Smart choice for a 4TB NVMe

[jeffshead]

I have this UGREEN enclosure and I'm looking for the best NVMe drive for my use-case. The drive will be used for transferring large files (both directions) and for long durations. It won't be used for long-term storage.

Unfortunately, most drive reviews focus on top DRAM speeds for gaming or ordinary computer use. Sustained speed and reliability are my main concerns. I guess heat would be another factor. It will be used primarily with USB 3.0 and 3.1. Mechanical external drives just aren't fast enough. For example, I performed a 2TB file backup/restore and it took nearly 6 hours with a mechanical drive running at 80-110 MB/s.

Which drive is the best value for my use-case and are prices going to continue trending upwards? Should I buy now or wait a few months.

Thanks!

J

 

[JWNoctis]

TPU's own SSD Database can be a good source of the info you need.

For your specific use case, absolute sequential speed and PCIe version won't matter much since the interface is limited at <500MB/s~1G/s anyway. What mattered is sustained write speed after cache exhaustion. I have a similar setup with a drive that drops to ~300MB/s write(WD SN570) after maybe a few GBs of writes. It's still fast enough for most uses, though.

You would also want at least a TLC drive for better performance and TBW life, and you don't actually have to worry about power consumption too much. An advantage with external enclosures is that you can simply point a fan at it, if it gets warm. The market appeared to be pretty saturated these days, but I have zero idea where the prices would go.

 

[A Computer Guy]

I have this UGREEN enclosure and I'm looking for the best NVMe drive for my use-case. The drive will be used for transferring large files (both directions) and for long durations. It won't be used for long-term storage.

Unfortunately, most drive reviews focus on top DRAM speeds for gaming or ordinary computer use. Sustained speed and reliability are my main concerns. I guess heat would be another factor. It will be used primarily with USB 3.0 and 3.1. Mechanical external drives just aren't fast enough. For example, I performed a 2TB file backup/restore and it took nearly 6 hours with a mechanical drive running at 80-110 MB/s.

Which drive is the best value for my use-case and are prices going to continue trending upwards? Should I buy now or wait a few months.

Thanks!

J

If your enclosure does not include an external power option you should consider the power a drive requires in your purchase and what port you intend to use it on. I found this out the hard way by accident trying to use an NVMe in an enclosure with a motherboard that could not supply the required power to a front panel connector.

USB 3.2 and 3.1 Explained: What's Gen 1, Gen 2 and Gen 2x2?

Confused about all the USB 3.x standards? We have answers.

www.tomshardware.com

(edit)

In many cases the power requirements are printed on the NVMe sticker.

You may find these links helpful.

Amps to watts (W) conversion calculator

Amps (A) to watts (W) conversion calculator.

www.rapidtables.com

Watts to amps (A) conversion calculator

Electric power in Watts (W) to electric current in amps (A) calculator.

www.rapidtables.com

 

[evernessince]

Refer to this chart for sustained writes:

Pretty much any of the listed drives save for maybe the patriot one has sustained writes exceeding the speed of the interface.

The Acer Predator has the lowest power consumption if you exclude the patriot drive as well at 3.62w. Endurance on the Acer is better than most of the others as well.

Prices are likely to continuing increasing as NAND supply reduction continues to tighten the market.

 

[jeffshead]

Thanks everyone! Great info.

I never really thought about power consumption. That's got me thinking about heat and throttling. Since I'm limited by USB, is heat still a concern? I'll be moving TB's of data, at a time.

I've read a few posts that indicate multiple NVMe manufacturers, including the big dogs, are quietly swapping controllers and other components which could be causing disconnects. Should I also consider a ready-made external drive like the Samsung T7 or is there a particular NVMe enclosure that's better than my UGREEN for my use-case?

I need something that I can depend on that's not going to throttle or die on me, in the field, but yet still maxes out the connection. I was leaning towards the SN850X or 990 Pro but now I'm concerned about power/heat. After researching for days, the Acer GM7000 was never on my radar but it looks promising. It seems to have a slightly higher percentage of reported issues but it's now at the top of my list.

 

[A Computer Guy]

Thanks everyone! Great info.

I never really thought about power consumption. That's got me thinking about heat and throttling. Since I'm limited by USB, is heat still a concern? I'll be moving TB's of data, at a time.

I've read a few posts that indicate multiple NVMe manufacturers, including the big dogs, are quietly swapping controllers and other components which could be causing disconnects. Should I also consider a ready-made external drive like the Samsung T7 or is there a particular NVMe enclosure that's better than my UGREEN for my use-case?

