SAME EXACT NUMBERS!! Craig, I went ahead and upgraded my full set up:: I bought a mac mini M2 on eBay for $400, bought the same WD memory card and enclosure that you presented here and can't believe how fast things run. Funny enough, for real basic things the 2014 mini actually does pretty good, but when it comes to editing and rendering videos for my KZfaq Channel, the M2 blows it away. For good measure I also built the USB3->SATA 512G data disk that you covered in another one of your videos (total expense ~$35). Oh, one extra comment: for those worried about the heat on the NVMe drive. I placed a small DC fan by the module and powered it with a USB plug I had. My module is cool to the touch!! (I made sure to properly install the thermal pads too. Double layer on the controller chip to bring it up to the same height as the memory so everything is making equal contact with the case). Once again, thanks for all of your great content and help!!! -DT

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

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 video!

I didn’t realise how slow my external drives were until I saw this video. Thanks for the excellent demo and explanation. 🙏

I have seen similar results. I have a M2 Mac Mini (24GB RAM / 512GB SSD) and a 2TB Samsung 980 PRO installed in an Acasis enclosure (TBU401E). Internal performance is W: 3339 MB/s & R: 2985 MB/s versus 980 performance of W: 2790 MB/s & R: 2713 MB/s.

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 I'm shocked with how out of date I am with tech. 60gb transferred in roughly 3 minutes.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 video. I can't wait to build one. This will help so much with my video editing. Thank you.

subbing to your channel Craig! just moved recently to an M2 base model Mac Mini and I'm loving your content for independent creators like us. all the Best and keep doing what you're doing!

Hi, Craig. Please receive my sincere thanks for this great video. I went out and got the Acasis case coupled with the WD black SSD for my Mac Mini Pro. Boy, what a great investment! I was able to transfer my photos and music to my external 2 TB SSD and therefore leave my 512 GB internal drive to run the system without pressure. Boy, it flies! And I saved hundreds of dollars, too. Thanks tons! You’re the best.

This is super review for someone like me who is not that techie, I can clearly understand the video. Perfect!

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

Lovely analysis and real-world tests; earned a follow!

Thanks for this. I was only aware of the 10gbps enclosures before I found your video.

Thanks Craig for this great vid. I bought a SanDisk Extreme PRO for my new mini M2, 16GB/512GB (to replace my iMac 5K). Since I do need good storage and speed for massive photo/video/Ps/Ai files I assumed SanDisk would be solid due to its reputation. But the SanDisk external ssd was very underwhelming and did not provide a solid and steady connection. So looking for a better and more reliable solution I found your channel. I appreciate your lowkey presentation which gives the feeling of trust and that you are not just pitching the things or brands that pay your bills. I decided to go with the Acasis Enclosure (TBU401E) with a Samsung 980 PRO 2TB (haven't received the components but will report anything noteworthy). Just as an fyi, my Mac Mini's internal 512GB tests in Blackmagic steady at W:3300+ MB/s, R:3000+ MB/s. Once you are able to the channel more as a profession I'd suggest to not become too flashy but do add more "how to build/put together" content as well. But love your channel and of course we subscribed.

Thanks for this! Im gonna study this video and compare it with M2 Pro Mac Mini 1TB

Great Video! Straight to the point, Exactly what I was looking for!

I have the exact same results (2700MBps read/write with an Orico Thunderbolt 3 enclosure($60) new off eBay , the same WD Black SN770 1TB (64$ new )off my M2 Mac Mini base 256GB model. I also tried a WD Blue SN570 1TB and it runs also in the 2700 MBps R/W range. The difference is that the SN770 performs much better with smaller files and random writes by a lot! The orico is more plain looking, but does it fly when virtualizing Windows 11 and gaming off it.

I followed all your tips and bought your recommendations. It's absolutely flying. Super happy with it and in total it cost me 150euros. Thank you so much for a greta video.

Many thanks for this excellent review. I'll be following your recommendations.

Thanks to you I got the new sdd installed with the enclosure . I was getting 2700 on the Blackmagic speedometer. I cloned the original HDD with Ventura on to the WD SDD . Thanks you are a wizard . My system is fast like "polished chrome" .

Great video. This helped me made my purchase. Thank you.

I'm currently using an older sn750 and am getting about 2700 MB/s read speed and about 2100 write speeds. I have the same exact nvme enclosure. It works pretty well for running programs.

Thank you for this video! It was exactly what I needed to solve my storage problem. Well done.

Wow, this speed is amazing! Would you definitely recommend using a better thermal strip?

