunderbolt 3 or 4 from an enclosure is a lot lower, usually a maximum of about 2900MB/s. Even a fast Gen 3 will top out at there about the same speed as a high end Gen 4. With Thunderbolt enclosures, the Thunderbolt bus and the enclosure essentially become the limiting factor (bottleneck) and not so much the SSD. Although, a high quality NVMe will have the advantage of high constant sustained speeds, such as the SN850X. Whereas, a more budget NVMe may give you a quick burst of high transfer speeds but quite quickly settle down on a much lower constant sustained speed.
I have just built a "budget" Thunderbolt drive, consisting of a TBU401 enclosure and a 4TB Crucial P3. I managed to get these at the right time on Amazon for a combined total of £250. Now, while this drive doesn't really compete toe to toe with any of the ACASIS enclosures with an SN850X. This "budget" build really shocked me with how well it performs. I had previously used a P3 SSD in a Windows system that I had built for a friend and the performance was only mediocre for the P3. However, when it's formatted to APFS for Mac, for some reason that I don't quite understand right now, it performs way better than it did as a storage SSD in a Windows PC.
Now while the format type of any SSD can result in noticeable performance gains. This P3 SSD formatted to APFS was absolute night and day compared to it being formatted to ExFAT as far as its write performance was concerned and its read performance was also improved, although not as much as the write performance. I will try to do a video about that build as soon as I can. The problem I have at the moment is that I was quite ill for a couple of months at the end of last year and I am way behind on my iPhone and Mac videos, which I need to catch up on and I have also now just bought the new Samsung S24 Ultra and need to make a load of videos about that while it's popular. However, I will try and do these other Thunderbolt SSD build videos as soon as I can.
As for shelf life. Yes, all SSD NAND storage chips will lose charge over time and therefore impact the stored data and result in file corruption. How long that period of time is, I don't know as I've never had an SSD disconnected from a computer (power source) for more than about 18 months. Although, on a practical level, I would imagine that manufacturers would factor a few years or so for such things, as a minimum, for a high quality SSD but it may actually be longer. However, I personally use traditional mechanical drives for my long term and archival storage. I use a couple of WB 18TB drives that are manual mirrors (duplicates) of each other for redundancy.
Hopefully some of this extra information is useful for you and thank you so much for the subscription 👍It really does help the channel.
BTW. I don't usually engage like this with the comments. I'm just waiting for a long video to render 😆 Which is why I have the time for the comments.
Cheers,
Dave.
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.
Well Done my friend. Real world examples, excellent, Thank you
Glad you enjoyed it
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.
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.
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?
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 ua-cam.com/video/S7BNXo_-Mvk/v-deo.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 👍🏾
Any idea what speed we would have if use with encryption on macOS?
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.
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.
thank you for your patients to explain it thoroughly!
You are very welcome 👍 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.
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 ua-cam.com/video/cblyGVFcFn4/v-deo.html Cheers, Dave.
Thanks for the post. Can you use this external 4TB as the boot/start drive on a Mac Mini M2?
Great video! Thx.
But I have questions.
You use a drive what is able to read/write 7300 for a Thunderbolt connection what is limited to 2700. Isn't that overkill?
As I have another use case I need a disk with fast approach speeds for loads of small files. What benchmark is there for quick access speeds?
Thx for the help thus far.
🙏
Hi. The reason for this WD SSD is because it sustains the maximum write speed. Many other SSDs will have a high write speed for only so many GBs during a data transfer and will then slow down far below 2700MB/s. The constant maximum write speed of this WD SSD is perfect for capturing high bandwidth video and also the large folder transfers that I do between it and the Mac. For instances of testing an SSD’s read and ability ability for large amounts of very small files, for instance, web server files/folders and things like database fires etc. I’m not sure but there will be a number of test applications for measuring such random read/write characteristics. However, due to its DRAM and NAND type, this WD SSD will also be one of the best SSDs for those tasks as well. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry Okay. Thanks. So can you say that one uses the overspeed as a buffer to maintain maximum thunderbolt bandwidth?
No, it’s not the SSD’s extra bandwidth above the bandwidth of the Thunderbolt bus acting like a buffer, it’s the SSD’s own buffer/cache system. I also use Windows systems that have M.2 on them. With a lot of SSDs, while their published specifications may say that they are able to do 6000 MB/s, as a for instance, and given that that speed is slower than the Gen 4 M.2 slot/bus speed on the motherboard. You would expect the 6000MB/s to be maintained indefinitely as it’s less than the M.2 slot’s bandwidth. But most of these SSDs will drop way below that peak speed when writing large amounts of data because the SSD itself can’t sustain a buffer within itself to write the data consistently. A lot of people on UA-cam don’t test drives properly when doing speed tests, they do synthetic tests which are useless as the test doesn’t account for long write sessions, just short bursts. This is why my tests use large folders of real data and timed to get the bit rate/bandwidth. If you need the SSD for serious work, there’s no cutting corners and the best SSDs are more expensive for a very good reason. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry First of all, thank you for your quick and clear replies. It is not often that we get such service. It is much appreciated.
I think I got it now. Thx.
