New Mac Pro and New M2 Ultra Mac Studio!!! (Yeah!)

And to be honest, I've had mixed experience with OWC. They often present theoretic maximums as specs, and some of the things I've bought haven't lived up to even the real-world specs - I'd say the biggest aluminum graveyard I have is composed off their stuff. But the 1M2 seems like the right thing. If only it had an external power supply, it would be perfect.

justthere said:

Good your system works like that. Mine doesn't.

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Wow; sorry and surprised... works like a treat with my buss-powered Envoy Expresses, but then again, I'm not losing them while working, just miss one or both upon boot up on occasion.

justthere said:

And to be honest, I've had mixed experience with OWC. They often present theoretic maximums as specs, and some of the things I've bought haven't lived up to even the real-world specs - I'd say the biggest aluminum graveyard I have is composed off their stuff. But the 1M2 seems like the right thing. If only it had an external power supply, it would be perfect.

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Agreed that OWC is pretty hit-or-miss in my experience. I will probably pick up an OWC Envoy Express, though, as there doesn't seem to be anything better on the market right now with similar performance/protocol/form factor for the price.

Symfoniq said:

Agreed that OWC is pretty hit-or-miss in my experience. I will probably pick up an OWC Envoy Express, though, as there doesn't seem to be anything better on the market right now with similar performance/protocol/form factor for the price.

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Do you mean the Express 1m2? That’s the new fast one.

I’ve already posted extensively on this forum, but perhaps not this thread about the OWC Express 1m2. Search for my name and read what I’ve written. I’ve had three of the Express 1m2 connected to my Mac Studio M2 Ultra since the first week of December. I have a 4tb WD Black sn850x installed in each of the three and each is connected directly to its own USB C port on the Mac. The published specs from OWC are spot on. I get 3100 MB/s read and write when the drive was empty and the same now with the drives quite full. No disconnects, no issues! The performance has been exactly what I hoped it would be. For now, with external NVME storage, USB4 when utilizing the specific usb4 chip that
OWC is using in the Express 1m2 is the fastest form factor there is.

TR909sample said:

An NVME doesn't use many watts, even at peak.

From what I understand, the minimum power specs for Thunderbolt is 15 watts. Thunderbolt is made to power and drive hefty displays, you'd think that it should be able to power a tiny NVME without issue.

The minimum power specs for USB4 is 7.5 watts, so perhaps four USB4 drives wouldn't run into the same issues as your four Thunderbolt drives. I don't know for sure of course, I'm just speculating here.

I'll be getting more NVMEs + enclosures eventually (not sure if I'll choose USB4 or Thunderbolt), and I don't plan on getting any hubs. I plan to connect them all directly to the Mac, so I hope Apple sorts out any power issues or bugs that may exist, because it shouldn't be problematic at all to power an NVME drive without having any disconnects.

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I speculated on this issue with the Thunderbolt bus powered enclosure disconnects and have been proven right as I’ve had three USB4 OWC express 1m2 connected since early December with zero disconnects and zero issues! Very VERY happy with my purchase.

First a data point for you. I've been running my Mac Studio M1 Ultra with three directly connected NVMEs (2x 4T WD, 1x 2T Samsung) in the Acasis TBU401/401E enclosures, along with an OWC 11 port Thuderbolt dock. I haven't had any drives disappear.

justthere said:

Thanks for that.

I’m unaware of any hub that doesn’t lower the speed of drives connected to it.

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This is a mostly useless anecdote, but I thought it was a funny "ack-chualleee"

I have a recent thread on the drive speeds I tested recently. As you mentioned, there was always a drop when passing data through a hub or a dock, until…

I was repurposing one of my 5,1 SSDs, a Samsung 980 Pro, in a cheap Sabrent enclosure as a Time Machine disk for the Mac Studio. Before putting it in service, I did a quick speed test:


* I don't remember if it was through the OWC or straight to the Mac when I tested. I currently have it connected to the OWC, though and don't remember rerouting it after the test.