Great video, thanks Craig. I've got two other enclosures and three other drives. Planning to make video about that. Great stuff for any laptop to work with or just as emergency backup for you machine. You make awesome videos man, keep it up!

You sir have saved me some serious money! Thanks for making this video. I'm going to go get the SN770 WD Black! Now I just have to decide between 1TB and 2 TB :)

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.

thank you so much for this video! I will be doing this on my macbook pro M1pro to utilized the thunderbolt speed! thankyou!

Thanks! Just got my Mac Studio. This is a must-have!

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...

I have the 980pro 2TB in an older Thunderbolt 3 case and it's slightly faster, but also what I love about it is it doesn't overheat as easily as other NVME SSDs. You should always try a large file test as small files go into much faster DRAM storage before going onto the drive and some lesser drives have more of a tendency to overheat. Try at least a 200GB test copy to work out the actual xfer speed. Really, at 40Gbs /sec you should be getting much closer to the advertised transfer speeds. Thats 5GB/s or about 5000MB/s minus a by for overhead. The cases are so expensive my advice is to go straight to 2TB as a minimum and 4TB if you can find a good one.

Good call. Worked like a champ!

Clear to the point. Not a lot of fluff. I used your amazon links for my purchase, right from the KZfaq app

Thanks for this information. I’ve been searching all over for this.

How does the TBU405 get all four lanes of PCIe to be available to the SSD, while products by reputable brands like OWC and Sonnet only spare one or two lanes? Which versions of PCIe and NVMe does the TBU405 employ?

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.

Great info. Thanks

thanks Craig, I have a 2013 iMac with about 700gb of data on the 1TB internal storage and have just purchased a Mac Mini M2 Pro with 512gb of memory. I have jsut ordered the Acasis enclosure and a 2tb WB SN770 NVME SSD and plan on storing my Music (140GB) Movies (120GB) and Photos (51GB) on the external drive and keeping the internal drive free for day to day work. 2TB of external memory plus the acasis case cost me AUD$400, versus AUD$900 to upgrade Mini M2 to 2TB, so much much cheaper (1TB would have probably done me but the difference between 1TB and 2TB was that much so went with 2TB)

NOTE: My M1 mac studio cannot support two TB4 enclosure for lack of power. It can only support 1. I am not sure if M2 solve this issue. BTW, buy TB4 NVME enclosure which is 40Gbps instead of the 10Gbps if you want to install and run OS on external NVME drivers because the speed differences is huge especially related to the random 4K Read/write performance. Also, WD SN 850NX 2TB is just $90 on a recent deal. You can choose this instead of SN770(it is HBM which means it doesn't have onbroad DRAM cache). Other than ACASIS, other similar brands are also the same as they are using the same Intel 7440 chipset. I have brought the Konyead nvme enclosure at $100 and they are also great.

Well Done! Thanks a lot.

It is also possible to increase performance even further if you create a RAID-0 between the two Thunderbolt outputs via Disk Utility

Great video Craig, very helpful. Subbed you right there and then

I’m looking for something like this but with the ability for multiple drives for a raid system. Any recommendations?

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

Great video. I'm doing the same thing, but I ran into a serious problem - the sustained write fails across many SSDs. I've tested about 12 cards and 3 controllers, and this is a major problem with the cheaper SSDs. Every time I get above 2500mb/s write and read speeds on blackmagic test for 5gb. But once I ask it to transfer a 1tb folder or more, it'll say 12min, but I come back in 12min and all of a sudden it's up to 30min. Then I check the speed on blackmagic and it's dropped from 2500 to 30 or 60! It's just slowed to a crawl. I've tried two WD black chips so far, and both seemed to be duds - maxxed out at 950mb/s. The only one I've found so far that was even reasonably cheap was the Crucial 4tb. But will continue to test.

Perfect, it works great. i have a macstudio and the results are pretty good. 2700/2700 - SSD disk WD Black SN770 NVMe 2TB / Acasis enclosure

Excellent content and presentation! Looking forward to watching more. Subscribed.

Thanks for this video. I've been using a couple of Crucial's 1TB external SSDs for video, but they fill up very quickly, and they do take a longer than what you demonstrated to copy files.

Bought a adata sx8200 pro 1tb for 35usd and a ugreen 10gbps for 18usd, Speeds are good enough for me but so much cheaper. Thanks for the idea.

3000 MB/s is faster than the Mac Mini's internal storage in the case of SOME models. The models that have more than 1 TB of storage have over 5000-7000 MB/s read/write speeds, that's over 40 Gbit/s. Are there any external solutions that get you those speeds?