I need something that I can depend on that's not going to throttle or die on me, in the field, but yet still maxes out the connection. I was leaning towards the SN850X or 990 Pro but now I'm concerned about power/heat. After researching for days, the Acer GM7000 was never on my radar but it looks promising. It seems to have a slightly higher percentage of reported issues but it's now at the top of my list.

Using the links I provided you can recalculate the power from 3.3v to 5 to help you decide on a model based on power consumption.

For heat you could try to find an NVMe enclosure that encompasses a decent heatsink or would tolerate the addition of a heatsink. My limited experience with a Sumsung 970 Evo get's incredibly hot after copying hundreds of GB of data in a sealed NVMe enclosure without airflow. Remember nand likes reasonable hot, controllers not so much, so you don't need to go insane on cooling. I picked a poor enclosure but luckily it allows me to use it with the cover off so I can put some airflow on it if needed.

I would think USB ready made drives may be tuned specifically USB power usage and heat dissipation with it's case design including supporting TRIM where some external enclosures may not support TRIM. Products like WD Passport also include their typical encryption package as well which can be a plus.

USB aside there are other solutions that might be appealing if it fits your use case. Such as this icy dock product.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BL92QT2Y

 

[jeffshead]

I think I'm going to go for the WD Red SN700 4TB for $329 since it's gen 3 (lower heat???) , has 5100TBW and consistent sustained writes. If someone thinks this is a mistake, by all means chime in. You won't hurt my feelings

I'll try it with my UGREEN enclosure. If there's heat issues, maybe the OWC Express 1M2 enclosure would be worth purchasing.

 

[evernessince]

Thanks everyone! Great info.

I never really thought about power consumption. That's got me thinking about heat and throttling. Since I'm limited by USB, is heat still a concern? I'll be moving TB's of data, at a time.

From my experience with NVMe enclosures yes heat can be an issue. I like putting mine on top of my PC where a fan exhausts to keep it cool, otherwise it hits 82c. It's only an issue when doing backups.

I've read a few posts that indicate multiple NVMe manufacturers, including the big dogs, are quietly swapping controllers and other components which could be causing disconnects. Should I also consider a ready-made external drive like the Samsung T7 or is there a particular NVMe enclosure that's better than my UGREEN for my use-case?

Yes, some brands like switching out controller / NAND used after reviews. You can look at the TPU SSD database to see if a model you are interested in has multiple variants. It's not perfect but it's got most of them in there. Buying an external SSD that comes with the enclosure wouldn't remove the potential for that to happen.

There are 40 Gbps enclosures but they are some $70.

I need something that I can depend on that's not going to throttle or die on me, in the field, but yet still maxes out the connection.

You can look at the TBW figure for an idea of how long a particular SSD will last. Aside from that SSD, controller failures do happen but are pretty rare. SSDs are much more reliable than HDDs.

Now by "in the field" do you you are going to be taking this with you as a portable drive? If so you may want to consider a ruggedized enclosure, one with waterproofing is a plus: https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Rugged-Waterproof-Enclosure-EC-WPNE/dp/B0887R3BS4/

I was leaning towards the SN850X or 990 Pro but now I'm concerned about power/heat. After researching for days, the Acer GM7000 was never on my radar but it looks promising. It seems to have a slightly higher percentage of reported issues but it's now at the top of my list.

Both the SN850X and 990 Pro are good drives but they are optimized towards lower latency and as a result they have higher power consumption. They have higher overall performance and about equal sustained performance but lower endurance. In your use case the GM7000 is the better choice.

Alternatively there's also the Lexar NM790 4TB. Equal endurance to the GM7000, faster (although it won't mean anything with the given enclosure), and a bit more efficient but about $15 more expensive.

 

[jeffshead]

So I ended purchasing the WD SN700 4TB and the OWC 1M2 enclosure.

I went with the SN700 because it's gen 3@3.7 W (Avg) power usage, sustained writes at approximately 1,700 MBps as opposed to the GM7000 which is gen 4@5.2 W (Avg) power usage, sustained writes at approximately 1,400 MBps. Maybe I overlooked something as to why the GM7000 is a better drive but those are the figures that caught my eye and why I went for the WD.

That OWC enclosure is big and heavy compared to all other enclosures and appears to be real, machined aluminum and not "pot metal" like some of the others. It does its job very well. During testing. I used FastCopy to move 2TB of data and it never got above 39c.

