OWC 2TB Express 1M2 40Gb/s Portable NVMe SSD USB4 (Thunderbolt Compatible/USB-C) Ultra Fast External SSD Drive with Aluminum Heat Sink Enclosure

I have three of these OWC 1M2 enclosures and they are designed well and work well. They keep the installed WD SN850X NVME SSD passively cooled to within a temp range of 40-50 deg C. No fan means no noise and inherently more reliable. Read/write speeds are as expected and I am very happy with the overall simplicity, reliability and performance of this enclosure. Because it cools passively, it needs the large fins and this makes it larger than other fan cooled models, so I use these for my desktop computers where they operate 24/7. When traveling, I use a fan cooled enclosure which is smaller and more portable. Some people have noted disconnect issues when used on a Mac Studio with multiple displays and other peripherals attached, and I have encountered the same. I ran tests and adding a powered hub to my Mac Studio completely resolved this problem. The Studio seems to have issues powering multiple peripherals from its own ports. I’ve recently had two power outages at my home, and both times my Studio (running on a CyberPower UPS) powered back up and all the peripherals and this enclosure reconnected successfully. I will buy more when needed.

I was looking for a fast and easy to install SSD enclosure. Perfect use for video and photo editing. Speed is on par or even slightly faster than my internal SSD. There is no fan so it is silent and the perfect size. Love the design that it compliments next to my Mac mini. It is warm to touch but that means it is working as the entire enclosure is a heat sink. Has been reliable and never had any false ejects. Great enclosure for your favorite internal SSD.

Solid design, very easy to install the SSD (I got the bare version). And this is screaming fast. Zero effort getting it working with MacOS.I really don't like the fans in some enclosures - the make noise and can fail. If you have a drive with no moving parts what's the point of having an enclosure that has a moving part? Since this enclosure is essentially 100% heat sink it doesn't need one.It is somewhat larger than other enclosures that have similar functionality. But the overall design gives me more confidence in its reliability than others that I have seen and used. In my application it's sitting permanently on my desk so it never needs to go in my pocket anyway.Highly recommended.

I am using this with a 2021 M1-Max Macbook Pro, paired with the Playstation Drive, the Western Digital Black SN850X 8TB ! IMPORTANT NOTE! I had to return the SN850X with heatsink, as you must get the naked version for use with this drive!Due to true Thunderbolt 4 support, this is the fastest external drive I've ever had with my Mac, sustaining 3 GB/sec read+write! Before this, the best I achieved was 1TB/second using those USB 3.2 drives. And unlike with a lot of ready made external drives, this one was easily formatted and partitioned in Disk Utility, with no special hoops to jump through.It's worth addressing that the size issue is absolutely not bad at all. Yes, this is about twice the size of a compact external SSD, but for true perspective, it is smaller than my iPhone 16 Pro, and because it's a sturdy aluminum case, you can stash it as is in your backpack.I use this drive for very large backups, and during my initial backup of a 3.8TB folder, which took over a half hour due to having over 5 million files, the case definitely got hot. Not serious burn hot, but "I don't really want to hold this in my hand" hot. I do not consider this an issue, as future backups will be deltas, and what you get is pure silence.( There aren't many high performance 8TB drives on the market, but I trust the SN850 to be reliable, due to its extensive track record with the Playstation 5, and it was the second cheapest 8TB SSD I found ).All in all, I think OWC really knocked it out of the park with this external drive! For a single external SSD, this is a no brainer as the best possible choice! :)

Like a lot of people I was tempted recently by the Mac Mini M4 base model and its value proposition. Of course, only having a 256GB SSD for storage is a problem and Apple charges a ridiculous amount for additional storage so I decided to build an external drive. That's where this OWC 1M2 enclosure comes in. I researched the available enclosures and this one stands head and shoulders, or should I say aluminum fins above the competition. Unlike most others, the 1M2 is a solid block of aluminum with huge heat-dissipating fins that permits your m.2 nvme ssd module to run at full speed without throttling. It certainly does for the 2TB WD Black module I used, which runs warm when busy but does not throttle.Assembly of the 1M2 with your SSD module is easy plus there are lots of tutorials on YouTube. OWC includes a short Thunderbolt 4 cable which works perfectly. Of course you want to connect the 1M2 to one of the Thunderbolt 4 ports on the BACK of the Mac Mini, not the front ports which are much slower.My speed tests speak for themselves: 3200MB/s Write, 3145MB/s Read (Blackmagic benchmark). This is WAY faster than the onboard 256GB SSD and astonishingly good for an external drive. I relocated my user folder to the external disk (again lots of YouTube howtos, I recommend the ones by Mac Sound Solutions). It was easy to do and works extremely well.I am delighted with the 1M2 enclosure and recommend it without reservations. Don't be tempted to skimp and go with a cheap solution. You don't want heat buildup to throttle your disk speeds or worse, shorten the life of your SSD module. Packaging is 100% recyclable which is nice to see.

The case works very well and seems to move heat out very well. The supplied cable is sturdy and has fast transfer rates. Works perfectly with a new NVME drive. It's quite portable in size though mine is living on a desk. One star deducted for the cost and value for the money. I just don't think this thing needs to be over $100.