I just put together this setup. Mac Mini M2 16GB Ram, 256GB Internal SSD, and added a Acasis TBU401 SSD Enclosure with a Western Digital Black 1TB SN770. Works great, and it's fast! But it gets disturbingly hot. I now have it sandwiched between two heatsinks, and they cook too. This can't be healthy for the SSD and my data. I think I may consider something slower and cooler.

For me it's not so much the speed of the drive as it is what I can install on it. On Macs there are many applications, plug-ins, etc that won't allow you to install them on an external drive. The only way I found around that problem is to clone the Macs drive with the OS and then boot from the external cloned drive, then some applications were able to run from that drive.

Thanks for sharing. You just saved ~$250.

It would be interesting to see you actually build the drive and the steps you took to assure that the heat tape was touching the enclosure. Thanks for all of your videos and suggestions.

Thanks bro!

Also, the setup is quiet. I need more space than that and I normally have a 16TB sata SSD external array. I am changing it for a quiet setup in the next few days. The HHD arrays are basically being replaced by cheap but powerful 10Gbe NAS devices. The other point is that they are portable.

Hey man. Watched quite a few of your videos. Your content is great, you just need to spend more time on the thumbnails. I think this video got the attention it did because you created a great thumbnail. I would take design ideas from desk tours and good product review channels and implement them into your thumbnail design. Just my 2 cents

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)

I'm using the same stuff and I get 2,900 MB/s on both my M1 Mac Mini and a M1 Macbook Air.

Hope I will build bootsble ssd one day

thank you !

I just discovered your channel. Excellent video. Thank you. Would I use my macbook pro Thunderbolt 4 type c port?

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

I made a external Bootable Hard Drive for my late 2013 iMac. my question is can I take my external Bootable hard drive one iMac late 2013 i5 intel to another iMac late 2013 i9 intel both are running Catilina 10.15.7 ? two different machine but same operation systems

Thank you🎉

Great videos im a 20 plus windows user just starting with mac os thanks for taking your time to help us any way u can show how to move these files off and on Mac os or point me somewhere appreciated

Craig Neidel ThanksMuch!

Many, many thanks. This is just the advice I needed. I have a low-end refurb Mac Studio coming from Apple. I'd planned to get a Mac mini, but when I configured it like I wanted, the refurb Mac Studio was cheaper because those with those features come stock. Where I refused to pay Apple's Robber Baron upgrade prices was in the SSD. I ordered it with 512 GB despite the fact that the data on my existing 2012 Mac mini takes up almost 500 GB. I desperately need an external SSD.

Excellent video, thanks! One question: I currently have an M1 mini, but within the next year or so I'm hoping to graduate to M2 (or beyond). So, would this configuration work on my current M1 in the meantime? Cheers!

Doesn't transfer speed slows up when the cache fills up on sustained usage? in that WD Black>?

Excellent video, Craig. I have Mac Mini m2 and satechi usb hub without storage. Considering buying this acasis you reviewed. Can I connect both to both TB4 ports on the Mini? Thanks, Craig. Will recommend your channel. Keep it up.

Just picked up SN770 500GB at Walmart $34

Used the same setup with a Sabrent and getting 4000 Mb/s

Craig we can start with the 8GB 256 Or is it still advisable to have the 16 GB. Thanks your video and presentation is very helpful

can I use this setup for macbook air m2 base model?

awesome!

I see the SSD cards are offered with a heat sink. Is there a reason to not get that version? Great video as 1 need access to my photo library.

I have had issues moving large files to external nvme drives formatted in exfat. They copy to the device but won’t open. You can then copy the files back to the Mac or even a PC and the file won’t open. I don’t know if this happens when the external nvme is formatted using Apple’ s proprietary file system. I do know that copying the files to a slower usb device such as a Samsung Bar series usb thumb drive did result in the files being able to be opened, played, and recopied onto other devices.

The Internal SSD speed on my M1 Mac Mini is 4000MB/s. The fastest a 40Gbits thunderbolt 4 can manage is 2700MB/s. There is no way to reach those speeds with an external drive. However 2700MB/s is a good compromise for a spare drive.

3:20 would you recommend then buying a SSD with a heatsink already installed and use the enclosure without the top lid?, awesome video and thanks for the best bank for buck recommendation !!

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

Thanks!! I am buying this today especially since Prime Day prices are active. My concern is Time Machine Back Ups. Adding all this fast storage increases the size of the back up. What is your back up setup?

I really wish satechi wouls upgrade their mac mini dock with a new ssd enclosure! Just didnt want this thing dangling from back of the mac

One of the drives is empty, the other is less than half taken up. They are all just backup drives. nothing heavy duty about the workload. thank you for your qu ick reply.

