Recommended external SSDs for sample libraries
- Thread starter Phazma
- Start date
ChoPraTs
Member
Thank you!
The only drawback I see is that each T7 drive takes up one port on the computer and they do not come prepared for DaisyChain. In fact, I don't know to what extent it would be advisable to connect them to another device that does allow DaisyChain instead of directly to the Mac Studio port, as I understand that this would cause it to lose performance.
By the time more storage is needed, it will be difficult to expand it.
On my 2017 iMac with Thunderbolt 3 I'm using a 4 nvme enclosure that I'm pretty happy with as it's pretty quiet, cools them down, only takes up one TB port, and even allows for DaisyChain (Netstor NA622TB3). The only drawback is that I'm planning to buy a Mac Studio someday, and I would like to use it as a portable computer when I travel. And this 4 nvme enclosure maybe is a little big and heavy to travel with, in addition, it requires power supply.
Unfortunately, I think that a portable/small system that can house at least 2 NVME or 2 SSDs in the same box, without the need for a power supply, that only occupies one Thundebolt port on the computer, that supports DaisyChain in case that other things have to be connected to it and that takes full advantage of the bandwidth of the Thunderbolt 4 port, does not exist for now.
Configurin the Mac Studio with 8 TB of space, for now, is considered the ideal option, but it is very, very expensive. And surely in the future, it will also end up full, haha.
Dug out my numbers and according to Blackmagic, the Acasis+CrucialCP3Plus combo (will refer to just as CP3+) over TB4 was indeed faster than the Samsung T7 Shield (T7S) over USB 3.2. Both were connected over the OWC Thunderbolt 4 Docking Station to my M2Max MBP.
Blackmagic:
T7S: Write 820MB/s ; Read 530MB/s
C3P+: Write: 1720MB/s ; Read 2050MB/s
Also copying large amounts of data from the Internal SSD to the external was faster towards the C3P+ than towards the T7S, but not by much. These are the times for copying an unpacked 8Dio library of 115GB (130000 items) to either drive.
IntSSD -> T7S: 4min 45sec
IntSSD -> C3P+: 3min 25sec
In copying a single medium size file of 21GB from the internal to the external drive, the T7S beats the C3P+ in my test. However the other way around the C3P+ comes out on top again.
IntSSD -> T7S: 25sec
T7S -> IntSSD: 30sec
IntSSD -> C3P+: 35sec
C3P+ -> IntSSD: 8sec
I have done other tests but can't find the numbers anymore sadly. I remember in some instance it took the C3P+ much longer than the T7S for a file transfer, but can't remember exactly the circumstances and file type. Anyway, I guess the cause might have been thermal throttling.
What I do remember, is that I tested to load the same Kontakt libraries in Reaper from both drives, one being Cinematic Studio Strings which I remember taking always long to load, and with both drives it took the same time give or take 1sec to fully load samples into ram. I believe it was around 12sec (with Kontakt preload buffer at minimum). After they were loaded once, it only takes 2-3 sec to recall them again, even after closing and reopening Reaper.
All things considered, I came to the conclusion that the C3P+ isn't worth the extra money for the very little extra time it could save. The combo did cost me only 60€ more than the T7S and I might have kept it, if it didn't ran so hot, making it almost untouchable, as I need it also to be mobile and it might rest on my lap at times. Also I want to cut down on heat emitting devices as in summer months it can get hot and unconfortable. Lastly I don't want to take the risk and have the drive reveal itself to thermal throttle over extended use periods, making it slower than an ordinary SSD like the T7S.
The future proofing might be an argument for the C3P+, but at the price that ready made, rubber protected, small and comfortable USB 3.2 4TB T7S drives go for, I prefer to get those. For now they are good enough and once I need more storage and faster speeds, there will likely be 8TB Samsung drives utilizing newer and faster transfer protocols available for around the same price.
Blackmagic:
T7S: Write 820MB/s ; Read 530MB/s
C3P+: Write: 1720MB/s ; Read 2050MB/s
Also copying large amounts of data from the Internal SSD to the external was faster towards the C3P+ than towards the T7S, but not by much. These are the times for copying an unpacked 8Dio library of 115GB (130000 items) to either drive.
IntSSD -> T7S: 4min 45sec
IntSSD -> C3P+: 3min 25sec
In copying a single medium size file of 21GB from the internal to the external drive, the T7S beats the C3P+ in my test. However the other way around the C3P+ comes out on top again.