Size comparison of the 1M2 next to the UGREEN 90408:

As far as speed, I got mixed results. I tested with three computers. An Optiplex 7070 micro, 7050 micro and a Latitude 7400 2-in-1 laptop. I found out that the USB-C port on the 7070 is flaky. It's supposed to be USB 3.1 Gen 2 but it performed about the same as the port on the 7050 which is USB 3.1 Gen 1. I ran a bunch of tests with swapping the drives in both enclosures. They both performed about the same except the 1M2 was a bit faster and of course it kept the drives cooler.

This is what I get using the USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C port with Thunderbolt 3 on the Latitude:

This is what I get using the USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A port on the back of the 7070:

 

[Carlyle2020hs]

It´ll run.
Mind you almost uncomfortably to the touch after a long copy session. At least that cooler in combination with both those samsung and the wd one.
So please keep it on something that soaks up heat rather than an insulator like neoprene soft mousepads.

Most plug them directly to the motherboard since anything else is slower.
Sometimes only marginally.
Often significantly.

 

[Wirko]

So I ended purchasing the WD SN700 4TB and the OWC 1M2 enclosure.

The WD you chose has DRAM built in, probably 4 GB of it, and that's an important feature. Some popular SSDs (WD SN770, SN580, Lexar NM790, NM710) are DRAM-less, so they need to use a small part of system memory (HMB, host memory buffer) for optimum operation - and indeed the performance of these SSDs is very good. But HMB doesn't work over USB.

 

[DaemonForce]

Some questions.

The drive will be used for transferring large files (both directions) and for long durations. It won't be used for long-term storage.

So the drive will be used for big data transfer jobs but not long term. Is that just the case for immediate duty or the life of the disk?
Assuming you will retire this drive, what will it be used for? How do you see that working out?
My SSD history looks like this:
Sata: 30GB, 60GB, 120GB, 16GB
M.2: 240GB
PCI-E/SAS: 400GB
The 30GB is dead, replaced with a 60GB which is...Somewhere around here without a real purpose (nearline storage). 120GB is in my workstation, 240GB boots the workstation, 16GB boots the rack and 400GB is just kinda there in the rack for long term storage until I finish shuffling a lot of stuff around.
My 240GB M.2 is on the way out. It has been this way for a few years as my first M.2 populating the M.2_2 slot of this board, doing its best at g3x4 speeds.
It's been rough.

I recently picked up a PCI-E x1 adapter for using this in an older system as a boot drive or cache/scratch space when I retire it.
Are you planning on keeping your enclosure dedicated to that 4TB SSD or will you eventually obsolete it with something else?
It's a good idea to keep an eye on the exit.

 

[massaker]

They both performed about the same except the 1M2 was a bit faster and of course it kept the drives cooler.

OWC 1M2 should be MUCH faster, but only on USB3.2 Gen2x2/20Gbps, Thunderbolt 3/4 and USB4 ports.

using the USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C port with Thunderbolt 3 on the Latitude

What do you mean, is it with OWC USB4-Enclosure @ Thunderbolt Port? - but it runs @ 10Gbps only? Even @ old TB3-Port and old CPU inside it should reach three times the values.

 

[jeffshead]

What do you mean, is it with OWC USB4-Enclosure @ Thunderbolt Port? - but it runs @ 10Gbps only? Even @ old TB3-Port and old CPU inside it should reach three times the values.

I used the cables that came with each enclosure. The UGREEN enclosure is rated for up to 10Gbps.

This is the cable that came with the 1M2:

Below are the tests I did using the supposed thunderbolt 3 port on the laptop.

UGREEN enclosure with SN700:

OWC 1M2 enclosure with SN700:

OWC 1M2 enclosure with SAMSUNG MZVLW256HEHP-000L7 256.0 GB drive:

I don't have any other computers with Thunderbolt or USB 3.2 2x2 to test with.

 

[SPDIF]

Normal speeds for external enclosure, around 1000MB/s not much more you get out of it, but double the speed of SATA!
It does not matter what SSD you install, the USB controller is the bottleneck here. For external enclosure a cheap SSD is good enough, because you will not get more speed out of it. Faster SSD only will use more power and more heat that slows the SSD down.

You even have enclosures now with a build in ventilator! Crazy! A storage medium that now needs active cooling? No thanks a lot. I wait until they are less power hungry.

Something like a SN770 is more then enough for external enclosure. They are cheap now. Also don't forget, you can't upgrade firmware of an SSD installed in a USB enclosure.

