OWC Express 4M2 (0 TB) Four-Slot M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure with SoftRAID XT, Up to 2800MB/s, Four M.2 NVMe SSD bays, Add up to 32TB of storage

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If he were building a system now Dave would suggest the fanless version of the Sonnet M.2 4x4 PCIe Card (Silent) “especially as the Sonnet M.2 4x4 is now fanless, not that I’ve ever heard the fan in my older version that has a fan”. The fastest that Thunderbolt 3 or 4 will actually move data at is around 2800MB/s for data reads. This is due to the reserved bandwidth for video. OWC Express 4M2 is limited to ≈750 MB/s (less than 970 MB/s) per NVMe drive since each one is connected as PCIe 3.0 x1 Although Nathaniel is looking for a solution that will work well with his new Mac Studio, the growing need for high-speed storage is not restricted to just the new Studio computer from Apple, or even the other M1 Pro and M1 Max Apple computers, the developments in data interfaces in computer technology are available in many other computers, both Mac and Windows. Unfortunately, there’s an obscure incompatibility between this drive’s USB 3.0 implementation and the Mac Pro 6,1. Glyph’s engineers worked with me on this and came to the conclusion that it would never work properly on a Mac Pro 6,1.

OWC Express 4M2

x M.2 - 2280 "M Key" (PCIe 3.0 x1 per slot). Note: Each SSD uses x 1 lane only. To get the full Thunderbolt 3 supported speed you need to install 4 SSD`s and set it to RAID. Only when fitted with 4 SSD`s together they will run on PCIe 3.0 x 4 lanes. Also, note that smaller size SSD`s are generally slower than higher size SSDs.Jamey uses the Sonnet 4x NVMe PCIe cards. He has one in his Mac Pro 7,1 with four 2TB NVMe drives and another with four 2TB NVMe drives in his transportable rig inside a Sonnet Echo III enclosure. Jamey explains more about his portable rig which has two computer systems…

OWC Express 4M2 | VI-CONTROL OWC Express 4M2 | VI-CONTROL

Speed: at least 1000MB/sec so the session audio, Atmos audio and video could all come from one drive.NVMe drives consume a lot more power than conventional SSDs and so produce a lot of heat and so if you are planning to use NVMe drives you will need to consider how to keep them cool, whether that is passive using heatsinks or active cooling using fans. This is especially important if you are going down the DIY route to put together your own NVMe based storage solution. The Atom EV model runs at 1000MB/sec. and is compatible with USB 3.0. This looked like a perfect fit because it would run on both my existing Mac Pro 6,1 and my new Mac Studio.

OWC Express 4M2 4-Slot NVMe M.2 SSD Enclosure with SoftRAID OWC Express 4M2 4-Slot NVMe M.2 SSD Enclosure with SoftRAID

The OWC Express 4M2 combo is not a balanced product but that comes as no surprise. Taken separately, the products however would earn a higher rating; the Aura P12 competes against the likes of the Samsung 1TB 970 EVO Plus which costs about the same. However, it competes against a host of other rivals (Adata, Silicon Power, Sabrent) that promises roughly the same level of performance at a lower price tag. OWC Thunderbolt 3 Cable OWC Express 4M2 comes with an OWC Thunderbolt 3 cable which is Thunderbolt certified for Mac and Windows, with an additional 0.5 meter to 2.0 meter lengths available separately. You may have noticed that virtually none of the people we have featured has chosen to use an OWC product. We were surprised at this as OWC has a very good reputation for so many Mac and Storage related products. With the advice of colleagues, I looked at the landscape of available NVMe Thunderbolt drives that don’t require PCIe slots or a PCIe chassis. Glyph Technologies makes two 8TB bus-powered NVMe drives. They’re silent, expensive and fast. So we reached out to OWC to ask them to clarify the situation regarding how they allocate the PCIe lanes. They replied saying…Multi-Drive The OWC Express 4M2 comes equipped with OWC SoftRAID which provides the amazing capability to RAID across multiple drive enclosures. You can also add more Express 4M2 drives to your storage pool using Windows Storage Spaces. Configure and reconfigure your storage however you need by combining multiple OWC Express 4M2 drives together on Mac and Windows. With these portable solutions, which depend on passive cooling, remember that excessive heat will cause throttling and you won’t get the expected performance. When choosing a portable solution you need to satisfy yourself that the manufacturer has taken the appropriate steps to cool the power-hungry NVMe drives. These solutions are based on the combination of a PCIe Thunderbolt enclosure with PCIe NVMe cards inside. But be aware that it would appear that not all PCIe chassis are the same when it comes to how the PCIe lanes are handled. Some split one lane across multiple cards, reducing access to the available bandwidth. You need to make sure that all of the PCIe lanes can be directed to all of the cards in the enclosure to maximise speed and bandwidth, otherwise, your investment in fast NVMe cards may be wasted.