IntSSD -> T7S: 25sec
T7S -> IntSSD: 30sec
IntSSD -> C3P+: 35sec
C3P+ -> IntSSD: 8sec
I have done other tests but can't find the numbers anymore sadly. I remember in some instance it took the C3P+ much longer than the T7S for a file transfer, but can't remember exactly the circumstances and file type. Anyway, I guess the cause might have been thermal throttling.
What I do remember, is that I tested to load the same Kontakt libraries in Reaper from both drives, one being Cinematic Studio Strings which I remember taking always long to load, and with both drives it took the same time give or take 1sec to fully load samples into ram. I believe it was around 12sec (with Kontakt preload buffer at minimum). After they were loaded once, it only takes 2-3 sec to recall them again, even after closing and reopening Reaper.
All things considered, I came to the conclusion that the C3P+ isn't worth the extra money for the very little extra time it could save. The combo did cost me only 60€ more than the T7S and I might have kept it, if it didn't ran so hot, making it almost untouchable, as I need it also to be mobile and it might rest on my lap at times. Also I want to cut down on heat emitting devices as in summer months it can get hot and unconfortable. Lastly I don't want to take the risk and have the drive reveal itself to thermal throttle over extended use periods, making it slower than an ordinary SSD like the T7S.
The future proofing might be an argument for the C3P+, but at the price that ready made, rubber protected, small and comfortable USB 3.2 4TB T7S drives go for, I prefer to get those. For now they are good enough and once I need more storage and faster speeds, there will likely be 8TB Samsung drives utilizing newer and faster transfer protocols available for around the same price.
Clydesdale
New Member
Really appreciate you taking the time to dig that up and post it. There are quite a few of us in the same boat and likely more to come, so this thread will serve as a solid resource.
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Clydesdale
New Member
Renan Franzen
New Member
Is this the Samsung T7 you are mentioning? Just wanted to be sure since you said NVMe.
I believe performance wise it’s the same, just the one you linked is 2TB and without the rubber shield and the one I got is the 4TB version with rubber shield.
Amazon product ASIN B09S9N4T6K
girlwith800701cats
Member
The new external / portable Samsung SSD 8TB drive is coming out. Check it out here.
Do you all think this new drive is too slow for me / anyone else who cares to run Kontakt libraries with my standard libraries with the read and write speeds? Kind of a mess and it seems better for me to have a single 8TB drive I can get on Black Friday sale.
An 8TB drive does not feel worth it to me yet if it would be unusable.
Having 1 drive vs 2 external SSDs would be better if it could work.
That, and when do you think the price point will drop and 8TB drives become the norm?
Do you all think this new drive is too slow for me / anyone else who cares to run Kontakt libraries with my standard libraries with the read and write speeds? Kind of a mess and it seems better for me to have a single 8TB drive I can get on Black Friday sale.
An 8TB drive does not feel worth it to me yet if it would be unusable.
Having 1 drive vs 2 external SSDs would be better if it could work.
That, and when do you think the price point will drop and 8TB drives become the norm?
mikehalloran
New Member
I bought the the 8TB OWC Envoy Express. It's a 2-Lane TB3 drive using a single blade meaning it's limited to 1533 theoretical max speed. The only thing faster is a single blade 4-Lane enclosure (2800 MB/s) like the Samsung X5 but I cannot find one rated to handle an 8TB blade. The issue is heat—a 2-Lane enclosure runs a lot cooler. I'll live.
It's plenty fast with my 8TB M2 Studio Ultra but if an 8TB X5 was available, would have bought it.
At 400 MB/s, that is way, way, too slow. A SATA III in a USB 3 (now USB 3.2 Gen 1) enclosure is rated 560/520, about 27% faster overall. The Envoy Express I bought is nearly 4x faster than that Samsung and weighs 3.2 oz. Big difference in Kontakt, UVI and SampleTank load times. If that shows up on a Good Friday Sale, you won't be disappointed.
SSDs don't "burn in". A SATA III SSD and a USB 3.2 Gen 1 enclosure are about the same max speed and it's not very fast. Neither is the bottleneck. I have two of those exact drives for archival in a discontinued TB2 dock connected via the Apple TB3 to TB2 adapter showing up JBOD (I had this connected to my 18 Core iMac Pro). There the SATA III is the bottleneck and TB2 cannot make it faster.
You are missing the fact that the OWC Envoy Pro FX is 3x faster over Thunderbolt 3. Over USB 3.2 Gen 2, the speed is the same.
That's not true. Multiple T7s will show up JBOD on a TB3/4 hub or plugged into separate ports. Speed is unaffected as it's USB 3.2 Gen 2. RAID 0 is not an option as I've noted before.
