Does anyone know of good reasons to prefer one of these SSDs the other?
On B&H, the Sandisk has more negative reviews than does the Samsung, for what that is worth.
The drive is to be used to hold images (and the associated Lightroom catalog) to be edited with LRC on my MacBook Pro and my Mac Studio. It will be moved between the two machines.
I am leaning toward the T9, which seems to have excellent reviews and is $90 cheaper, but i wanted to ask the users here for thier experience and opinions.
I have the Sandisk PRO-G40 for about 2.5 years. I use it to hold images and my LrC catalog. It's performed well which is more than I say about some of Sandisk's other SSDs. The Sandisk has faster max speeds than the Samsung, but I don't know which has higher sustained read/write speeds which is pretty important. The PRO-G40 also supports a Thunderbolt 3 interface which is faster than USB, and that's the reason I bought it.
amv8 wrote:
I have the Sandisk PRO-G40 for about 2.5 years. I use it to hold images and my LrC catalog. It's performed well which is more than I say about some of Sandisk's other SSDs. The Sandisk has faster max speeds than the Samsung, but I don't know which has higher sustained read/write speeds which is pretty important. The PRO-G40 also supports a Thunderbolt 3 interface which is faster than USB, and that's the reason I bought it.
The Sandisk does have slightly better specs, including dust and water resistance. Sandisk, as you suggest, may have had some unreliable drives in its past. I assume they have gotten those issues resolved. But the several negative reviews on B&H about this drive's reliability worry me a bit.
Are you using yours on a Windows machine? I am going to use this drive, whichever I get, on Macs. I think that affects the speed I will get with this drive or with the T9. The T9's listing on B&H includes the following paragaraph, which I think would also apply to the SanDisk:
"Note: To achieve maximum advertised speeds, please make sure your computer or host device is certified to support the 20 Gb/s USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 connection. Apple devices, including those with Thunderbolt/USB4, do not support 20 Gb/s USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 and will be limited to 10 Gb/s USB 3.2 Gen 2."
While the T9’s specs are fine, note that Macs don’t support the particular USB 3 interface those specs are for. As above, on Macs, the T9’s don’t perform any better than less expensive T9’s. I’d suggest a T7 Shield (not the less expensive T7, whose environmental specs are less than the Shield).
If you really need the higher performance, you might consider buying a blade and installing it in something like an Acadia TB4 enclosure.
In the past I was a huge fan of Sandisk for cards and flash drives. No more. Had a case where I moved from 256 GB thumb drives to 512GB that were so slow that they were unusable. Tossed ~$200 worth of those because they wouldn't work. Moved to Samsung USB 3.1 Gen 1 BAR Plus Flash Drive for non critical everyday use without issue. I'd also used Samsung EVO's as internal drives on MacPros without fault. Now that I've moved to a Mac M4 Max Studio, I've pulled those drives and housed them in OWC enclosures for non critical work. I've got a handful of Samsung T7s and T7 Shields that I rely on every day in addition to OWC 1M2 drives for the most critical work. I think I'll take a hard pass on Sandisk. For whatever it may be worth ....
Only a bit off topic, but I wonder if in general from "what I've seen on the interwebz". Do folks see a decline in quality of products that Western Digital has purchased such as Sandisk, Seagate and G Drive? Sorry if this a thread steal, but think it may be germaine to the issue. Thanks.
Seagate is not part of WD-Sandisk.
Rather than the consumer extrenal SSDs, I prefer to buy M.2 SSDs and put them in portable enclosures. That allows many more external and internal choices and options over the life of the drive. I have 56TB of the WD SN850X in 8TB and 4TB capacities.
chiron wrote:
The Sandisk does have slightly better specs, including dust and water resistance. Sandisk, as you suggest, may have had some unreliable drives in its past. I assume they have gotten those issues resolved. But the several negative reviews on B&H about this drive's reliability worry me a bit.
