Mastodawn

Jul 3, 2023

2TB Samsung 980 Pro at $100, pretty sure this is the lowest it's ever been. I think one of the best performance drives to stick in a Thunderbolt NVMe enclosure. *
https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-Internal-Gaming-MZ-V8P2T0B-AM/dp/B08RK2SR23

* Check the manufacturing date, if its more than say 6 months ago you may need to update your firmware to prevent a pretty bad early wear out issue.

Amazon.com: SAMSUNG 980 PRO SSD 2TB PCIe NVMe Gen 4 Gaming M.2 Internal Solid State Drive Memory Card , Maximum Speed, Thermal Control MZ-V8P2T0B/AM : Electronics

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Paul Haddad

Jul 3, 2023

A few folks have asked about Thunderbolt NVMe enclosures. I don't really love any of the self powered ones. I use the OWC Envoy Express which is very stable and fairly small, but it's only half the top possible T3 speed and the price really needs to be adjusted way down.

There's a bunch of no name full speed T3 enclosures that hover around $100 after coupons/sales/etc... This one from Acasis (https://www.amazon.com/ACASIS-Enclosure-Compatible-Aluminum-External/dp/B0BB74BQVN) seems like the best price today. If I had to buy one today I’d get this.

Amazon.com

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Paul Haddad

Jul 3, 2023

These newer T3 enclosures have both a T3 chip and a USB 10Gbps chip. Sounds great but likely means these will always be quite expensive and I've not found USB NVMe super reliable.

There are upcoming USB4 (which is different than USB 4) enclosures that'll be coming out over the next few months. These are single chip solutions that are super fast when connected to USB4 and likely will end up being a lot cheaper. Problem is their T3 performance (from what I've seen) is a bit underwhelming.

So 🤷‍♂️

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Tim Frede

@paul God I hate the USB naming conventions. Do Macs use the T3 chip vs the USB or is that the same thing? Also thanks for the info on OWC enclosures. I didn’t know half speed enclosures were a thing.