How to build a Thunderbolt SSD for your Mac - WAVLINK enclosure & Samsung NVMe SSD

In this video I'm showing you how to build your own external Thunderbolt 3 drive that uses an M.2 NVME SSD for the storage. The Thunderbolt 3 NVME SSD enclosure that I'm using is the WAVLINK Thunderbolt 3 to NVMe PCI-E M-key SSD and the M.2 NVME SSD I'm using is the Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB.
For this example I'm building this Thunderbolt SSD for my M1 Max MacBook Pro. However, you can use this Thunderbolt SSD with anything that is compatible, such as any Apple Mac computer with Thunderbolt 3 or Thunderbolt 4 interfacing or any Windows PC with the same.
While I was a bit disappointed with the write speeds using the Samsung SSD, the read speeds were very good. I have since used a WD Blue 1TB M.2 NVME SSD with this enclosure and it gives around 1800MB/s write and around 2200MB/s read. This WD is a fair bit cheaper than the Samsung and for basic storage may be the better option, I've included links to that as well below.
Chapters:
00:00 Intro and explanation
02:42 All the parts
07:23 Inside the enclosure
08:37 Fitting the SSD into the enclosure
13:41 Connecting the TB3 cable to the enclosure
15:28 Formatting the SSD in the Mac
18:23 Disk Speed test with BMD app
22:33 Real world write test
24:33 Real world read test
26:10 End credits
Amazon links:
WAVLINK Thunderbolt 3 SSD enclosure: geni.us/WavlinkTB3Enclosure
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB: geni.us/Samsung970EVOPlus1TB
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB: geni.us/Samsung970EVOPlus2TB
WD Blue 1TB: geni.us/WB1TBBlue
Other TB3 SSD Enclosures: geni.us/TB3NVMeEnclosures
Other NVMe SSDs: geni.us/NVMeSSD
Apple Computers:
M1 Max MacBook Pro USA geni.us/M1MaxMacBookProUSA
M1 Pro MacBook Pro USA geni.us/M1ProMacBookProUSA
M1 Max MacBook Pro Amazon UK geni.us/M1MaxMacBookPro
Mac Mini M1 (2020) geni.us/MacMiniM1
MacBook Pro M1 (2020) geni.us/MacBookProM1-2020
MacBook Air M1 (2020) geni.us/MacBookAirM1-2020
iMac M1 (2021) geni.us/iMacM1-2021
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iPhone 13 Pro Max geni.us/iPhone13ProMax
iPhone 13 Pro geni.us/iPhone13Pro
iPhone 13 geni.us/iPhone13
iPhone 13 Mini geni.us/iPhone13Mini
iPads and Apple peripherals.
iPad Pro M1 (2021) 11 inch geni.us/M1iPadPro2021-11-Inch
iPad Pro M1 (2021) 12.9 inch geni.us/M1iPadPro2021
iPad Mini 6 (2021) geni.us/iPadMini2021
iPad Air 4 (2020) geni.us/iPadAir4-2020
iPad 9 (2021) geni.us/iPad9
Magic Keyboard 11 inch geni.us/MagicKeyboard11inch
Magic Keyboard 5th Gen 12.9 inch geni.us/MagicKeyboard5thGen
Pencil 2 geni.us/PencilGen2
USB C to headphone adapter geni.us/Apple-USBC-Headphone
Lightning to headphone adapter geni.us/LightningToHeadphone
3rd party iPad peripherals.
ESR tempered glass screen protectors for all current iPads.
iPad Pro 2018/2020/2021 & Air 4 geni.us/iPadProScreenProtector
iPad Mini 6 (2021) geni.us/ESRiPadMini6Protector
iPad 9 (2021) & 8th 7th Gen geni.us/ESRiPad9Protector
CableCreation USB C to HDMI cable geni.us/CableCreationUSBCHDMI
CableCreation USB C to DisplayPort cable geni.us/CableCreationUSBCDP
DockTeck USB C hub (works with iPad Pro M1) geni.us/DockteckUSBC-HUB
Apple TV & other Apple products.
Apple TV 4K (2021) geni.us/AppleTV-2021
Air Pods Max geni.us/AirPods-Max
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I’m David Harry, thank you very much for watching this video, take care and goodbye now.
Cheers,
Dave.