Are you using yours on a Windows machine? I am going to use this drive, whichever I get, on Macs. I think that affects the speed I will get with this drive or with the T9. The T9's listing on B&H includes the following paragaraph, which I think would also apply to the SanDisk:
"Note: To achieve maximum advertised speeds, please make sure your computer or host device is certified to support the 20 Gb/s USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 connection. Apple devices, including those with Thunderbolt/USB4, do not support 20 Gb/s USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 and will be limited to 10 Gb/s USB 3.2 Gen 2."...Show more →
I'm using my Sandisk PRO-G40 exclusively on Macs. The speed limitations you list for the T9 (need USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 for fastest connection) does not apply to the Sandisk on Macs because this model Sandisk supports Thunderbolt 3 which all recent Macs have. Thunderbolt 3 is 40 Gb/s or twice as fast as the USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 interface and 4 times faster than the more common USB 3.2 Gen 2.
EB-1 wrote:
Seagate is not part of WD-Sandisk.
Rather than the consumer extrenal SSDs, I prefer to buy M.2 SSDs and put them in portable enclosures. That allows many more external and internal choices and options over the life of the drive. I have 56TB of the WD SN850X in 8TB and 4TB capacities.
EBH
+1
I also settled on the WD SN850X and put them in Acasis Thunderbolt 4 enclosures to use with my Macs. I'm getting max read/write throughput available for data on TB4. If you go with a USB drive, it will top out at 10Gb/s, which is about 1GB/s, which is about 1/3 the speed of TB4. This is what I did initially (put the WD SSDs in USB enclosures) and it worked fine for Lightroom use, transfers, etc. But if you're moving a lot of data, 3x faster is nice to have. TB4 enclosures are more expensive, but in hindsight, no regrets.
As alluded to, with a DIY 'build' you can better troubleshoot problems. If the drive suddenly stops mounting, swapping the cable, or the enclosure, might resolve the problem. In a sealed drive, you can't do that. If a minor peripheral component fails, you're stuck.
Putting the SSD in the enclosure is very quick and easy. You insert it and lock it down on the board, apply the thermal pad supplied with the enclosure, and snap the cover on. The Acasis enclosure (TBU405) is tool-less. I believe there's a version with a fan but I didn't bother. The enclosure does get toasty (because these drives get hot in normal use), but I have checked it with a temperature gun from time to time and it typically doesn't go over ~45-46 ˚C.
The Pro-G40 looks like you can unscrew four screws and pop the cover off... not sure if you can or what you can do inside. But it implies it might be possible...
EB-1 wrote:
Seagate is not part of WD-Sandisk.
Rather than the consumer extrenal SSDs, I prefer to buy M.2 SSDs and put them in portable enclosures. That allows many more external and internal choices and options over the life of the drive. I have 56TB of the WD SN850X in 8TB and 4TB capacities.
EBH
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rscheffler wrote:
+1
I also settled on the WD SN850X and put them in Acasis Thunderbolt 4 enclosures to use with my Macs. I'm getting max read/write throughput available for data on TB4. If you go with a USB drive, it will top out at 10Gb/s, which is about 1GB/s, which is about 1/3 the speed of TB4. This is what I did initially (put the WD SSDs in USB enclosures) and it worked fine for Lightroom use, transfers, etc. But if you're moving a lot of data, 3x faster is nice to have. TB4 enclosures are more expensive, but in hindsight, no regrets.
As alluded to, with a DIY 'build' you can better troubleshoot problems. If the drive suddenly stops mounting, swapping the cable, or the enclosure, might resolve the problem. In a sealed drive, you can't do that. If a minor peripheral component fails, you're stuck.
Putting the SSD in the enclosure is very quick and easy. You insert it and lock it down on the board, apply the thermal pad supplied with the enclosure, and snap the cover on. The Acasis enclosure (TBU405) is tool-less. I believe there's a version with a fan but I didn't bother. The enclosure does get toasty (because these drives get hot in normal use), but I have checked it with a temperature gun from time to time and it typically doesn't go over ~45-46 ˚C.
The Pro-G40 looks like you can unscrew four screws and pop the cover off... not sure if you can or what you can do inside. But it implies it might be possible... ...Show more →
I am unfamiliar with this way of creating a bus-powered portable drive. Are the following what I would need to buy:
B&H doesn't seem to carry Acasis, so I would get the enclosure from Amazon.
