The UGREEN USB4 Thunderbolt SSD Enclosure with a Cooling Fan

[@naizondj]

this is very good because ugreen once sent me a thunderbold cable that was not fast enough!! very good review mate!!!!!

[@KevinMuldoon]

Thanks Naizondj. 👍👍👍

[@bazza8947]

My enclosure just arrived and also using it with a M4 Mac mini. The fan is very noticeable!

[@KevinMuldoon]

Hi Bazza. I assume that was a typo and you meant to say fan. There must be models out there that use a different part or something as mine is incredibly quiet.

[@bazza8947]

@@KevinMuldoon It was a typo but corrected now. No way I could live with this connected all the time

[@KevinMuldoon]

That's a pain. I'm puzzled as to why some people are having this issue whilst others are not. It suggests the quality of the fan you receive is the luck of the draw. I can't rule out the same problem arising for me in the future. I'd return it if it's a big concern. 👍

[@sebastiandecker1722]

@@bazza8947 i had this enclosure ordered for my fathers macbook pro SSD. This fan is a joke. The enclosure gets way too hot in idle already, let alone when writing to the SSD. i tested other enclosures as well and found the thunderbolt devices with intel chipset (e.g. anyoyo for example) very much cooler, albeit only with 2800MB/s instead of 3500MB/s with 4TB Samsung 990pro.

[@trickiejohn]

Only just found your Channel 👍🏻 On my Mac Mini M4, and this enclosure with a WD Blue 850 1tb, my result mirror yours for speed, appearance and heat. A good device for the price. It will become my backup device when I finish my setup Thanks

[@KevinMuldoon]

Hahaha brilliant. The best way to discover my videos 😁 It's strange though. When I looked it into the enclosure before publishing my video, half the users noted fan noise and others said it was silent....and it's the same in the comments for the video. It seems that many people have no noise whilst others do. There was perhaps an issue in earlier versions.

Hello Kevin Muldoon, I bought the Ugreen enclosure like you and paired it with a Samsung 970 Evo Pro 1TB on my MacBook Pro 2021. However, the SSD enclosure automatically disconnects, and I can’t even copy a file. Have you experienced anything like this before?

[@KevinMuldoon]

No, I never encountered any issues like that. It was connected for hours at a time with no issues.

[@Tech-Head]

I got mine a few days before i saw the vid but i am so happy with it too, excellent eclosure, blows the rest of mine away.

[@KevinMuldoon]

Great to hear. Has the fan been quiet or noisy for you?

[@Tech-Head]

@KevinMuldoon No, been pretty much silent and i was getting great speed. Black magic on a 1tb Samsung 980 pro 3500 & 2900. Well worth the £70. 👍 Excellent review as well, got me to subscribe & looking forward to more content. 👍

[@KevinMuldoon]

@Tech-Head Thanks. Appreciate the kind words and it's great to have you on board 👍 I've been super busy over the last week or so, but do have a few enclosures I still want to review over the next month. It's strange. Just like I saw on Reddit, half the comments on this video say either the fan is quiet or the fan is loud. It's bizarre the issue is not affecting everyone.

[@Tech-Head]

@KevinMuldoon Your welcome and happy to join. Aye, very confusing, I have to wonder what the folk saying noisy define as loud. Sweet for more Enclosures as I'm still expanding the system and will be interesting to see. 👍

[@waynehwlam]

I also got this one and I absolutely cannot tell if the fan is running or not.

[@KevinMuldoon]

I'm the same Wayne. I did think for a second mine was broken, but I can hear the fans spinning when I hold it up to my ear. It does sound like some people have an issue with the fan, or at least have a lower tolerance to noise than I do 😁 Are you getting similar speeds to me?

[@geraldwilczek999]

How Ugreen’s enclosure compares to OWC device? I read that Ugreen enclosure has problems with instability, disconnecting and temperature. While OWC express is keep rock solid speed with decent temperature. Wondering if its worth to pay more for OWC.

[@KevinMuldoon]

Hi Gerald. The OWC is larger and heavier, but I prefer it as it doesn't have a fan (that has the potential to break). I'll test it a little more in a few weeks when I work on a review. Got some other product reviews to get online first. I do like the Ugreen enclosure too. I haven't had any disconnection issue or any other kind of instability. The reviews on Amazon seem mixed so perhaps it's the luck of the draw. If there's anything in particular you want to know about the OWC enclosure before I review it, be sure to let me know 👍

[@DavidHarry]

