OWC 1TB Express 1M2 40Gb/s Portable NVMe SSD USB4 (Thunderbolt Compatible/USB-C) Ultra Fast External SSD Drive with Aluminum Heat Sink Enclosure

If you’re like me and edit photos and videos for a living while also not wanting to overspend on Apple’s higher storage tiers, this is a godsend!My previous enclosure for a 4TB SSD was an ORICO 40Gbps model with a fan. It was among the first of the 40gbp models at the time, but problems began immediately when using it on my Mac. It would disconnect multiple times, only stopping after I manually ejected and reconnected the drive. This put my video and image files at serious risk as anyone in our line of work would know, but I brushed it off as a design quirk until I discovered the real issue. Overheating.The ORICO would get so hot that it could literally burn you if you touched the metal top of its plastic shell. My breaking point came when, in the middle of an edit in Final Cut Pro, the drive disconnected yet again. That was when I decided to cut my losses, wrap it up, and search for the fastest, most reliable solution i can find.I'm happy to say that search ended with this OWC enclosure and honestly, I couldn’t be happier. Not only does it do exactly what it’s supposed to, but I can finally work without worrying about disconnects or losing my files. The solid metal body and finned design act as a massive heatsink, pulling heat away from the SSD and dissipating it naturally. This keeps the drive safe from overheating, prevents thermal throttling, and ensures I can take FULL advantage of my SSD’s maximum performance. Also while yes it goes get warm, you won't have to worry about burning yourself like the old drive I had.All this mind you, is working without a fan! That's how good the heat management on this thing is!Design-wise its's perfectly matched to my M4 Pro Mac Mini setup, it's small, and lightweight. You don't need extra software or drivers that are needed to run it, you just plug it in and it shows up as a storage device on Mac. The only setup required on your end is applying the thermal tape so it makes solid contact with both the SSD chips and the enclosure. It's nice and thick so you know its going to make full contact on both parts.This is my first OWC product, and it certainly now won’t be my last.If I could give it 10 stars, I would!!!

It's the beefiest of all of the enclosures I've looked at and for a very good reason: it sustains performance like a champ. I use it with a 2TB Western Digital SN850X, known for its sustained performance thanks to the DRAM cache, and OWC 1M2 definitely keeps up.I get 2800MB/s write and 2900MB/S speeds on a base 16" M1 Macbook Pro, which is great for 6.2K Open Gate and 4K 60 video editing. Copying files from my Fujifilm X-S20 and Sony FX-30 is a breeze and the enclosure never gets hot to the touch, only slightly warm. On top of that, the enclosure feels premium, looks amazing and is fairly portable, the latter probably being it's most significant negative.Totally recommended!

If you buy one that has an included nvme already installed, it will be formatted for the Apple file system. It comes with a very small booklet (really has piece of paper folded) explaining how to reformat it. It is extremely easy! It sent me to their website, I downloaded an app and ran it, literally 5 seconds later it was reformatted for NTFS file system.I run games on this! New current AAA titles requiring SSDs! I have not ran a diagnostics, I thought it was pointless since in the reviews section others have. For my use with this device I have no reason to doubt the existing tests.I initially bought this to house my steam library. Many new games require an SSD to run properly. My computer only has two terabytes of SSD storage. That may seem like a lot, and it is. With new games requiring 70 to 200 GB each that fills up fast. My intention was to be able to switch which games are on my internal nvme. It's quicker to switch drives, even with a slower drive, than it is to download, changing install location is a wonderful feature that steam has. Out of curiosity I tried running several games, and was surprised to see there was no issue whatsoever, so now I just run them off the external drive. I factually could not tell It was running from an external nvme.I have it in a well ventilated location. I have never experienced it getting hot, only warm. The metal housing displaces heat extremely well.

For my experience with this product, I have a M4 Mac mini base model. I've tried other cheaper versions of external enclosures and the disconnection issue happened. This one does not. I have a crucial P3 plus 1 terabyte and I get 2785 write speed and 2854 Reed speed in the back thunderbolt 4 port. It does get warm, but you can very easily hold it. The chord in the box is thunderbolt four and there was no difference between three different certified chords I've tried with this enclosure.

While I had to return this because it did not exactly meet my needs, I can say that this is a very well-made piece of equipment and that it works well. It is, however, quite large and heavy. Those are the aspects that did not meet my needs as I travel often, and this was simply too big and heavy to easy carry in my computer case. Had it been a bit smaller and lighter I definitely would have kept it, and it would probably have lasted forever.