Thunderbolt 3 M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosures

[frou]

the NEW jeyi has a completely redesigned board with an intel thunderbolt chip most recent (JHL6340)

The Orico seems to have an identical PCB to the image attached to ^^^ that post. The fact that they have the Thunderbolt(TM) logo on the PCB possibly means that the design is certified by Intel, but that could be wishful thinking.

I'm wondering how to deploy my thermal pads. I seem to remember that only the controllers (TB3, SSD's own) should be cooled because NAND chips actually prefer to run warm than cool.

 

[Stephen.R]

I'd be interested to see how the above user gets on with the NVMe enclosure

I have one of their USB3.1G2 (i.e. 10Gbps) NVMe M2 enclosures - the local distributor insists they're able to use it reliably on a.. I think he said 2016 MBP? But I had constant disconnect issue with it on both a 2018 MBP and a 2018 Mac mini. Similarly, a USB3.1 SATA enclosure had very similar issues.

From memory both items were (at the time) using a "new" controller (not many of their products were 3.1 Gen2 at the time).

I also have a 5-bay SATA enclosure that arrived with a loose wire getting caught in the fan, and now, I guess maybe 18-24 months later, it seems the bearings or something in the fan are ****ed, because it gets very noisy again.

My original reason for buying them was availability really - they're available locally to me, whereas more well known brands (that aren't just sealed up boxes ala LaCie/etc) are quite difficult to find, if at all. Coincidentally the local distributor for Orico is also the local distributor for OWC and Akitio - but they only import a subset of the product ranges (I asked about specifically what I wanted and they essentially said it's not worth it for them to do a special order/import).

It'd be nice if this product is reliable, but I am very skeptical.
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The fact that they have the Thunderbolt(TM) logo on the PCB possibly means that the design is certified by Intel,

They're both Chinese brands/companies. As someone living in South East Asia, a logo means nothing.

 

[Ifti]

The Orico seems to have an identical PCB to the image attached to ^^^ that post. The fact that they have the Thunderbolt(TM) logo on the PCB possibly means that the design is certified by Intel, but that could be wishful thinking.

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I'm wondering how to deploy my thermal pads. I seem to remember that only the controllers (TB3, SSD's own) should be cooled because NAND chips actually prefer to run warm than cool.

I'd just go ahead and cover the entire side of the NVMe with a thermal pad. The pad won't cool the NAND chips so much that they won't be warm etc...

 

[ender78]

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A challenger appears. Will be putting this into service with my Mac Mini soon.

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Please let us know how it goes, I had the same drive die in a cheaper enclosure. Expect issue was heat. Tried to copy 2TB of data to the drive, it died at 1.6TB. Need a new enclosure.

 

[Chancha]

Please let us know how it goes, I had the same drive die in a cheaper enclosure. Expect issue was heat. Tried to copy 2TB of data to the drive, it died at 1.6TB. Need a new enclosure.

Your NVMe didn't literally die right (beyond repair)? I thought heat would just slow down the chips or perhaps the controller would do a forced shutdown of some sort?

 

[ender78]

Your NVMe didn't literally die right (beyond repair)? I thought heat would just slow down the chips or perhaps the controller would do a forced shutdown of some sort?

No , dead dead . I may have contributed to its failure by unplugging the enclosure when it froze. The ORICO USB-C enclosure I had it in was more than warm to the touch. I have an RMA I need to mail out today. I did use ADATA's thermal pad but not the one that came with the enclosure. (UN)Luckily this happened shortly after I got the drive installed (within two weeks of purchases).

I bought two enclosures so far, one that was metallic (QNINE) and would theoretically do a better job in shedding heat and a more plasticky ORICO

ORICO NVME M.2 to Type-C USB3.1 Gen2 10Gbps Transparent External Hard Drive Adapter Enclosure for 2280 2260 2242 2230 PCI-E M2 M-Key SSD, USB Type C Converter Case With C to C & C to A Cable (TCM2-Blue)

ORICO NVME M.2 to Type-C USB3.1 Gen2 10Gbps Transparent External Hard Drive Adapter Enclosure for 2280 2260 2242 2230 PCI-E M2 M-Key SSD, USB Type C Converter Case With C to C & C to A Cable (TCM2-Blue)

www.amazon.ca

QNINE NVME SSD Enclosure, PCIe NVME M.2 to USB C Enclosure, Based on JMS583 USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) to PCIe Gen 3 x2 Bridge Chip, Included 2 USB Cables, Fit for Samsung 960/970 EVO/PRO WD Black NVME SSD