I was so surprised by the results, I reran all three tests a few more times and these numbers were pretty consistent. I guess Anker may have figured out how to warp the space-time continuum.

Ray Toler said:

First a data point for you. I've been running my Mac Studio M1 Ultra with three directly connected NVMEs (2x 4T WD, 1x 2T Samsung) in the Acasis TBU401/401E enclosures, along with an OWC 11 port Thuderbolt dock. I haven't had any drives disappear.

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Hmmm. Well, yours is an M1. What OS are you on?

Ray Toler said:

This is a mostly useless anecdote, but I thought it was a funny "ack-chualleee"

I have a recent thread on the drive speeds I tested recently. As you mentioned, there was always a drop when passing data through a hub or a dock, until…

I was repurposing one of my 5,1 SSDs, a Samsung 980 Pro, in a cheap Sabrent enclosure as a Time Machine disk for the Mac Studio. Before putting it in service, I did a quick speed test:

Connected to	Write	Read
Mac Studio USB A Port	361.5	303.4
OWC Dock > Mac TB4 Port	273.2	299.9
Anker Hub > OWC Dock > Mac*	417.3	358.1

* I don't remember if it was through the OWC or straight to the Mac when I tested. I currently have it connected to the OWC, though and don't remember rerouting it after the test.

I was so surprised by the results, I reran all three tests a few more times and these numbers were pretty consistent. I guess Anker may have figured out how to warp the space-time continuum.

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Huh. That’s curious. I do know (or think I know) that Thunderbolt docks don’t pass full speed ever, apparently - the moment a TB4 drive is plugged into a dock, its speed drops to TB3 because the specs of the virtual pipe change. But that’s unrelated to this. Makes me wonder if drives get throttled by insufficient power?

octave music said:

I’ve already posted extensively on this forum, but perhaps not this thread about the OWC Express 1m2. Search for my name and read what I’ve written. I’ve had three of the Express 1m2 connected to my Mac Studio M2 Ultra since the first week of December. I have a 4tb WD Black sn850x installed in each of the three and each is connected directly to its own USB C port on the Mac. The published specs from OWC are spot on. I get 3100 MB/s read and write when the drive was empty and the same now with the drives quite full. No disconnects, no issues! The performance has been exactly what I hoped it would be. For now, with external NVME storage, USB4 when utilizing the specific usb4 chip that
OWC is using in the Express 1m2 is the fastest form factor there is.

Click to expand...

That’s certainly encouraging. I’ve tried five times (now six today) to get a response from Acasis support - at this point I just want to return them and go with a different option.

But some questions - are the three drives in consecutive ports, and do they ever appear to throttle in speed?

justthere said:

That’s certainly encouraging. I’ve tried five times (now six today) to get a response from Acasis support - at this point I just want to return them and go with a different option.

But some questions - are the three drives in consecutive ports, and do they ever appear to throttle in speed?

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Just a FYI - The OWC Express 1m2 USB4 are on backorder until the end of March
I ordered a couple on Monday for delivery next day (Tuesday) and they didn't show up, yet they said they were "in stock" when I ordered them and paid for next day shipping - only to find out Wednesday they didn't have anymore

alcorey said:

Just a FYI - The OWC Express 1m2 USB4 are on backorder until the end of March
I ordered a couple on Monday for delivery next day (Tuesday) and they didn't show up, yet they said they were "in stock" when I ordered them and paid for next day shipping - only to find out Wednesday they didn't have anymore

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Yeah, I saw that with their shipping. I think they had an inventory glitch. I’d try calling them up about seeing if they’ll credit you the rush shipping.

JacksonTree said:

Yeah, I saw that with their shipping. I think they had an inventory glitch. I’d try calling them up about the shipping.

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I really wish that were the case! I just got a new M2 with only 1TB internal drive and need to set it up with my external drives in order to do anything - now I have to wait until the end of March to do that if I want to stick with the 1M2 USB4 enclosures.