The difference between TB3 and TB4 is that TB4 allows multiple TB3 devices (5 on a Mac according to Apple; 4 on a PC according to Intel) through daisy chain or a powered hub. Daisy chain does not support bus power, however.
What they don't tell you about the multi-blade drives is that each blade uses a single Lane — the only workaround is RAID 0 using something like SoftRaid. Everyone I know using that with Apple Silicon is having problems — no thank you!
It's plenty fast with my 8TB M2 Studio Ultra but if an 8TB X5 was available, would have bought it.
At 400 MB/s, that is way, way, too slow. A SATA III in a USB 3 (now USB 3.2 Gen 1) enclosure is rated 560/520, about 27% faster overall. The Envoy Express I bought is nearly 4x faster than that Samsung and weighs 3.2 oz. Big difference in Kontakt, UVI and SampleTank load times. If that shows up on a Good Friday Sale, you won't be disappointed.
SSDs don't "burn in". A SATA III SSD and a USB 3.2 Gen 1 enclosure are about the same max speed and it's not very fast. Neither is the bottleneck. I have two of those exact drives for archival in a discontinued TB2 dock connected via the Apple TB3 to TB2 adapter showing up JBOD (I had this connected to my 18 Core iMac Pro). There the SATA III is the bottleneck and TB2 cannot make it faster.
You are missing the fact that the OWC Envoy Pro FX is 3x faster over Thunderbolt 3. Over USB 3.2 Gen 2, the speed is the same.
That's not true. Multiple T7s will show up JBOD on a TB3/4 hub or plugged into separate ports. Speed is unaffected as it's USB 3.2 Gen 2. RAID 0 is not an option as I've noted before.
The difference between TB3 and TB4 is that TB4 allows multiple TB3 devices (5 on a Mac according to Apple; 4 on a PC according to Intel) through daisy chain or a powered hub. Daisy chain does not support bus power, however.
girlwith800701cats
Member
@mikehalloran Thank you for the answer. How long have you had your Envoy Express? A man I know has gotten OWC for his filmmaking and *shiver* returned the items after using them. OWC was great with me replacing the battery in an old laptop and it has a good reputation. I am scared to tears of losing my new drive after a year and SanDisk right now has a recall/lawsuit over lost data on SSDs. How stable do you think OWC is versus Samsung? How likely am I to get a new item?
My current SSD was made new because it had a date of creation stamped on it. How do I make sure I don't get something used? Damaged? Or that my drive will burn out, like the Chinese vendor SSD complaints on Amazon?
WORRYWART MODE
My current SSD was made new because it had a date of creation stamped on it. How do I make sure I don't get something used? Damaged? Or that my drive will burn out, like the Chinese vendor SSD complaints on Amazon?
WORRYWART MODE
vienthousiast
Active Member
Thank you for all these detailed comparisons. I am still relying on external SanDisk extreme SSDs which are working more than fine, but those T7 look pretty interesting too. I have had big issues with Samsung internal drives so I avoided Samsung since then (after my 4 TB SSD got corrupted and finally became useless) but why not give these new things a try.
Thanks again, really interesting thread.
Thanks again, really interesting thread.
girlwith800701cats
Member
Apple computers used to use Samsung internal drives and I believe still do; they seem really reliable and I love my external Samsung. What precisely happened to your drives @vienthousiast? A virus?
mikehalloran
New Member
OWC recently replaced the battery in my 2012 MacBook Pro under warranty when it failed after less than a year. The batteries one buys at Amazon have 30 day warranties if you're lucky.
SanDisk and Western Digital (same company) have had problems with certain external m2 housings with plastic housings. The real issue is heat. Their blades in metal enclosures have not had this issue. WD has great customer support but some engineer screwed up in designing those plastic housings.
I've had my Envoy Express a few weeks, now. It's barely warm to the touch. 8TB blades run quite hot at 4 Lanes but much cooler (and half the speed) in a 2 Lane enclosure. If OWC had made the Envoy Pro with an 8TB blade, I would have bought it—but 4TB is the max capacity that they offer (again, heat).
OWC does not make the blade inside. For a long time, they were using Intel but I have no idea if that's still true. In any case, they do have an excellent reputation. I've been doing business with them since 1986 when I bought four 1MB sticks of RAM for my Mac Plus.
Other than that, buy name brands with warranties. Crucial is the retail arm of Micron, supplier of RAM to Apple for the Intel Macs and has a service center in Idaho. Do not buy Micron branded SSDs, however since they're OEM only — the VARs who use them pay a lot less and are expected to handle any warranty which is why Crucial is the retail brand. WD/SanDisk have good support, too. Sanyo makes Apple and IBM SSDs , Samsung is another Apple supplier.