[@dhaferbaker]

All the things I’ve been looking for, love the way you presented this and your accent is amazing mate, result: subscribed to your channel, thanks cheers

[@DavidHarry]

You are very welcome 👍 Cheers, Dave.

[@teddym2808]

For the price this enclosure is amazing. The sabrent one is double the cost and maxes out at 1600 read, and you can get 4TB single sided drives now. I have the Wavlink on its way with a 4TB 990 Pro so we'll see how it goes!

[@Peter_Carroll]

Great video, very informative, thinking of getting one of the MacBook pros shortly. Looking forward to seeing how the other options perform in comparison. Thanks for posting. 👍

[@DavidHarry]

Hi Peter. If you’re thinking about putting one together regardless of the Thunderbolt enclosure, check out the WD Blue NVMe SSDs. The Samsungs are faster but the WD SSDs are a lot cheaper and great for basic storage. I tried the WD with this enclosure and it was writing at about 1800MBs and reading at about 2200. I was gonna test the WD as well but the video was already mad long, I mention the WD in the description. Cheers, Dave.

[@KevinMuldoon]

That looks really nice Dave. Most of the cheaper SSD enclosures don't have heatsinks. I've been using thermal pads on the UGreen one I have as there's nothing there to cool the storage.

[@justcruisin109]

Very helpful - thanks. Cheers from Oz

[@DavidHarry]

Nice one, glad it was helpful. Hello from Liverpool 👍 Cheers, Dave.

[@TonesAdventuresHD]

That was a very fast read speed in the end!

[@DavidHarry]

Alright Tone. Yes, read was great but write was less than half the speed it is when this Samsung SSD is inside my Windows PC. Saying that, the write speed is still faster than the USB C options. Cheers, Dave.

[@michalisfilippou9547]

Nice video. I just the same enclosure and I install a samsung 980 Pro NVMe 1T. I am using an M1 macbook Air. When I format my drive as you suggest the speed from my NVMe is about 1500 mb/s write and about 2500 mb/s read. If I format it as APFS then I get 2600 mb/s write and 2400 mb/s read. (by the way I am not going to use on a windows pc. Only for mac)

[@onlyvik]

What about trim support?

[@moseskravitz]

have you figured out a way too remove the heat sink from the NVMe blade?

[@SuchetB]

This is really good - thank you - Do you have any videos on how to create a raid drive for video editing or something for the novice who just wants to set up a large amount of harddrive space to edit the videos from MAC M1 MAX using something like Final Cut Pro and Davinci Resolve?

[@DavidHarry]

Hi. I'm glad the video helped. As for a RAID. I personally don't use one as I only edit one project at a time and a 1TB Thunderbolt drive is enough for that. I would imagine that any external enclosure using USB C or Thunderbolt would be fine if you need a large storage space on hard drives. Although, you'd probably have to use at least 6 or 8 mechanical drives in a RAID 0 stripe to get anywhere near the constant bitrate that a fast single Thunderbolt NVME drive can achieve. I just use single 14TB hard drives for my mid to long term storage and then just single Thunderbolt NVME drives for the editing. You could always stripe a few NVME drives in an external enclosure to get more drive space but that would be very expensive. Maybe using single large hard drives for mid term storage and then moving active video projects to Thunderbolt NVME for editing may be the best cost effective solution. You also have to bear in mind the types of codecs you are using, frame rate, resolution and the overall bandwidth/bitrate required. Cheers, Dave.