This would give me 4TB for a Macbook M1 Pro at higher speeds than I can get with a USB drive? The cost looks to be $370, quite close to the 4TB Samsung T9 for $300.
One more question: It looks like the enclosures don't include a cable. Which type of cable would I need to buy to connect the enclosure to a MacBook M1 Pro?
I've only owned GTech external drives over the past twenty years or so and had one die on me. I pair them up and make sure they are redundant. The one died, I replaced it and copied from the other drive. I like the mini drives and have a stack on my desk while the matching drives live in a fire resistant safe.
EB-1 wrote:
Seagate is not part of WD-Sandisk.
Rather than the consumer extrenal SSDs, I prefer to buy M.2 SSDs and put them in portable enclosures. That allows many more external and internal choices and options over the life of the drive. I have 56TB of the WD SN850X in 8TB and 4TB capacities.
EBH
Could you please put any link for enclosure which works very well ? I would like to see what is potential cost for owning such a drive vs something like SanDisk or Samsung
I have a few different ones, but not for cost or performance reasons. I don't use Apple products nor Thundersbowl in general since it takes 4 PCIe lanes. The main point for me is the flexibility and to reduce potential failures. It is one of the 10Gbps Sabrent ones but only 75g for travel. I dont use it at home. I have another enclosure that is Gen 2 2x but not sure where I got it. Once the SN850X M.2 SSD is removed from it's "jail" you could say that it's at the Thundersbowls level 5 inside a computer. There are even faster SSDs (PCIe 5.0/TB 6) but lower capacity and more power draw. If I had to use an eternal drive on the Apple I'd be using a TB enclosure.
PIOK wrote:
Could you please put any link for enclosure which works very well ? I would like to see what is potential cost for owning such a drive vs something like SanDisk or Samsung
I've 4TB Crucial SSDs in them. All's well and they've been totally reliable on my M2 Mac Studio Ultra and M2 MBP Pro Max (I move the drives among them).
PIOK wrote:
Could you please put any link for enclosure which works very well ? I would like to see what is potential cost for owning such a drive vs something like SanDisk or Samsung
I bought ~$30 Sabrent NVMe USB enclosures from B&H (should also be on Amazon). Later I moved to the Acasis TBU405 Thunderbolt enclosure, which is currently $80 on Amazon. There are a few versions of the TBU405. The 'air' version is only Thunderbolt and not USB backwards compatible, whereas the other versions are.
I'll add that with the Sabrent enclosure it worked fine with MacOS when I initially bought them, but then after updating, I think to MacOS 13, they would randomly disconnect. So I switched to the Acasis enclosures and haven't had any problems. I haven't tried the Sabrent enclosures on my current system running MacOS 15.
I've 4TB Crucial SSDs in them. All's well and they've been totally reliable on my M2 Mac Studio Ultra and M2 MBP Pro Max (I move the drives among them).
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rscheffler wrote:
I bought ~$30 Sabrent NVMe USB enclosures from B&H (should also be on Amazon). Later I moved to the Acasis TBU405 Thunderbolt enclosure, which is currently $80 on Amazon. There are a few versions of the TBU405. The 'air' version is only Thunderbolt and not USB backwards compatible, whereas the other versions are.
I'll add that with the Sabrent enclosure it worked fine with MacOS when I initially bought them, but then after updating, I think to MacOS 13, they would randomly disconnect. So I switched to the Acasis enclosures and haven't had any problems. I haven't tried the Sabrent enclosures on my current system running MacOS 15....Show more →
Thank you for the information and the recommendations. A question: are the enclosures rugged for normal but frequent handling and packing? The Samsung T9 is supposed to survive a 9.8 foot drop. I plan to move this drive from room to room a lot and to pack it for travel.
Thank you for the information and the recommendations. A question: are the enclosures rugged for normal but frequent handling and packing? The Samsung T9 is supposed to survive a 9.8 foot drop. I plan to move this drive from room to room a lot and to pack it for travel.
I can't speak to packing frequently, but they move among my machines easily (no jostling or environmental challenges to deal with).I don't think the Acasis units are waterproof or drop resistant. Check the Acasis page I listed for that kind of info.
