idownie

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  • Ultimate guide on how to use an external SSD as a working drive on macOS Sequoia

    idownieidownie
    randominternetperson said:
    I wish it were a lot easier to understand the throughput capabilities of these darn things.

     Check out the description of the OWC enclosure linked in the article:

     Title: OWC 2TB Express 1M2 Portable NVMe Thunderbolt (USB-C) SSD USB4 Ultra Fast External SSD Drive with Aluminum Heat Sink Enclosure

     Yikes. (I like how "SSD" appears twice)

    About this item:
    • Ultra-fast: over 2x faster than Thunderbolt portable enclosures with up to 3151MB/s real-world performance
    • Ultra-compatible: use with USB4, Thunderbolt, and USB-C computers and devices
    • Ultra-reliable: aircraft grade aluminum offers rugged protection of your SSD while silently keeping drive cool for consistent top speed
    • Flexible DIY: use your choice of NVMe M.2 2280, 2242, or 2230 SSD
    • Portable: bus-powered and palm-sized for convenient use anywhere
    • Complete: includes 40Gb/s USB-C cable and screwdriver for enclosure
    Translating between megabytes and gigabits is left as an exercise for the reader.

    Finally there is this helpful note:
    Don't Get Fooled
    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 Inter power specifications. 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 being fooled and disappointed in far lower speeds, the Express 1M2's true UBS4 connectivity assures you of an astounding doubling of Thunderbolt's speed.

    Is Thunderbolt 4 the same as USB4 as the article implies or not? The "Thunderbolt experts" suggest otherwise.

    How the heck is Joe Not-a-Nerd Public supposed to get this right?
    I bought one of these without a drive ahead of receiving my Mac mini M4 256GB and put a 2TB Samsung SSD 990 into it. Blackmagic disk speed test shows that the external drive performs very similarly to the internal drive, with write speeds hovering just over 2000MB/s and read speeds just under 3000MB/s. That's running the Sequoia off the external drive. 
    randominternetpersondewmeAlex1N