Alright, Kevin. Great video mate 👍 Those speeds are really good and at the high end of what's achievable with these drive setups. I also buy separate thermal pads and cut them to size with a bunch of the stuff that I use. I will show the manufacturers' ones in videos but I will quite often cut my own, like you did. I also suspect that your SSD is probably a bit faster than what you seen in your test. Yesterday I was testing the Zike enclosure, which I think uses the same controller as your Ugreen enclosure. In my tests with my fastest SSDs the drive was actually faster on my MacBook compared to the Mini, which is why I'm suggesting that your drive may actually be faster than what you've seen. I'm not sure why but I have a feeling that part of the file caching for the speed testing is using the internal storage, as well as the RAM, and as the internal storage is slower than the external SSD (with the fast ones I've tested) I think this limits that last little bit of speed. On the MacBook the same drive was between 200 - 300MB/s faster, compared to the Mini. The only real problem that I have with most of these enclosures is that they a passive, so even though this Zike enclosure performs really well, it does heat up a lot. I may get the same one as you've got, as I really do think you need active cooling with the very fast Gen 4 SSDs. Cheers, Dave.

[@KevinMuldoon]

Thanks Dave. Yeah that SSD is definitely capable of higher speeds. I only took it out of my main PC recently and it was in a gen 4 pcie slot. I'm getting the Zike enclosure sent to me too. They must have blasted emails out to a lot of channels. It hasn't arrived yet. Will probably be a few weeks before I get round to publishe a review as I have my OWC enclosure and a few other product reviews to get out the door first. I'm a bit slower with my schedule due to my job etc, but keen to push out at least one review a week. Two would require a lot of late nights unfortunately. That's interesting about the MacBook. You're in a good position to test enclosures with both the MacBook and Mac mini. I'm curious as to what would cause the MacBook to be quicker in tests. Do you think memory is a factor? Will check out the Zike review when it drops and let you know if my results are similar 👍 Kevin

[@DavidHarry]

@@KevinMuldoon Alright, Kevin. I doubt that memory is the factor in the difference between the two computers. The test files themselves are smaller than the RAM on both machines. However, I have a feeling that no matter what goes on and no matter how much RAM you have, macOS, especially on Apple Silicon, is using the internal storage as part of the caching/buffering. I think you will be very happy with the Zike when you get it 👍 Cheers, Dave.

[@KevinMuldoon]

Yeah the Zike looks decent. It's pretty cool it has a built in cable. I was reading about internal cache with my Samsung Evo drive as that threw some crappy performance speeds my way with some of the drives, but when I dived deep into it, a lot of people said you had to disable internal caching on the drive. Which is an option in windows but not an option I could find in MacOS.

[@DavidHarry]

@@KevinMuldoon Alright, Kevin. Just a quick update. The small built in cable on the Zike is only working at 10Gb/s on my M4 Max MBP, the longer cable is 40Gb/s. Using the Samsung 990 Pro the speed is between 3400 to 3600MB/s, which is by far the fastest speed I’ve ever seen on USB4/TB4. However, there’s a lot of heat after only a few minutes of writing data and the Samsung was throttling down to about half the write speed and at about 58 degrees Celsius. Bottom line, you really do need active cooling with these enclosures when using Gen4 SSDs. This creates a bit of a problem as it looks like my review is going to be negative. Plus the enclosure comes in a clear plastic shroud/cover which I took off as plastic is an insulator and would have increased the temps. Cheers, Dave.

[@KevinMuldoon]

@DavidHarry thanks for the update Dave. Those speeds are seriously impressive. Did the heat increase from transferring many files or was it actively being written and read via an app (e.g. DaVinci Resolve)? In my video, I took speed benchmarks as I know that's what people want to see, but what I wasn't 100% sure about was how to accurately test speed and thermals over a longer period of time. I'm familiar with testing in the windows world as I have a few apps installed that monitor temps etc. I'll need to find something more accurate in the world of Mac for future tests as sustained speeds and temperatures are more elegant than speed benchmarks. Looking forward to watching your video about it. 👍

[@incredible421]

If I remove the SSD from one enclosure and install to another enclosure will it impact the data and apps installed in SSD

[@KevinMuldoon]

No, it will not. Storage drives from companies like Samsung that put in additional security features are perhaps a little different in some circumstances, but these types of enclosures just act as connectors. I have the Zike enclosure arriving soon and I'll take the drive from the Ugreen and pop it into the new enclosure. The drive is already formatted for Mac so there won't be any issues. Of course, if you're moving a drive from Mac to Windows, it's a different story as the drive isn't formatted in the correct format.

[@incredible421]

@ Thanks for your reply.

[@KevinMuldoon]

@incredible421 you're welcome 👍

[@00tich]

I bought one .the fan pulsates on and off when the SSD is under heavy load. Its very annoying

[@KevinMuldoon]

Thanks for the feedback. Are you in a super quiet environment? I have tried stressing the enclosure out with file transfers and video caching but I just didn't ever hear the fans go crazy.

