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NVME and SSD Speeds on Mac Studio M1 Ultra (Empirical Data)

Ray Toler

Ray Toler

Active Member
Hi all,

First, here's the data. If this is all you're interested in, feel free to stop reading after the tables. All data taken with the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test app, using a "Stress" value of 5GB. I took representative values after 5 or 6 runs. See notes below for more details.


DriveSizeEnclosureBusPortWriteRead
Mac Studio Internal1 TBMac StudioInternalInternal5806.15324.4
WD SN850X4 TBAcasis TBU401Thunderbolt/USBMac Studio Front2776.72810.3
WD SN850X4 TBAcasis TBU401Thunderbolt/USBMac Studio Back2772.32810.1
WD SN850X4 TBAcasis TBU401Thunderbolt/USBOWC Dock TB2232.12801.5
Samsung 980 Pro2 TBAcasis TBU401Thunderbolt/USBMac Studio Front2808.52662.9
Samsung 980 Pro2 TBAcasis TBU401Thunderbolt/USBMac Studio Back2807.72549.4
Samsung 980 Pro2 TBAcasis TBU401Thunderbolt/USBOWC Dock TB2258.42583.4
Samsung 870 EVO4 TBSabrent EC-UASPSATA/PCIInternal Drive Bay257.8269.9
Samsung 870 EVO2 TBSabrent EC-UASPUSBMac Studio USB-A361.5303.4
Samsung 870 EVO2 TBSabrent EC-UASPUSBOWC Hub273.2299.9

Notes:
  • In the spirit of my "I just need an idea of what it does" approach, these tests were neither exhaustive, nor scientific.

  • The reason I did this test at all is that Acasis recommends the Samsung over the "WD SN850" for speed reasons and I wanted to know if I needed to return the WDs (I bought them because the 4TB Samsungs are still backordered and I'm migrating this weekend. I found both drives to be close enough in performance as to not need to worry about it for my needs.

  • I did not apply the thermal tape to the drives for the tests. I noticed about about a 100-200 MB/s drop after the 2nd or 3rd run, presumably because the drives were heating up and throttling a bit. I never ran more than about 10 reps, and let the drives cool down between tests.

  • I also tested the 980 Pro on a slightly different model from Acasis (the TBU401E). Results were more or less identical. I got the E model back in May, and "reordered" two more from Amazon last week, getting the non-E versions. I'm assuming they're interchangeable models. (The only difference I can find is the packaging).

  • Both of the M.2 NVME drives were freshly formatted. The Samsung 870 EVO SSDs were "working" drives, about 60-75% full.

  • While I didn't expect there to be a noticeable difference between the front and back ports, I tested anyway just in case. For non-ultra versions, remember that the front ports will be USB only.

  • I had to use different drives for the SSD test because for some reason, my Mac Studio can see the 2TB SSD in a Sabrent enclosure, but says the 4TB drive is "unreadable" and wants to format it. I've seen identical performance between the two sizes on my Mac Pro, though, so figure this is good enough.

  • The SATA/PCI Internal test was done on a maxed-out 2012 Mac Pro 5,1.

Takeaways
  • The internal drive on the Mac Studio is crazy fast. I'm now even more unhappy with Apple for their extortionist pricing.

  • Read speeds through the OWC dock are almost identical with the built-in ports on the Studio, so I will have no heartburn hanging my sample drives off of a dock if I need the built-in ports for other things. I may lose a bit of throughput when they're both being read simultaneously, but it's still going to be massively faster than my previous rig.

  • Even through an external dock, an old SSD in a $10 USB enclosure is (slightly) faster on the Studio than on an internal slot in the Mac Pro 5,1. Will I notice the increased speed? Nah. But it's nice to know that Performance is on par with what I've been used to for the last few years since moving to SSDs.

  • The WD SN850X is slightly slower, but still on par with the Samsung 980 Pro. I had great results from my Samsung SSDs, but am new to NVMEs, so I have no idea how robust either drive will be over time. I'll be even more backup-conscious now.

One final note - because the 4TB SSDs aren't readable on the Mac Studio (still trying to track down why), I cloned one of my sample drives over my gigabit LAN last night using ChronoSync. After many hours at about 780 Mb/s throughput, the Acasis enclosure (with the 1mm thermal tape installed) was definitely on the hot side of warm, but not so hot that it was uncomfortable to pick up. At idle, it's like a slightly warm cup of coffee. Under load, it's like a fresh coffee from a shop without the little cardboard sleeve. I'm contemplating building a little scaffold-rig with a slow fan.