It tales some effort and a little homework to find out who's reliable and who isn't but the knowledge gained is worth it. Above all, read the fine print.
mikehalloran
New Member
One thing I forgot to mention is that, if using a SATA III SSD on a Mac and it's internal (pre-2017) or external over eSATA or Thunderbolt or USB 4, you must open Terminal and run the following command:
sudo trimforce enable
followed by the Enter or Return key. Type your Admin password when asked and enter y when asked twice if you really want to do that, then reboot.
T.R.I.M. is part of the macOS, Windows and LINUX. Since no 2.5" SSDs were ever used by Apple in a Mac, T.R.I.M. is blocked making the drives a lot slower to accept new data if more than 85% full. This is not necessary for m.2 blades over Thunderbolt/USB 4 and does not work at all over USB 2 or 3.
sudo trimforce enable
followed by the Enter or Return key. Type your Admin password when asked and enter y when asked twice if you really want to do that, then reboot.
T.R.I.M. is part of the macOS, Windows and LINUX. Since no 2.5" SSDs were ever used by Apple in a Mac, T.R.I.M. is blocked making the drives a lot slower to accept new data if more than 85% full. This is not necessary for m.2 blades over Thunderbolt/USB 4 and does not work at all over USB 2 or 3.
HCMarkus
TL;DR
Probably didn't need it, but I've put these heatsinks on both sides of my two Envoy Express enclosures, each of which houses a 2TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVMe drive:
Amazon product ASIN B0948TKWLS
They run cooler now.
I wonder if a heatsink-augmented 4-lane enclosure would handle those 8TB drives?
Amazon product ASIN B0948TKWLS
They run cooler now.
I wonder if a heatsink-augmented 4-lane enclosure would handle those 8TB drives?
mikehalloran
New Member
By buying the 8TB Aura Pro SSD on sale and the empty Express housing from OWC, I saved over $100. While putting it together, I saw no extra room inside.
I was in the middle of its first full TM backup when I posted about the Express being barely warm to the touch. It had already been run about 24 hours so I'm confident that additional heat sinks on the outside aren't necessary.
I hadn't found a TB3/4 4 Lane single blade housing or one loaded with an 8TB blade when I ordered. I considered dropping $170 on the Express Pro FX and swapping out the 240GB blade till I found this on ShutterMuse:
So, while ok with what I bought, I just found this Sabrent Aluminum TB3 Housing at Amazon for $99.99 this morning. Just as I was about to pull the trigger, I saw that the max speed is 1500 which means it's a 2 Lane pipe. Still looking for a 4 Lane housing. The ACASIS TBU 405 & 405 PRO might do the trick— one has a cooling fan while the other doesn't.
I'm still within the return window on that empty Envoy Express housing if I find what I am looking for but I might keep it anyway.
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cloudbuster
eɪlɪəˈtɒr
Just want to add that all of a sudden last week one of my two 2TB Samsung T7 Shield (blue rubber) stopped working properly.
Hooked up to either one of my Dell laptops all file operations (copy/move (delete) from and to the SSD) just work way to slow (couple MB/s) no matter which cable I'm using, the other T7 (and old 1TB T3) work just fine on the same Thunderbolt ports.
The T7 in question is almost new with just one backup job written to it and neither Samsung Magician nor other diagnostic software show any r/w issues in the stats but show a 100% healthy status.
I've googled for a solution but no luck so far.
Hooked up to either one of my Dell laptops all file operations (copy/move (delete) from and to the SSD) just work way to slow (couple MB/s) no matter which cable I'm using, the other T7 (and old 1TB T3) work just fine on the same Thunderbolt ports.
The T7 in question is almost new with just one backup job written to it and neither Samsung Magician nor other diagnostic software show any r/w issues in the stats but show a 100% healthy status.
I've googled for a solution but no luck so far.
The Acasis+CP3+... is that supposed to be the same thing as my Crucial P3+/Acasis TB405?
If so, it's about 2500 in both directions when plugged into a Thunderbolt 3/4 port.
If not, never mind...
Also, no Mac that I know of supports USB 3.2 gen 2 (they skip from 3.1 gen 2 to 4.0).
girlwith800701cats
Member
Do you believe you may have purchased a used and refurbished SSD? Yes, before anyone begins, stores should mark items as refurbished. They do not always obey by that promise. Stores mail back blenders and tech gear to the companies, the items get remade and things are sent back out. Breville is a culprit in the household department for this and it would not surprise me if Samsung, or maybe some stores selling it, pulled one on you.