[@SuchetB]

@@DavidHarry Thank you for the response I really appreciate it - Im thinking Ill need around 8tb SSD as I want to edit directly off the external SSD from my M1 Max which only has 2TB ssd. I want to edit a two-and-a-half hour feature film on it in Final Cut Pro X and do some grading too - Ill be using a mixture of DNG RAW and Prores RAW files and some h265 mov and mp4 files too (I know I have confused it with different file formats and codecs and stuff - Its just that Ive been filming this labor-of-love project for 2 years and have changed equipment and stuff). I think Im gearing towards using an enclosure with multiple SSD drives as I think that would be best for the size of the project from what you are saying and what Ive been seeing. Im thinking of something like an OWC Express 4M2 Enclosure for 4 x M2 SSD with 4x 2tb ssds in there - Do you think that would work? Thank you so much for the response. I look forward to seeing more of your videos. Cheers Suchet

[@Mangold108]

that is a decent speed!!!! but i got a problem with mz UGREEN encloser. when is plugged in mi iMac doesnt boot properlz: it get stuck on apple logo. but when unplugged start fine. I tryed with different cable and ports but not help...do zou have an idea? thanks

[@master.swordz]

You can try konyead enclosure it should give you 2k write speed.

[@winmarkesconde5651]

those read and write defend on file system i gues, try apfs to campare.

[@ninay7685]

Hello from France!!! thanks for your great job! I have a MacBook Pro M1 pro. do you think I could have this speed whith the Crucial P2 CT2000P2SSD8 and this Sabrent boîtier en Aluminium Robuste certifié Thunderbolt 3 pour SSD M.2 NVMe? because I have read that m1 pro can't go out of 1 000 gas? tanks.

[@DavidHarry]

Hi and greetings from Liverpool (England). I don’t know about the speed of the P2 in this particular enclosure. However, there is one thing to know. If you have fast NVME SSDs they are never as fast when inside any enclosure. I have a few fast SSDs and they have slower speeds inside the enclosure, their write speed is a lot more slower in the enclosure. So far, I have not found an enclosure that is fast. It may be worth looking at USB C enclosures instead of Thunderbolt enclosure. USB C will be slower but will cost less money. I will do a video soon about a Sabrent USB C enclosure. Merci, Dave.

[@AWalterDavies]

If you were staying in the Apple Universe, you'd never use EXFAT. How would it go if you formatted as APFS and GUID Map?

[@binoyu5164]

Can you please name one SSD out there faster than the internal SSD in your mac?

[@joonajks]

Are there any major differences in speed on the NVME capacity size such as 512 or 1t ssd?

[@brentstwocents]

Benchmarks for 1TB are usually a bit higher than for 500GB. However all SSDs will slow down as they fill up, so you'll get better real world performance with a larger drive that has more empty space.

[@markwiemels]

Are you using the M1 MacBook?

[@DavidHarry]

M1 Max.

[@issiewizzie]

are you sure its not the apple system that's making a little slow than you are used to have you checked on a windows system the transfer speed

[@superbigboss6149]

Can support USB 3 , 3.1 and USB4 ?

[@DavidHarry]

No, just Thunderbolt.

[@mmhcreates]

Anyone know of an enclosure that can handle 5000 or more mbs read and write speeds?

[@DavidHarry]

Hi. Even if you had an NVMe Gen 4 drive that can go much higher than 5000GB/s. Thunderbolt 4 itself won't do above 5000MB/s. Cheers, Dave.

[@mmhcreates]

@@DavidHarry hi David, thanks for reply. Im looking to get an NVMe ssd, and seems like the best option is to buy one, and an enclosure seperatley. Havnt found any enclosures that go beyond 1,600 mb/s. So isnt really worth getting an NVMe that exceeds what the enclosure can process. Was hoping someone may know of one. If there isn't, I will opt for a much slower NVMe. Want it to store Vsts and plugins.

[@rorywalters1614]

17:06 ExFAT perform worse compared with MacOS extended or APFS, don’t use it on a drive that needs transfer speed.

[@vlad-koshkin]

but what if the disk needs to be used on both systems, mac and windows?

[@grics667]

​@@vlad-koshkinBuy APFS for Windows by Paragon Software