I hope this info helps others who may be at the "just tell me if this is going to work or not!" point of figuring out their new rigs.
Click to read more...
 
My 4TB T7 Samsung drives work perfectly with Studio Ultra. Directly connected or through USB hub. I guess the problem is the enclosure in your case.
 
hogof0g0 said:
My 4TB T7 Samsung drives work perfectly with Studio Ultra. Directly connected or through USB hub. I guess the problem is the enclosure in your case.
Click to expand...
That's my hope. I think I've got another reader in a bin in the garage, but still trying to find it. Thanks for the data point!

ADDENDUM: It was definitely the enclosure. I first tried doing a firmware update, but that didn't help. I remembered I had a Unitek powered SATA/USB adapter on an optical drive. Hooked that up and the drive showed right up.
 
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You will get even faster read/write speeds with the USB4 OWC Express 1m2.
I have the 4TB WD sn850X like you and even with 3.5TB of the 4TB containing files, I get 3174MB/s write and 3095 read, also using the 5GB setting in Disk Speed Test. The Thunderbolt enclosures are limited due to them being required to allocate bandwidth to accomodate a video stream. USB4 does not do this. Also, there are some people who have experienced connectivity issues with bus powered TB enclosures when the 3rd or more bus powered device is connected. I have three Express 1M2 each with the 4TB WD NVME and they have been working perfectly for 2 months. They are directly connected to my Mac Studio, each to their own TB/USB4 port.
 

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Thanks, Octave! And thanks for the explanation on the why. I decided to run my monitors off the OWC hub and connect drives directly to the Mac Studio - I haven't had any of the mysterious disk drop-offs yet, so fingers crossed.

I was all set to box up my Acasis enclosures and return them, but the OWC 1m2 has a 60 day lead time. I still have to upgrade other computers in the house (MBP, Mac mini) later this year, so I'll probably repurpose the Acasis / WD combos to those and replace the Mac Studio drives with 1m2 / 980 Pro combos at that point.
 
octave music said:
You will get even faster read/write speeds with the USB4 OWC Express 1m2.
I have the 4TB WD sn850X like you and even with 3.5TB of the 4TB containing files, I get 3174MB/s write and 3095 read, also using the 5GB setting in Disk Speed Test. The Thunderbolt enclosures are limited due to them being required to allocate bandwidth to accomodate a video stream. USB4 does not do this. Also, there are some people who have experienced connectivity issues with bus powered TB enclosures when the 3rd or more bus powered device is connected. I have three Express 1M2 each with the 4TB WD NVME and they have been working perfectly for 2 months. They are directly connected to my Mac Studio, each to their own TB/USB4 port.
Click to expand...
That OWC enclosure seems pretty nice. The price is decent, about the same as the Acasis enclosure which I own.

I knew that Thunderbolt reserved some bandwidth for video, but I wasn't aware that USB4 didn't have such a limitation. That's good to know for the future, next time I go enclosure shopping.
 
Lexar NM790 2TB in Acasis TBU401E, Thunderbolt connection (for working Trim) on an iMac Pro

Bildschirmfoto 2024-01-31 um 09.37.57.png

What I like about the Lexar is, that it doesn't get that hot as most competitors, especially Samsung.

Even under heavy load the Acasis is only hand warm with this SSD ... no throttling ;)
 
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JacksonTree said:
Does the 1M2 get really hot?
Click to expand...
I bet it will be similar to my Acasis TBU401E ... it depends on the used SSD.

That's why I chose the Lexar NM790, which doesn't need a heat sink (no throttling) ... the thermal pad of the Acasis is just enough. I wouldn't do that with a Samsung EVO/Pro, though. But even then ... you can let the enclosure half open during heavy use, which is not an option with the OWC, which is screwed.
 
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Sabrent Thunderbolt 3 to Dual NVMe


This gives me:

NVME1.jpg
NVME2.jpg

Slower, maybe due to TB3, maybe due to dual enclosure. The specs for the enclosure claim: "Single disk speed up to 1500 MB/s."

This is connected directly to the Mac Studio. Beyond the slower speed, this enclosure also requires an external power supply.
 