QNINE NVME SSD Enclosure, PCIe NVME M.2 to USB C Enclosure, Based on JMS583 USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) to PCIe Gen 3 x2 Bridge Chip, Included 2 USB Cables, Fit for Samsung 960/970 EVO/PRO WD Black NVME SSD

www.amazon.ca

I did not like the QNINE because it has blue LEDs that seemed to pulse/be always on even when I was not reading from the drive.

I am exploring a less portable solution that has a fan. I'm not sure that I have the confidence that some of the high performance SSDs can be passively cooled.

 

[frou]

I'd just go ahead and cover the entire side of the NVMe with a thermal pad. The pad won't cool the NAND chips so much that they won't be warm etc...

IIRC there are matching NAND chips on the underside of the SSD too. Only thing they could be coupled to with pads is the enclosure's green PCB and that doesn't seem right. So why would the topside ones need different treatment?

Maybe I'll try it anyway because I need to take the thing apart because I forgot to record the SSD's serial number.

Please let us know how it goes, I had the same drive die in a cheaper enclosure. Expect issue was heat. Tried to copy 2TB of data to the drive, it died at 1.6TB. Need a new enclosure.

I'm already noticing that the SX8200Pro can run very hot. It is definitely making it to the outside surface of this new Orico enclosure so I guess that at least means the heat transfer is working well.

 

[Ifti]

I have a ThunderBlade V4 drive, and upon opening it up the 4 1TB OWC SSDs inside do have chips on both sides, as well as cooling paste on both sides too....
I'm looking to replace these with the 2TB 970 Evo Plus drives, which only seem to have chips on one side of the board, so I'll be placing pads on one side of the drive.....

These drives are designed to throttle if temps are too high - you could always use as it is and see whether you have any issues?

 

[smta1111]

A challenger appears. Will be putting this into service with my Mac Mini soon.

Any of you know what are the differences between the SCM2T3-G40 mentioned above, and the previous Orico TB3 enclosures APM2T3-G40 and TFM2T3-G40?

 

[nicho]

Any of you know what are the differences between the SCM2T3-G40 mentioned above, and the previous Orico TB3 enclosures APM2T3-G40 and TFM2T3-G40?

I’m pretty sure they appeared on their tmall store at the same time. I think they’re “alternative” rather than “previous”. Just different aesthetics.

 

[Ifti]

Picked up the ORICO drive - here are my thoughts and test with a Samsung 970 Evo Plus....

 

[Fishrrman]

Nice review!

 

[smta1111]

Picked up the ORICO drive - here are my thoughts and test with a Samsung 970 Evo Plus....

Thanks for the nice review, @Ifti . How thick would you say the included thermal pad is?

 

[Ifti]

Thanks for the nice review, @Ifti . How thick would you say the included thermal pad is?

Its quite thick - around 2mm

 

[rewrew999]

Picked up the ORICO drive - here are my thoughts and test with a Samsung 970 Evo Plus....

very LOW write speed because the "EVO PLUS" version isn't 100% compatible with ANY thunderbolt enclosure...TRY the 970 normal EVO or PRO and double the write speed instantly

 

[Ifti]

very LOW write speed because the "EVO PLUS" version isn't 100% compatible with ANY thunderbolt enclosure...TRY the 970 normal EVO or PRO and double the write speed instantly

Should be OK now:

Samsung releases new firmware for 970 EVO Plus that resolves macOS compatibility issues - BarTechTV

This page contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Introduction Samsung today released a new firmware update for the 970 [...]

bartechtv.com

 

[Chancha]

I'm already noticing that the SX8200Pro can run very hot. It is definitely making it to the outside surface of this new Orico enclosure so I guess that at least means the heat transfer is working well.

I have my SX8200 Pro in a JEYI gen 1 enclosure, also only applied thermal pads on the top side since the underside NANDs are almost touching the PCB. I am unsure if this is a the reason but I am only getting <2GB/s read/write, I suspect the excessive heat buildup is slowing down my performance. Really curious how much speed you manage to get out of the same SSD but in your ORICO?