 

[massaker]

This is the cable that came with the 1M2:

looks good, nevertheless, your OWC-USB4-enclosure runs @ 10Gbps. You could check it in CrystalDisk Info -> field "Transfer Mode" -> should be "PCIe 3.0 x4 | PCIe 3.0 x4" if you have Thunderbolt 3-enclosure (with JHL-6340 or JHL-7440 bridge chip), or "PCIe 3.0 x4 | PCIe 4.0 x4" if you have Gen3-SSD in USB4-enclosure (applies in your case). If your connection is USB3.x you will just see "---- | ----" there.

P.S.: here a couple examples for you:
if i connect my USB4-enclosure to USB Gen2/10Gbps host:

Here, connected to Gen2x2/20Gbps-Port, unfortunately my mainboed has the old Asmedia ASM3241-Host chip (not the new ASM3242 one), so it's more like 16Gbps-Port (@ PCIe3.0x2, not 4 lanes as the new one) -> the maximum speed this port reaches is ~1600 MB/s:

And now, USB4-enclosure @ TB4 port - it's 3 y.o. AMD-AM4 system, so the speeds are not great, you can reach ~3300-3500 @ TB4-host (and 3700-3900 @ USB4-host):

with NVMe-SSD-setting:

These are virtually the same result, you will get with TB3-enclosure:

If you use an older Gen3-SSD you will probably experience slightly lower speeds, here with my old 970Pro i have lower write speeds (but higher read speeds):

You should achieve approximately the same speeds on the two TB3-ports.

 

[jeffshead]

Crap... After spending hours troubleshooting the device not being recognized as a Thunderbolt device, I just found this small note on the OWC 1M2 product page:

 

[Wirko]

@massaker
Can you perhaps explain why random Q1 transfers are so slow over USB 3? The random read latency of good SSDs is around 40 us, which results in 25k IOPS, or 100 MB/s. It looks like USB adds at least 40 us (and/or a lot of protocol overhead) to that, thus halving the transfer rate. Is USB 3 really that bad, latency wise?

 

[massaker]

I just found this small note on the OWC 1M2 product page

Strange, thought USB4 was fully TB3 compatible. look here:
ASM2464PD|ASMedia Technology Inc.
Perhaps their own in-house tests with TB3 were not successful
Anyway, please look in Device Manager and make sure your TB3-Ports are correctly installed, i have:

Then look in Thunderbolt Control Center under "Info", i have:

The most important line is the last one: "NVM Firmware Ver." -> please report, which version do you have.

 

[jeffshead]

If your connection is USB3.x you will just see "---- | ----" there.

Yep, that's what I have.

Anyway, please look in Device Manager and make sure your TB3-Ports are correctly installed

I wish I had another TB3 computer to test with. I requested OWC Support verify, in-house, that the 1M2 should be recognized as a TB3 device. They just responded with it will run at 10Gbps.

Are there any other enclosures available that passively cool as well as the 1M2 does? I haven't seen any. I'm just a little taken back by the fact that this is an upper tier priced enclosure but it doesn't seem to properly support TB3.

 

[jeffshead]

Just tested the 1M2 with a Lenovo T14 Gen4 Thinkpad laptop with TB4. The 1M2 is not detected as a TB device nor is it even detected as a USB device when connecting with the OWC supplied 40Gbps cable to either of the two USB-C/TB ports. TB is enabled in the BIOS and the laptop is fully updated. The 1M2 is detected as a USB 3x device if I connect it with the USB-C cable that came with the UGREEN enclosure but it tops out at 1,060 MBps.

 

[Hardcore Games]

I have USB-C boxes for SATA and NVMe devices and connected to my T14 they work at USB 3.1 speeds which is 10 gigabit speed so the devices are not throttled by the USB boxes much at all.

This makes it handy to upgrade a machine as the old SSD can be copied to a new one after a fresh install of Windows, cloud handles a lot.

 

[jeffshead]

The 1M2 is not detected as a TB device nor is it even detected as a USB device when connecting with the OWC supplied 40Gbps cable to either of the two USB-C/TB ports.

I don't know why, but nothing that I did could make the T14 see the 1M2 with the OWC supplied cable. I tried a different 40GB cable, reinstalled TB and USB system devices and drivers. Nothing worked.

What finally made the T14 recognize the 1M2 as a USB device, was upgrading the OS from Win10 to Win11.

 

[massaker]

What finally made the T14 recognize the 1M2 as a USB device, was upgrading the OS from Win10 to Win11

Oh......congrats... Well then, what speeds did you achieve? Show us at least a CDM screenshot.

 

[jeffshead]

Show us at least a CDM screenshot.

Odd that the read and write is so far apart when compared to the other CDM tests which were ran on the other computer.