[@00tich]

@@KevinMuldoon No. Most of the time I don't hear the fan at all but when I start using the ssd a lot the fan goes from silent to full speed in about 3 seconds then goes back to silent. this goes on for as long as I use it heavily, ramping up and down and up and down for a few seconds at a time continuously . Probably bad thermostat or something in the drive, if it would just run at the same speed for a while it wouldn't be so bad. Its the pulsating that's annoying

[@KevinMuldoon]

@00tich I haven't seen that myself yet, but I'll keep an eye on that. When rendering a video file and other tasks like that, I don't mind a little noise as it's an excuse to take a break. Plus fan noise usually means something does need to be cooled. So it's not a bad thing for the fan to kick in. I know everyone's situation and their environment is different though. I have had little gadgets with small fans and they can be pulsing and high pitched, simply because of the size of them. It's why I always tried to use larger fans in my PC builds as they push a larger volume at slower rotations.

[@tubularrick]

Hey how did the first enclosure explode was it caused by heat?

[@KevinMuldoon]

Oh it was nothing like that. It was actually quite a useful backup enclosure to have. I used it to clone a lot of drives and move data around. It did get very hot though. That particular enclosure had a push mechanism. Essentially, there is a board for the M2 NVME drive and a shell around it. A button ensures the board stays within the shell and this lets you pop the board in and out easily. The button mechanism used springs and a small piece of plastic must have broken and the springs just flew everywhere. I attempted to fix it, but no joy. So it's going to silicone heaven 😁

[@bobpaajobb]

Thanks for a great review. May I ask : would an SSD with heatsink like the WD Black SN850X fit into this enclosure, or would the model without heatsink fit better?

[@KevinMuldoon]

Hi Bob. The shell of the UGreen enclosure acts like a heatsink to disapate heat. When the shell is put back on, the drive has the thermal pad on and the thermal pad touches the top of the shell. I have thought about doing tests in the future using a custom heatsink as you could just leave the top of the shell off and use a custom one on top. I don't believe the heatsink that is provided with the WD Black SN850X would fit though as it would be blocked by the enclosure itself.

[@Erin-Thor]

What is the difference between USB4 and Thunderbolt 4? 🤷🏼‍♂️

[@KevinMuldoon]

There's a few differences. Generally speaking, Thunderbolt 4 is more strict and ensured better speeds and compatibility in different situations. USB4 can be 20Gbps or 40Gbps, whereas Thunderbolt 4 always has to deliver 40Gbps. USB4 doesn't need to provide charging, additional display support or networking support...but Thunderbolt 4 does. Confusion arises as USB4 devices do sometimes meet the same requirements as TB4. There's many good comparison and explanation articles about it online. Such as at satechi.net/blogs/usb-4-0-vs-thunderbolt-4-0-differences-and-similarities

[@jdlegas]

@@Erin-Thor licensing mainly

[@Erin-Thor]

@ - Or branding? Apple has a “We are Special” mindset. Thanks for answering, sorry I didn’t think for myself. I found the following: 1.Supported Bandwidth Both support up to 40Gbps, but USB4 has USB4 20Gbps and USB 40Gbps, so the minimum specification only needs 20Gbps, while Thunderbolt 4 has only one specification of 40Gbps. 2.Charging Power Both support up to 100W, but the minimum standard for USB4 is 7.5W, while Thunderbolt 4 is at 15W. 3.Data Transfer Speed As for data transmission, USB4 needs to support at least 10Gbps of USB 3.2, while Thunderbolt 4 not only supports 10Gbps of USB 3.2 but also can reach 32Gbps through PCIe. 4.Supported Monitor USB4 only supports single display, and there is no minimum resolution requirement; in contrast, Thunderbolt 4 can support dual 4K 60Hz display or single 8K 60Hz display. 5.System wake from sleep The Thunderbolt 4 interface also supports waking up from sleep, for example, when you want to wake up a computer with a mouse or keyboard, which will save users a lot of trouble.

[@Erin-Thor]

@@KevinMuldoon - Kevin; Odd that I didn’t see your explanation from 12 days ago until AFTER you liked my response. Not joking, it was not there when I responded to @jdlegas, even though it was from 12 days ago.

[@KevinMuldoon]

Hahaha I know. KZbin notifications don't always pop up. The KZbin studio app which I use to respond to viewer comments is like that too. I still see comments from years ago that somehow slipped through the net.

[@KRS174S]

Excellent review

[@KevinMuldoon]

Thank you. 👍

[@chionyenkwu2253]

Good vid 👍🏾👍🏾If you run this with a gen5 nvme you will hear the fan as we all know these can get a wee bit toasty.

[@KevinMuldoon]

Good chance I'd burn my house down with a gen 5 drive 🤣 You raise a good point. There may be situations where gen 3 drives could be a better option over gen 4 as they don't require as much cooling.

[@alp4info]

KM- A good find and review. Thanks! ✊🏾

[@KevinMuldoon]

Thank you. Glad you liked it 👍