 

[Ifti]

These things get REALLY hot. Just by performing a single speed test on the drive for about 30 seconds, the NVMe feels instantly hot. This will certainly throttle the drive and the aggressiveness will depend upon the limits the drive manufacturer has built into place.

I set up 4 Samsung 970 Evo Plus 2TB drives in a external RAID 0 array yesterday (via a ThunderBolt 3 enclosure) and although read speeds were in excess of 2GB/s, the write speeds were around 1400MB/s. Considering my OWC NVMe's give me in well in excess of 2.5GB/s read/write when set up in the same configuration I was expecting more. But then again, whether you would notice a difference in speed during day-to-day general usage would be questionable anyways......

 

[Ifti]

Ok, another NVMe enclosure here - but this time its built into a TB3 dock as well. This is probably my ideal solution and the one I'll stick with for now!

 

[Earl Urley]

Ok, so the TekQ Cubes became available again on Amazon for only $135 with no SSD included, so I picked up one, and put in an old formula Sabrent 1 TB SSD with 12.3 firmware and got some good results.


Not too bad at all! I thought about that T3 hub with the built-in SSD enclosure, but decided I'd rather get a separate CalDigiti TS3 Plus.

Both tested with included TB3 cable and a 2019 16-inch rMBP running Catalina 10.15.3.

Definitely is going to help with backups. All the USB 3 NVMe enclosures I've tried can't really do more than 800-930 MB/sec, so I'd rather have this to backup with.

Whoops forgot to mention it's TB3 only, so only good on 2016 rMBPs and later. There aren't any adapters for TB3 to USB3 other than full size hubs..

 

[EmmEff]

Is anybody using any of the above mentioned enclosures as their boot drive? Is this even possible? I have a Fusion drive iMac and if I could boot from one of these devices, it'd make a big improvement.

 

[Stephen.R]

So, on a whim (and based on the reasonably positive experiences from some others here) I ordered the Orico TB3 case the other day. Unfortunately the only one they had in stock was the "smooth" version (i.e. no outer 'vanes' that give the impression they assist with heat dissipation). It seems like perhaps its largely aesthetics anyway, as the prices and information on them are the same anyway.

So theoretically I could take the existing ADATA SX 6000 M2 out of the USB3.1G2 case it's in and pop it into the Orico TB3 case, but I bought it knowing it was going into a USB case, so it's a cheaper model, which tops out at around 2400/1200 MB/s (read/write) anyway IIRC, so it seems like a waste to put it into a TB3 case.

Despite the slower (e.g. compared to the internal SSDs in either 2018 MBP15 or 2018 Mac mini) I've been pretty happy with it, and my usual supplier does have it's bigger brother - the SX8200 at 3500/3000 MB/s - available, significantly cheaper than e.g. the 970 Plus or Pro (it's less than half the price of the 970 Pro, and claims faster write speeds.

However there's also other contenders too - the Seagate FireCuda 510 is not much more expensive than the ADATA for similar claimed reads speeds and even faster claimed write speeds. There's also the WD Black and SanDisk both at the same general price and speed as the 970 Plus.


So, here's my question: is there any specifically known issue wit the ADATA SX8200? It's only 58% the price of the 970 Plus/WD Black/Sandisk, and a ridiculous 40% the price of the 970 Pro, and they all claim very similar speeds.

 

[radus]

question: is there any specifically known issue wit the ADATA SX8200? It's only 58% the price of the 970 Plus/WD Black/Sandisk, and a ridiculous 40% the price of the 970 Pro, and they all claim very similar speeds.

Adata only 1TB DDR3 Cache compared to 2TB DDR4 Cache and I think also less SLC-Cache

 

[Stephen.R]

Adata only 1TB DDR3 Cache compared to 2TB DDR4 Cache and I think also less SLC-Cache

... Could you clarify what you mean.. are you saying the ADATA 1TB uses DDR3 but the 2TB uses DDR4... or did you mean to use some unit other than TB, and were comparing ADATA to.. some other brand?

 

[radus]

... Could you clarify what you mean.. are you saying the ADATA 1TB uses DDR3 but the 2TB uses DDR4... or did you mean to use some unit other than TB, and were comparing ADATA to.. some other brand?

Samsung and some other use DDR4 but Adata uses DDR3