I'm not using large files that often. I'm a DJ with a large music collection and need to update the database sometimes and that takes like forever. If I could speed that up, it would save me lots op time.
I was wondering if a SSD twice the price was worth it.
You have excellent narration :) thanks for your video
Thank you and you are very welcome 👍 Cheers, Dave.
This is a great review. For future ssd test, include temperature and stress testing for thermal performance and throttling.
Great video! This was fantastic, now I’m feeling confident!!
Awesome, I’m glad the video was useful 👍 Cheers, Dave.
Great explanation, thank you! I followed the same components you used and am blown away by how fast the SSD is. However: It gets really hot and I am concerned that this will damage the SSD in time. Do you have any tips for that? And does yours get super hot as well?
Hi, Martin. I’m glad the video was helpful. Yes, mine heats up as well and sometimes feels uncomfortably hot. However, all Thunderbolt SSDs do this and the ones with faster SSDs or more modern SSDs such as Gen 4, heat up more. I have two other TB drives/enclosures and they too heat up a lot and these use different enclosures. The only thing I can suggest is to disconnect the drive when not in use, even when you power down your Mac. For whatever reason, even when my MacBook is turned off, the drive is active and is still warm. I totally understand what you are saying about potential damage over time due to heat. However, NVMe SSDs are actually designed to run warmer than traditional SATA SSDs. Apparently, it’s supposedly not recommended to over-cool them, as their performance isn’t as good, which does sound counter intuitive. The big problem I have is that I need these very high speeds that this particular combination can achieve, for my video recording and editing. So I just put up with the heat issue, even though it is disconcerting. There maybe actively cooled enclosures available, however, they will require external power and won’t be anywhere near as convenient, if they do exist. Sorry I can’t be anymore helpful. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry Thanks a lot, very insightful. I wonder if I should maybe put a bunch of thermal paste on top of the SSD so that it covers the SSD and touches the inside of the enclosure as well. Not sure how well thermal paste really helps though. Have you ever tried that? And thanks again!
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.
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.
A _tiny_ trace of silicone spark plug grease (AKA Dow Corning #4) will help those wee rubber bits slip into their exact right place.
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.
Do you know (have you checked) what the temperature of the disk was after the copy was completed?
Brilliant! Very clear, nicely paced and straight to the point. 👍
Thank you for your kind works and hopefully the video was useful. 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.
Hey David, I know you posted this a while ago, but I’m wondering if this setup would also be compatible with the current iPad Pro?
I’m interested in getting something like this, but I would would need a drive that works with both my MacBook Pro and iPad Pro.
Any ideas, would be hugely appreciated.
Hi, David. Yes, no problems with the iPad Pro. I have the M1 and M2 and the drive works great with them. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry perfect - thank you.
Hello David, I am going to get this combo, but I have Ipad pro M1 as well as Mac….which is the best format for this. Thanks
Hi. I also use this on my iPads and the APFS format is best, as it works with the iPads and Mac. If you plan on using the drive with anything else other than Apple devices, such as Windows, then use ExFAT as this is almost a universal format that most nearly everything will see. 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.
Great content and definitely with a pleasant crystal voice !
Thank you 👍
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.
Speed is fantastic but in total $600 is a lot. I use a Samsung T7 2TB (1000 / 1050 MB/s and am satisfied. The 4TB version with same speed in approx. the price of the Acasis enclosure: 273 Euro
Yes, it is expensive but it’s way faster than the T7s and is an absolute must for certain types of video editing. Since I made the video, the price to build this drive setup is now about 30% less and I imagine it will keep dropping. Cheers, Dave.
Thank you so much for this perfect video on this topic! There is never too much information or details for me when it comes to this type of experience. Is there a more economical way to do this? I am interested in getting a few external ssd for my music production but this one is way too expensive for my budget. If I can get a samsung t7 2 TB for 199$ what is the point of paying $ for this one $782? I might as well pay the Mac upgrade.
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.
I wanna make one as a backup for my iPad in case I ever need to take it into apple care. If i don’t got a computer can I use the iPad in anyway to set up the drive
Hi. You can’t format the drive on an iPad. You have to format the drive on a computer and then you can use it with the iPad. 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.
Simply invaluable, but I'm still having some issues. Would you mind chiming in with your thoughts?
I have a M1 Macbook Pro with a new Acasis enclosure and a Sabrent 2TB NVMe SSD. I'm a video editor and just tried to transfer a 450GB folder of footage from a Lacie harddrive. The Blackmagic speed test showed 2700+ (for the new SSD) but when I tried to copy it took over an hour...is this an issue with my new SSD? Maybe since I'm copying from a Lacie? Or perhaps since my Mac is almost full?
The problem is your Lacie drive, run the BM speed test on that drive and you'll see that it is way slower than your SSD. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarry Ah yes! You're right, thanks so so much!! 🤙🏼
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.
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?
Does the OS automatically write to the new drive as it does to the internal drive, or does it treat the new SSD as an external drive?
Hi. It’s an external drive and you use it as you would any external drive. If you are recording video, for instance, you can record direct to the external drive. Cheers, Dave.
@@DavidHarryThank you. My internal SSD is full. I’ll have to move files to the cloud or to an external drive..
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.
@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.