OWC reveals Express 1M2, an ultra-fast USB 4 NVMe SSD enclosure
The OWC Express 1M2 is a new USB 4 drive enclosure, and is the fastest single blade NVMe enclosure that OWC has ever offered.
OWC Express 1M2
SSD enclosures with USB 4 connectivity promise universal compatibility without compromise. They are compatible with Thunderbolt 4, USB 3.2, USB 2, and everything in between.
OWC is taking advantage of the spec with its newest NVMe SSD enclosure. The Express 1M2 offers real-world speeds of up to 3,151 MB/s and USB 4 connectivity to maximize the performance capabilities of current and future Macs.
OWC says reliability in safeguarding critical user data is part of their brand recognition, and the Express 1M2 upholds that. It has a solid aluminum heat sink to ensure maximum performance.
"The Express 1M2 is built to keep the drive cool and performance high, continuing OWC's tradition of building products right vs. targeting a low-priced disposable commodity level," said Larry O'Connor, founder and CEO of OWC. "Our customer's data reliability is our number one priority and the Express 1M2 is the ideal choice for those seeking long-term reliability and high performance."
Photo and video professionals will benefit from the high speed the drive offers. Use OWC's Aura SSDs or add your own 2230, 2242, or 2280-sized NVMe M.2 SSD.
Get the Express 1M2 without an SSD starting at $119.99. Configurations that add 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, or 8TB capacities are also available.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
Product doesn't appear on OWC's website at all, did they announce it prematurely?
"Because we’re widely considered the Thunderbolt experts, we must know all the little details that others purposefully overlook or hide. For a bus-powered enclosure to be Thunderbolt certified, it must meet Intel power certifications. As such, speeds are limited to 1500MB/s. While many no-name brands claim to be USB4, they are in fact Thunderbolt 3 solutions that do not follow Intel specifications. Unlike those budget brand pretenders that will leave you feeling fooled and disappointed in far lower speeds, the Express 1M2’s true USB4 connectivity assures you of an astounding doubling of Thunderbolt’s speed."
- Supports M.2 2280, M.2 2242, M.2 2230 "M Key" drives
Drives bought with included NVMe drives use "OWC Aura Ultra IV PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2280 SSD" https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/S3DIG3P4T10/ higher capacity drives available.Now we just need OWC/MacSales to upgrade their 4 blade 4M2 enclosure to handle USB4.
disclaimer: I don't work for OWC/MacSales, I've just bought way too much stuff from them over the last two decades (or more).
I have their previous fastest space grey Envoy Pro FX TB3/USB3 enclosure, and the photo Respite posted shows this new Express 1M2 should be an upgrade in terms of cooling.
The previous Envoy Pro FX had the top of the SSD blade facing downward toward the bottom of the enclosure, so only the aluminum cover plate on the underside of the enclosure is able to contact the SSD blade as its primary heatsink.
And the underside of the SSD blade has no heat dissipating contacts. At least on the 240GB model I got which came with a single-sided SSD, which I upgraded with a larger double-sided WD Black SN850X 4TB SSD. Easily done although OWC doesn’t sell it as a user-upgradable enclosure.
The top part of the Envoy Pro FX’s aluminum case (which is the vast majority of its mass) doesn’t really make any good contact with the SSD blade, and so seems more for aesthetics than any functional benefit. It does get warm, so I guess there is some heat transfer happening, but it could be better. (photo attached)
On the other hand this Express 1M2 design shows the SSD blade facing upward so the chips on the top side of the blade can contact and benefit from the large heatsink cooling fins in the top of the enclosure. Unfortunately I still don’t see any affordance in that photo of the 1M2 for cooling the underside of the SSD blade on double sided SSDs.
But given that the bus-powered Envoy Pro FX is marketed as Intel Evo + Thunderbolt certified with speeds up to 2800MB/s, I gotta say it’s pretty strange that OWC’s marketing copy claims:
I also just noticed that on any Intel Mac, the Express 1M2 will only run at 10Gb/s USB 3.2 speeds, that’s a big caveat. It requires an Apple Silicon Mac or PC with USB4 ports to run at full speed. For anyone who might need to connect to an Intel Mac I’d recommend their Envoy Pro FX instead, which runs at 28Gb/s TB3 speeds on Intel or Apple Silicon Macs or PCs with TB3/4 ports, and is also USB 3.2 compatible at 10Gb/s speeds on any computer’s USB port that doesn’t have Thunderbolt. Despite its less effective cooling design, in the end Thunderbolt speeds are less than half of the top speed of the latest PCIe 4.0 SSDs anyway, so it’s not like they’re running at full throttle.
No there isn't. Neither on the forum or in the main site. The text you've quoted isn't even in the article. The only link is to a (pretty redundant) keyword search for "Mac".
If you can't see the link, it's a problem local to you, somehow. It has been on the page from the start.
Bottom line, the absence of m.2 slots in Apple's product lineup, particularly the Mac Mini and Mac Studio, represents a serious loss of value.