Introducing the OWC Express 1M2: Unleash USB4's Power!

Is there anyway I could get one of these empty enclosures sent to test out in the UK? Working on a large TV series and want to test the fastest enclosure possible over a sustained transfer.

I've tested the OWC Express 1M2 with my Lenovo Thinkpad P53 (Windows 11 Enterprise edition) and Macbook Pro M1 max. I'm using the older Samsung 970 Pro 1 TB NvMe drives. For my personal reasons I want to stick with the older MLC V-NAND because they are more reliable than the newer TLC generations.

I compared them with my latest Acasis TBU 405Pro M1 active cooled SSD enclosure with a Thunderbolt connection. Connected to the Thunderbolt 3 port on my Lenovo Thinkpad P53 the OWC is a lot slower compared to the Acasis. I used the CrystalDiskMark 8.0.4 Shizuku Edition X64.

Read 1056 (MB/s) 1056 & Write 1032 (MB/s) vs the Acasis Read 3030 (MB/s) & Write 2086 (MB/s)

One thing I don't like is that Samsung Magician doesn't recognize my drive. You can't activate over- provisioning and firmware updates will not work. It's being recognized (Samsung Magician) as a USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface with a UASP protocol.

I also tested a USB 3.0 port plus usb-c and tested different cables. The results weren't satisfying enough either. In my situation with my older Thinkpad P53 it doesn't make sense to swap my Acasis for the OWC Express 1M2 enclosure. The build quality is great just like the OWC Mercury Elite Pro mini I just bought no comments on that. 👌👌

On my Macbook Pro it was a little different. Same Acasis with the same Samsung 970 Pro 1TB and here the OWC was a little faster

I used Blackmagic:

Acasis TBU 405Pro M1 : Write 1977.6 MB/s Read 2719.6 MB/s
OWC Express 1M2 : Write 2155.8 MB/s Read 2879.9 MB/s

But for me personaly again not a reason to swap the Acasis for the OWC. The newer generation Nvme drives are way faster these days so my situation can't be described as a reference. The same with temperatures of the enclosure. The OWC felt a little warmer but that's the way it should be.

I think that the OWC Express 1M2 is a better choice to combine with Apple Silicon computers and newer generation Windows computers.

Thanks for info.

Great product. Please, offer an enclosure of this type and design for more than 1 SSD: like OWC ThunderBlade or OWC ThunderBlade X8 but only as enclosure without preinstalled SSDs.

I need a cheap one

I Would like to buy an empty enclosure of this but unfortunately this device is nowhere available here in Germany. I can´t even order one with waiting time (Amazon, Alternate are listing it as "not available").

Will Samsung Magician software be able to see the Samsung NVME M.2 SSD on MacBook Pro 2023 and update the SSD's firmware while connected through your enclosure?

Do I buy the thunderbolt 4 or usb4 cable separately?

Can it connect iPhone 15 pro or not ?

Does this support 20Gbps too (and get ~2GB/s)? Website only says 10Gbps and 40Gbps. Also prices in Switzerland are a bit bonkers, 173 CHF (199 USD) for an empty one. I understand this milled from a two big chunks of aluminum, but surely things could be optimized a bit more. Also in my opinion the width and height of this unit are a bit too big. A bit smaller heatsink would still do perfectly fine, and make things lighter and cheaper. Even wall thickness is just a bit too crazy.

In case anybody is wondering it is using ASMedia ASM2464PD chip.

Does this work with the Apple M.2 Drives, like the Envoy line of enclosures?

Does this work with Linux? I bought a cheapo $20 AliExpress 40gbps drive with the same chip and it only works on my Mac. It’ll connect initially as a thunderbolt device using the 6.10 kernel but then drops back to USB2.0 speeds. Hoping the OWC version or firmware would be better?

Any plans to update this to Thunderbolt 5?

is it hot when the mac is sleeping? I have an acasis enclosure and it's hot all the time even when my mac is sleeping.