Optimal SSD Choices for External Storage Speed

Question

Which external SSDs are advised for Mac Mini M2 users seeking a speedy external storage setup?

Answer 1

Western Digital Black SN770 NVMe SSD specific is the external smart storage for M2 Mac Mini which is very fast. It is efficient as well as cost effective offering 5150 MB bandwidth. For Acasis TBU-405 the other valid SSDs are Samsung 980 Pro, Western Digital SN850 or SN850X. But it may be dearer. It is always best to choose enclosures that are reputed to have good performance speed in order to achieve SSD design compatibility with the enclosure.

Comments

Thanks... I purchased the same items and am getting 2700+ MB/s speeds.  Very fast and cheaper than other options.

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I am using the ACASIS 40 Gbps M.2 SSD Enclosure (TBU405) along with the Western Digital Black SN770 NVME SSD 2 TB on my M2 mac Mini. Speed here is just incredible, I moved a 20GB file over to the SSD in under 18 seconds. Very happy with this setup along saving some $$$ to boot! Thank you Craig for this informative content!

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Whoa....I bought my first ssd external drive last week. I'm shocked with how out of date I am with tech. 60gb transferred in roughly 3 minutes. Magic as far as I'm concerned. Now in my quest for cheaper and bigger and faster options I find your content. I can't wait to build one. This will help so much with my video editing. Thank you.

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I bought the enclosure and the hard drive and am getting 2692.5 write and 2795.9 read. Thanks Craig content like this is soooo much more helpful then anything LTT has posted in years. Without you I would have bought a crappy docking station.

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I have two of these I run in raid 0 to separate TB ports. Read speed is 5100s  write is 4500s. Single is 3.1k read 2.9k write. It’s all about the drive you use plain and simple. Some M.2s are on the edge of what thunderbolt can provide not including the pcb interface. Samsung 990s while pricey are power efficient. A plus to raid is you multiply your SLC cache accordingly. Even if you drop down to TLC speeds 990s drop to 1300-1500mb per sec so you’re still typically operating at a single TB max speed. U.2 is making more sense for TB/$. Don’t spend 2-300 for an enclosure. 15-30$ in m.2 to U.2 plugged in to the thunderbolt enclosure you already have works. Get the adapters that have a 4 pin connector on the PCB. U.2s require 2-3x more watts. A 40 plus watt power adapter will take care of it. Used 6.4TB drives compatible with macOS can be had for mid 200s. They are built for 3 drive capacity writes per day or 6x the average m.2.

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Remember that most cheaper SSD's are Quad state with smaller cache. More expensive are Tri state and have a bigger cache.  Why does it matter? Because the 2800W throttles after eg 70GB on my WD Black 770 from 2100 to 500mb/s.  So if you are doing this for gaming (mostly reading) or iOS (smaller files) a cheaper SSD is fine but if you are copying big files (>100gb) [or backup storage], its more important to have a big cache/TLC than USB 4 or TB3.

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I have the TBU405 ACASIS enclosure but I use the WD SN570 2TB on M1 Mac mini (MacBook M114" as well ) with about 2600 Read & Write...

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did use the Orico 40Gbs with a (PCI3) WD 570 And it is racing, 3148 MB/s on read and 2813 MB/s on write tested with AmorphousDiskMark 4.0 Also tested a 550GB FCP library (with a lot of render files in it. And it took 2.8 minutes Did it several times and it is quick. On the SSD I put on the supplied heat strip twice on top of each other Both controller and ram chip(SSD) and put on top of that the supplied heatsink. I am very very happy with the result. BTW the 2 TB WD SN570 was 130 euro’s and the Orico was 140 euro.
So no need for a PCI4 ssd a good PCI3 (cheep) SSD wildo also  (IMHO)

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I use the one from Orico , it has builtin fan , SSD never overheats . I get consistent 3500MB read write with WD SN580

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ACASIS 40Gbps M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure with WD_Black 850x 2TB is what i got and it works wounders! Was like 280 including tax.

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If the enclosure is only PCIe 3.0, why overpay for a PCIe 4.0 drive that can only work at half speed? Is it to get the absolute fastest speed? I would imagine that is why the combination runs warm. Did you try a PCIe 3.0 stick instead?

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You don't have to buy the Samsung 980 pro the 970 series is good enough the difference is minimal and you don't need the pro the normal series good enough. I got that and the speed is the same. And the price comparing the WD Black is the same although the black is PCE 4 but that does not matter much

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Great content Craig, I wanted to know if you would recommend a newer NvMe SSD by WD or just stick to the one in your content?

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Thank you for such a brilliant and insightful content. I hope you might be able to help me out here.
So I have a mac mini M2 16 Gbyte 256 Hd. I bought the Satechi Hub with the NVME enclosure underneath. I only got it a few days ago.
Am I correct in saying that the Satechi hub would slow down the performance of the WD Black SSD and if so if I buy the enclosure and the WD Black does it work better when connected to the actual Mac Mini and not the Satechi hub?

Sorry if this is a silly question.
Thanks.

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Just followed your instructions on M1 Mac and works GREAT but have a question. Should I enable Trim in macOS from the terminal application?

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Acasis does make some pretty rock solid Thunderbolt SSD enclosure, and for a fair price too. So far I have both TB34 and TBU405 as well as a TBU412 dock with an internal NVMe m.2 SSD slot. Will try to post comparison results soon

Communicated with Acasis China recently...it appeared that there will be a new version of the enclosure coming out real soon. Should be functionally similar to TBU405 but with added internal cooling fan and the enclosure will be tool less (probably secured with a magnet like the TBU412?)

Time to start looking out for a new SSD...I have a Samsung 980 Pro 2TB, anyone have comparison results of this with the 990 Pro?