PCIe 4.0 for External NVME SSD Enclosure: Is the Upgrade Worth it?

Do you want to know if it's worth it to put a PCIe 4.0 NVME SSD into a USB 4.0 Housing? Those 7.000 MB/s read and 5.000 MB/s write are really enticing, but will you actually notice this performance? That's what I am testing in this video!

The SSDs and Housings were provided to me for free for testing purposes. This video was not sent for review and contains my honest test results and opinion.

⚡️ Product Links:

MY FAVORITE USB 4.0 NVME Housing:
Great Performance, Great Price:
Acasis - M.2 USB 4.0 NVME Housing

MY FAVORITE NVME SSD:
Great Performance, Great Price:
PCIe - Samsung 970 EVO Plus - 2TB M.2 NVME SSD:

Super Fast but Expensive NVME SSD:
PCIe 4.0 - Samsung 980 PRO - 2TB M.2 NVME SSD:

Great Performance, a bit Expensive:
PCIe - WD_BLACK SN750 - 2TB M.2 NVME SSD:

Ok Performance (when it works):
PCIe - Crucial P5 - 2TB M.2 NVME SSD:

Note: Commissions may be earned from the links above.

🔗 Relevant Links:

The BEST (yet) AFFORDABLE External NVME + Housing Combo:

Off the Shelf or NVME + Housing? Speed Comparison of SSDs:

Why is USB 3.2 just half as fast with my MacBook Pro?

Comparing NVME Housings (Usability, Speed, Unboxing):

🎧 Chapters / Show Notes:

00:00 Intro
01:14 Which housings are being tested?
02:07 Which SSD Drives were tested?
03:58 How did I test all of this?
04:42 Test Results: Blackmagic Design & AmorpheousDiskMark 4.0
05:49 Test Results: 101 GB Data Transfer
07:17 My Oppinion

#NVMEReview #ProductReview #ExternalNVME

🎥 Current Main Gear:

[eafortson]

This video (and more broadly this series) was exactly the kind of break down I was looking for. I can imagine how much work this took and wanted to be sure to give you a comment, and a like for this. Thank you very much for this much needed content.

[Lexmouth]

Great review! Appreciate the testing. I can add a test of the Crucial P3 2 TB with the Acasis: W/R (Bm Speedtest): 2000MB/s / 2370MB/s, so not too bad for a very cheap 2 TB compared to the 980 Pro!

[DrRussell]

Hi Chris, your attention to detail is excellent! I have not only learned how to get the best value storage, but I have realised we ‘detail people’ need to wrap our details in a palatable wrapper to optimize our audience reach. Thank you for your efforts.

[bongospank]

You should put something about M1 testing in the title. I've watched DOZENS of videos looking for this info recently, and just about gave up without ever stumbling across this. Would have come across it instantly if it matched search terms better.

[procekim]

Time flies. 980 PRO 2TB is half the price on Amazon. I'm still looking for a real thunderbolt 4 PCIe 4.0 or newer 5.0 enclousure. All enclosures at the moment of writing are Thunderbolt 3 (and support TB4 with wink 40gbit)

[murdockscott]

For many years I have used a Thunderbolt2 3 bay HD array for my work drive from my MacBook Pro, I am about to get a Mac Studio and with Apple’s somewhat ludicrous SSD upgrade pricing I am searching for a external solution to retire that noisy raid array, so these little drives and passively cooled enclosures are very appealing. However, I am having problems getting to four terabytes at a reasonable price. It’s good to hear that you recommend the less expensive drives and see that you back that up with testing. Currently my plan is to purchase the 2 bay Sabrent enclosure and run it as a raid, with 2 less expensive 2tb drives. Downside being that it is just TB3 and not USB4 which feels like I am giving up flexibility. Similarly I could go with the OWC 4bay enclosure with 4 1TB drives with plenty or options for expansion, but it reportedly has a quite noisy fan and is also just TB3. I also have seriously considered the Orico enclosure shown in this video with a 4TB drive which would give me the USB4/TB3 compatibility but at the price of 4TB drives, I begin to drift into the price range that makes me think I should just pay Apple’s premium for more internal storage. Also, none of these small enclosures seem to firmly state that they support anything above 2TB. Does anyone have experience with the multi-bay enclosures? Or running a 4TB drive in one of these small enclosures?

[vasiovasio]

Objective and Honest review! Thank you, Chris!

[robflores]

This gets you a sub! I need a LOT of storage for sample libraries as a musician so I'm trying to decide whether going 4.0 is worth it. I'm mostly going to be loading sample libraries and virtual instruments off of them.

[JakeCordero-cy]

Hey Chris! Great video. I have 1 question though, which housing do you think is the best investment out the 4 you tested. Thanks! 😊

[winnegehetoch]

I’ll not comment on your conclusion as sich. It will often be a matter of preference, but you missed two significant use cases. One is writing a huge amount of data to the drive (e.g. sustained from a camera). The 100 GB or so content is not nearly enough to stress all drives on the write front. The second use case is the editing scenario, that is completely missed for many normal user situations with only one external SSD (project)drive. Reading is fine for copying to another drive or playing video. Writing is fine for copying into a drive, although 100GB is not really that much these days with ProRES, BRAW and various other RAW formats. The real crux is measuring real projects, reading real life high quality material from the 2TB SSD and also rendering the resulting output back to the same drive (i.e. FCPX or DaVinci Resolve Studio), maybe even caching to the same drive too (just to really stress the system) and delivering a broadcast quality output. Standard h264/5 material to YouTube is good and fine, but does not really stress the SSD that much during writing (it’s the CPU/GPU getting the massage).

[vladrapchan]

I just couldn't understand which enclosure was used in the results you presented? Did all the enclosures worked equally well?

[rhoderzau]

Thanks for the video. I was hoping to see a graph to see which enclosure was fastest with the 980 - can you add the results in the comments or description please?

[Stamatakos]

Thank u so much for your excellent review, this is what i exactly needed !!!! Subscribed of course...

[jothkell]

I found that the cable used effected blackmagic test numbers dramatically. something to consider

[KevinMillard]

not all pcie are compatable with all cases out there i found that out when i was looking at cases recentally so your slower speeds are likey a compatabile problem with the cases, also if you want proper thuderbolt peroformance you need a powered case sure its a pain over just plug and go but at least with powererd cases your drive runs faster and cooler and will last longer,

[chazcov]

I'd really like to see an external PCIe interface that bypasses any kind of USB interface. Seems like it could easily be built onto the backplate of a motherboard. Would make for super fast external drives. Wissen Sie, was Ich meine?

[Cosmic_Soul]

I want to directly connect an external SSD drive to my iPhone 14 Pro to backup photos & videos from PHOTOS & WhatsApp. How well the 1TB External SSD drives work connected to an iPhone? Which one would you recommend? After reading the 1-star reviews of Sandisk drives, I am hesitant to take the risk.

[jmpiv]

Why would you overlay yourself over the details page at 1:43?

[chaoSefat]

Bro you are the best. Awesome video. SUPER HELPFUL <3 Love you.

[graymiddleton]

I have a couple of the Acasis housings along with 970 Evo Plus drives and they perform excellently. 2800 write/2700 read according to Black Magic. I believe they upgraded the controller at some point. I bought one and was so impressed, I bought another. Both perform equally. But I agree there is no reason now to pay the premium for a 4.0 drive. I should add that this is with an M1 Mac Mini. The Evo Plus is 66% of the cost of the Pro and I don't think it would run any quicker.