HI, I bought the exact suggestion from here but I have an issue, the enclosure gets extremely hot, I am afraid to run... I do not have a probe or a thermometer to precisely measure the temperature but is is HOT. I wish I knew this before.

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

Thanks for the info. The only thing I'm not sure of is the tape part. Where do you get the tape? And it just has to touch the lid when closed?

Guys - all fine but the issue is that OneDrive or iCloud not supporting external drives. I run now in this issue and dont know how to fix :-/ Someone a idea how i can get my external hard disk used for cloud sync?

Do you find choosing the cheapest drive as you did detrimental to performance when you start to fill up the drive? I went with a couple of cheaper kingston sticks and although they were blazing fast at first after filling them up to over 60%, performance dropped by over 75%. I’m now inclined to stick to the more expensive pro sticks.

can this configuration be used with the Mac Mini with the Intel Chip?

Hi Craig, I like your iMac stand substitute. What’s it for? External storage? battery UPS? Where can I buy it?

Bravo! ✊🏾

1:15 is the key

Craig, Thank you for your video. I am contemplating moving from my Windows 11 Pro, 64GB Ram, PC to the Apple Mac Mini M2 or M2 Studio. I am struggling with my manufacturer releasing GPU drivers as fast as Microsoft releases its O/S updates. I am sick of the dark screens after a bootup and the subsequent rollback on O/S. My GPU manufacturer recommends a different GPU. My concern is that what is next, the motherboard, CPU, power supply, RAM, etc.? Not terribly long ago, I used a 15" Macbook Pro and loaded VMWare Fusion that enabled me to use both the Apple O/S and Windows O/S. My challenges were with drivers and keyboard functionality. I understand that Parallels is another option. However, I have no experience with it. We need some Windows applications and, frankly, I have more familiarity with Photoshop key functions than with Apple. Canon no longer supports our old but reliable Canon printer on Mac's. However, they do have current drivers for our Windows PC. My questions to you are: 1) would you migrate to the Mac Mini M2 with two operating systems, Apple and Windows 11 Pro? 2) what is your recommendation to port over 11 TB from five disk drives (one Intel SSD and four WD's) that reside on my PC? 3) does your Acasis device use a Thunderrbolt-4 connection? 4) can you tell me what the manufacturer's life span is on a WD SN 770? Are those devices as reliable as either a SSD or conventional SATA drive? 5) could I use my wired Steelseries keyboard and mouse or would I have to use my bluetooth Logitech MX series devices or Apple products? 6) May I use my 27" LG 4K monitor, using an HDMI cable? When I reviewed the M2 specifications, I was concerned that I did not have enough ports to connect everything. I assume that one option might be to format the drive you recommended to be used on a PC or MAC, then to transport all my data to that device. Thank you. John

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.

I seen that they have the pro version of the SSD is that a better option?

Would the wd_black 4tb work with this Enclosure?

I get 2,040 write and 2,689 read on the Samsung 980 Pro with my Acasis enclosure connected to my MacBook Pro 14 with M1 through CalDigit TS4 docking station or 2700 read and 2684 write when directly connected to my MacBook Pro 14.

A few comments about SSD drives: The smaller the drive, the less overprovisioning in the drive, which means it will last less long than a larger SSD. So, the 2TB drives will tend to last longer than the 1TB drives. Additionally, all SSDs have a cache to make them appear faster than they really are. The only test you did that got beyond that cache was the two large file test. That will have shown the actual speed of the drive. And the reason why Apple’s larger internal drive is faster on the M2 Mac is because there are two physical NAND chips on the motherboard (which is the storage). Writing to and reading from two NAND chips is faster than just one. I think that Apple’s low-end drive offering is designed to meet a price point with a less-useful system. I would not purchase the 256-MB system; there is not enough room for the OS and for applications on that drive. Also, you would have to move your /User space to the external drive. On a laptop, that would be a real pain. Finally, you lose ports for every drive you plug in. With the M2 Mac Mini, if you are operating with two Apple Studio Displays, you have no Thunderbolt ports, save the USB3 ports on the display. The Mac Mini with the M2 Pro has four Thunderbolt ports, so an external drive is a possibility. Now, not everyone is going to hook two Apple Studio monitors up to a Mac Mini but the limitations in these systems quickly become apparent when hooking up peripherals.

Nice review. Will WD SN850X perform better with these type of enclosures? Will it perform any better than SN770? Please suggest.

It’s suitable also for Mac mini m1?