JacksonTree said:
Does the 1M2 get really hot?
Click to expand...
With a 4TB WDS sn850X installed, the idle temp is around 46 deg C. Normal usage tmep is 50 deg C and Heavy use, and this ONLY happneed when I had a sustained 3000MB/s 3.5TB write going when I initially transferred a bunch of VI libraries was 70 deg C. The manufacturer says 85deg C is the top functioning temp....so plenty of "headroom" there. The temps I'm reporting are reported by iStat and Drive DX. Not sure if that is the temp of the NVME drive itself or a temp sensor within the enclosure. Also, ZERO thorttling with my setup as that 70 deg C was sustained for about 25 minutes with no fall-off in write speed.
 
Aymara said:
I bet it will be similar to my Acasis TBU401E ... it depends on the used SSD.

That's why I chose the Lexar NM790, which doesn't need a heat sink (no throttling) ... the thermal pad of the Acasis is just enough. I wouldn't do that with a Samsung EVO/Pro, though. But even then ... you can let the enclosure half open during heavy use, which is not an option with the OWC, which is screwed.
Click to expand...
In regards to the Express 1m2, You don't need to be able to open the enclosure unless the environment you work in causes the NVME to exceed the NVME manufacturers max operating temp spec. As I mentioned in another response here, mine, with a 4TB WD sn850x only rose to 70 deg C when I did the initial massive dump of VI libraries to it. Normal operating temp with normal useage is around 50 deg C. All are below the manufacturer spec [WD] max operating temp of 85deg C. I have zero concern about warm enclosures or even hot enclosures. To me, it's irrelevant unless things are exceeding manufacturer specs.
 
jbuhler said:
Slower, maybe due to TB3, maybe due to dual enclosure. The specs for the enclosure claim: "Single disk speed up to 1500 MB/s."
Click to expand...
I don't have any experience with that enclosure, but it seems to me that the speed is due to it being a dual enclosure. It looks like the speed is basically getting cut in half, with 2 NVMEs sharing the bandwidth of 1 thunderbolt connection.

1500 MB/s isn't terrible though and is still way faster than a standard SSD for example. 1500 MB/s is more than good enough for most music and sample tasks.
 
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TR909sample said:
I don't have any experience with that enclosure, but it seems to me that the speed is due to it being a dual enclosure. It looks like the speed is basically getting cutting in half, with 2 NVMEs sharing the bandwidth of 1 thunderbolt connection.

1500 MB/s isn't terrible though and is still way faster than a standard SSD for example. 1500 MB/s is more than good enough for most music and sample tasks.
Click to expand...
Correct--with regards to the bandwidth being divided between the 2 NVME's in that enclosure. TB3 and TB4 have the same amount of bandwidth allocated to them. TB3 is not slower than TB4. The main difference is the MINIMUM speed allowed [as specified in the spec which you can read about in the link below] as well as the number of displays that can be daisy-chained on a TB3 vs TB4 bus. Once I started doing a ton of reading on this subject, you realize form the get-go, that Thunderbolt is a trademarked INTEL name and to use it, a manufacturer pays a license fee and has to get their specs approved in order to call their product TB 3 or TB4. You can start here and read this to get an idea of where Thunderbolt is at : https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...echnology/thunderbolt/thunderbolt-3-vs-4.html
 
TR909sample said:
I don't have any experience with that enclosure, but it seems to me that the speed is due to it being a dual enclosure. It looks like the speed is basically getting cutting in half, with 2 NVMEs sharing the bandwidth of 1 thunderbolt connection.

1500 MB/s isn't terrible though and is still way faster than a standard SSD for example. 1500 MB/s is more than good enough for most music and sample tasks.
Click to expand...
Indeed, it's delivering almost precisely what's promised, and it only uses one TB4 compared to two if they were on separate enclosures. It's plenty fast enough for streaming samples. That's true of SATA SSDs too, though they are only about a third as fast. I'd say the need for an external power supply is a bigger issue with this enclosure than its slower speed, especially if you were going to use it in a mobile context.

TB2 or TB3 enclosures don't seem to matter much with respect to speed for SATA SSDs, and even USB3 all deliver about the same for SATA SSDs, and none of them cause problems streaming samples, even collectively. The big difference is in opening a project and loading large sets of instruments. NVME load times are about 3X faster.
 
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