From OWC:

alcorey said:

I really wish that were the case! I just got a new M2 with only 1TB internal drive and need to set it up with my external drives in order to do anything - now I have to wait until the end of March to do that if I want to stick with the 1M2 USB4 enclosures.

From OWC:

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So that’s exactly what it was - an inventory glitch. The shipping date is also not decrementing every day, which worries me as well that they haven’t fully fixed the glitch.

JacksonTree said:

So that’s exactly what it was - an inventory glitch. The shipping date is also not decrementing every day, which worries me as well that they haven’t fully fixed the glitch.

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Well, I didn't cancel my order so if somehow they magically appear before then - I'm in the Que

I think they've sold really well and they have actually run out, not anticipating the demand possibly - who knows - can only go by what they tell me

The only competing product is from Zike and I'm not comfortable ordering those as they come out of, and have to be returned to China at your expense if you have a problem - from what I've read that's happening too much for me to test those waters

I bought a Mac Studio M2 Ultra with 128 Gb of RAM, mainly use it for Cubase/Vienna audio production.

Since I bought it recently, I was a bit shocked when it crashed on me 2 times already!

Both times was while I was NOT using cubase of doing heavy load. Both times the computer restarted by itself, and when logging in again, i received long error messages, in both at a certain point i read:

""CORE 0 is the one that panicked. "

Did this happen to someone else already? Is there a specific place in this forum where I can ask for technical computer stuff?

Thanks in advance!

justthere said:

That’s certainly encouraging. I’ve tried five times (now six today) to get a response from Acasis support - at this point I just want to return them and go with a different option.

But some questions - are the three drives in consecutive ports, and do they ever appear to throttle in speed?

Click to expand...

Each of my Express 1 m2 is plugged into its own port on my Mac Studio. My setup doesn’t thermal throttle. I don’t know if this is because I bought what is considered one of the “best” NVME currently on the market, or if it’s the enclosure. It would be interesting to try a gen3 NVME well under $200 and gauge the performance. When I initially copied about 3.4TB to one of the drives (all of my spitfire libraries) I think it took about 20 minutes and my istat menu bar utility indicated a sustained write speed of 3000-3100 MB/s. That’s when I knew I had a good setup even though that type of performance has nothing to do with loading/streaming VI samples. Also, I like that OWC went a little conservative and they I believe limit the data stream in these enclosures from the potential speeds of 3700-3800 that Zikedrive reports. I think running at that speed will result in thermal throttling and OWC made the wise decision to engineer these to have steady performance.

alcorey said:

I just got a new M2 with only 1TB internal drive and need to set it up with my external drives in order to do anything - now I have to wait until the end of March to do that if I want to stick with the 1M2 USB4 enclosures.

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Are you familiar with this alternative?

GrapeBotherhood said:

I bought a Mac Studio M2 Ultra with 128 Gb of RAM, mainly use it for Cubase/Vienna audio production.

Since I bought it recently, I was a bit shocked when it crashed on me 2 times already!

Both times was while I was NOT using cubase of doing heavy load. Both times the computer restarted by itself, and when logging in again, i received long error messages, in both at a certain point i read:

""CORE 0 is the one that panicked. "

Did this happen to someone else already? Is there a specific place in this forum where I can ask for technical computer stuff?

Thanks in advance!

Click to expand...

I haven’t had any issues with my M2 Studio Ultra crashing. The only issues I’ve had is with certain drives not reliably mounting after start up.

jbuhler said:

I haven’t had any issues with my M2 Studio Ultra crashing. The only issues I’ve had is with certain drives not reliably mounting after start up.

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I don't have the drives problem, so far. Do you unmount them before turning off the machine? I don't.
I'm using ACASIS to put nvme drives in. BUT, one of them kind of failed (a brand new 4 Tb crucial). I heard they are less reliable than Samsungs, so that could be the cause.