OWC 8TB Express 1M2 Portable NVMe Thunderbolt (USB-C) SSD USB4 Ultra Fast External SSD Drive with Aluminum Heat Sink Enclosure

Excellent, Smithers!I installed a WD Black 2TB SN850X NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD and attached the OWC Express 1M2 to a Thunderbolt 5 port of my Mac M4 Pro mini via the supplied OWC 40 Gb/s cable.The Blackmagic disk speed test reports over 3400 MB/s write and read speeds during continuous testing. These speed are roughly half the nominal 6600 MB/s sequential write speed and 7300 MB/s sequential read speed of the WD SN850X. But the speed limitation is likely due to the OWC 40 Gb/s cable and/or the USB4 interface of the 1M2.I had previously installed the WD SN850X into a Sabrent USB 3.2 enclosure for PCIe M.2 NVMe and measured 950 MB/s write and read speeds, so the nominal OWC 40 Gb/s speed is indeed four times faster than the nominal Sabrent 10 Gb/s speed.During continuous Blackmagic disk speed testing, the OWC 1M2 enclosure feels warm but not hot. Time will tell whether the 1M2 provides adequate heat dissipation to promote longevity for the WD SN850X.Of concern is that the OWC Express 1M2 spontaneously disconnected twice during the first three hours after I attached it to my M4 Pro mini. I have discussed these disconnections with an OWC customer service representative, who has asked me to test the 1M2 with a different cable. If no disconnections occur with that cable, OWC will send another 40 Gb/s cable to me for further testing. Stay tuned...Some reviewers have complained that the OWC Express 1M2 is too expensive. You get what you pay for. OWC's pricing is not rock-bottom but its quality is exceptional. I have purchased numerous memory and SSD upgrades for older-generation Mac minis. None of those upgrades have ever failed.

Couldn't be better. Its blazing fast and stays cool. I threw in the Western Digital WDS800T2X0E which is their 8TB black NVMe SSD card. Fits snug and great. I think its gets good contact with the enclosure to dissipate heat. I immediately transferred roughly 4TB to it and renamed all of the files. It gets a little warm, but that's it, I wouldn't say it gets hot, but I am going to have fun with it and set it on a larger aluminum heat sink as a stand and put a fan on it. I am also going to buy another one and another 8TB card so I can mirror it and have redundancy. For the price, this enclosure with an 8TB NVMe seems to be the BEST bang for the buck. And with independent enclosures for each 8TB of data I care deeply about, I will feel safe having redundancy. I'm not worried about losing a drive, only internal component failures though it hasn't ever happened to me yet. Might end up with four of these and 32TB of space for 25% the cost of a NAS or DAS system. Don't pay for cloud storage, just get a bunch of OWC products and forget about data speeds ever being a problem. This thing is plenty quick. I can actively workflow Lightroom, Topaz, and Photoshop files from this with zero issues. If OWC would sell the four-bay version of this WITHOUT their built in NVMe drives I would get one.

Very nice solid external drive. The quality is very good, and the speeds are very fast. Paired it with a Samsung 990 Pro NVMe SSD 2TB and hooked it up to the thunderbolt 4 port on the back of the base model M4 Mac mini. Primarily utilizing this external drive to install and launch applications, and store files to reserve the space on the m4 minis internal drive. The drive is silent, but does get a bit warm - some caution there. The fin design does a good job of expelling heat as it cools down quickly. Perfect partner for the Mac mini, I have not experienced any disconnection issues that you can get from some other brands.

Did comparative testing with comparable Quiizlab model that I also purchased via Amazon Prime. Both connected to M1 Pro Macbook using Thunderbolt M.2 NVME SSD for all tests was a WD Blue SN5000 2TB model.Both enclosures performed IDENTICALLY across Black Magic Speed Test and Amorphous Disk Mark, which would be expected since the throttle will be the TB controller and the SSD itself exceeds those thresholds. Black Magic Speed Test results approx. 3000MBps Write and 3000MBps Read (compared to 5200/5200 internal SSD). Amorphous Disk Mark results 3400/3200, 2800/2500, 860/115, 45/30 ... again were IDENTICAL across the two enclosures.The OWC unit had very good cooling via the thermal pads to the huge aluminum chassis. Ran ~ 35 C degrees (95 degrees F). Comparably speaking, the Quiizlab unit ran hot ~ 40 C degrees.Very pleased with this OWC unit and will be using with my new M4 Mac Mini base model where I will be moving Home Folder to the external SSD. Both of these units outperformed write/read speeds on internal SSD for the 256gb base Mac Mini M4.NOTE: The one I received appeared to have been USED. The box was not sealed and the thermal pads were already affixed to the chassis. I did post a Seller Review on the issue and will be returning for a new unit.

If adding to Apple IOS "Time Machine" and "Disc Utility" (already in my standard software) was all I needed. I went 49% Time Machine back up and 49% everything else for files etc. Worked well, seems like quality, EZ to use (comes with a nice cable).

Data transfer speed is 6.0-6.1 GB/sec with Thunderbolt 5, and 3.0-3.2GB/sec on TB 4. Tested with Black Magic Disk Test on M4Max Studio. Enclosure runs warm even when not transferring data. May be due to WD 2TB Black NVMe SSD characteristics, I don't know. No complaints. Reasonably priced. Easy to mount internal drive, but removal looks to be a different outcome.