Thunderbolt 2 enclosure for M.2 NVMe SSDs

[Hexley]

2TB Intel 660p NVMe M.2 SSD drive is now under $182.

As the sequential read/write is about 1.44Gbps I was thinking this would make an awesome boot drive for my 2011 MBP & 2012 iMac with Thunderbolt 1 ports.

So would anyone know of a (cheap) Thunderbolt 2 enclosure for M.2 NVMe SSDs?

 

[ruslan120]

Thunderbolt 3 enclosure -> Thunderbolt 3 to 2 adapter from Apple would work better in this case. Faster, more future proof.

I've been using a Thunderbolt 3 external graphics card with my Thunderbolt 2 mac without issues using the adapter.

Thunderbolt 2 enclosures are slower, and surprisingly, haven't gone down too much in price.

You will want to make sure the Thunderbolt 3 enclosure is, in fact, Thunderbolt 3, and not just USB C, for the adapter to be guaranteed to work.

 

[Hexley]

Good point on Thunderbolt 3 enclosure over Thunderbolt 2.

 

[MacNchedder]

Any more ideas? I have an older MBP with Thunderbolt 1, but want to do the same thing. But the Apple TB3 to TB 2/1 adaptors will not provide power to the drives. So I need a dock or enclosure which has external power without spending too much money. Any help?

 

[ender78]

I picked up a 2TB NVME drive and put it in a USB 3 enclosure for the time being. Drive is capable of 3.5GB/sec read and 3.0GB/sec write.


A number of options out there that leverage Thunderbolt 3/USB3;

Misc USB3 Enclosure Limited to 10Gbps (1.2 GB/sec)

OWC NVME Enclosure (4x NVME) - Thunderbolt - 3 - While rated at 2.8GB/sec the catch is that each drive is limited to a single PCI-E lane and therefore limited to 10Gbps

NETSTOR - NA622TB3 - Thunderbolt 3 - Better implementation that allows for two lanes and therefore about 1.6 GB/sec

 

[Hexley]

Any more ideas? I have an older MBP with Thunderbolt 1, but want to do the same thing. But the Apple TB3 to TB 2/1 adaptors will not provide power to the drives. So I need a dock or enclosure which has external power without spending too much money. Any help?

My solution was to buy a new Mac.

I have a 2011 13" & 2012 27" Mac which makes them 9 years & 8 years old.

I'm getting the 2019 16" that weighs the same as the 2011 13".