Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Over 3GBps transfers with USB4
- Works with all USB and Thunderbolt 3/4 ports
- Available unpopulated so you may leverage any NVMe SSD
Cons
- A bit expensive when loaded with an SSD
- Large (however beefy) for an exterior SSD
Our Verdict
You completely can’t beat the flexibility (any USB or Thunderbolt port), or the efficiency (over 3GBps) of OWC’s Express 1M2 exterior USB4 SSD. It’s a tad giant, however tremendous sturdy, and particularly reasonably priced in its unpopulated taste.
Price When Reviewed
$200
OWC’s Express 1M2 is the primary USB4 SSD to point out up on our doorstep. Or our constructing’s gated stoop, if I’m being 100 p.c correct. It’s a quite giant exterior SSD that exhibits off USB4’s benefits properly — i.e. Thunderbolt 4-like efficiency at a lower cost level.
But earlier than I get all the way down to brass tacks, a brief primer on what may be a new-to-you expertise.
Further studying: See our roundup of the best external drives to study competing merchandise.
What is USB4?
USB4 is a barely much less succesful, however cheaper-to-implement subset of Thunderbolt 4, although it’s backwards suitable with older variations of USB — in different phrases, it has the identical 40Gbps most switch charge as Thunderbolt 4, so it may be simply as quick, however there are much less stringent necessities.
A USB4 drive can function at 20Gbps if the seller chooses, whereas a Thunderbolt 4 drive should function at not less than 32Gbps. USB4 lacks Thunderbolt 4’s dual-monitor functionality, however helps DisplayPort 2.0 and 8K shows.
Finally, USB4 has a decrease minimal voltage requirement of 7.5 watts versus Thunderbolt 4’s 15W. Note that USB4 is Type-C connector solely, so that you’ll want an adapter for Type-A ports.
What are the OWC Express 1M2’s design and options?
The 1M2 appears like nothing a lot as a big silver heatsink. (The pink hue within the footage is because of lighting.) In truth, that’s what its case largely is, although we’ve examined the OWC Aura Ultra IV TLC-based NVMe SSD that’s inside in a a lot smaller enclosure with out eliciting excessive warmth.
When I say giant, I imply that the 1M2 measures 5.25-inches lengthy, by 2.75-inches huge, by 0.75 inches thick and weighs a quite hefty 9.3 ounces. I personally fairly benefit from the look and the heft — it appears prefer it means enterprise. Tastes fluctuate.
While the Express 1M2 gained’t slot in a shirt pocket, it is going to slot in a jacket aspect pocket and isn’t overly burdensome in a backpack. The fins are rounded on the corners, however a bit tough on the perimeters. In different phrases, it may be barely liable to snagging on unfastened materials. That shouldn’t dissuade you from buy, however being picayune is why I’m paid the large bucks.
As intimated within the primer above, the 1M2 could also be related to any USB port, although efficiency will fluctuate based on the usual: roughly 3GBps with USB4/Thunderbolt 4 ports, 2GBps with 20Gbps USB(3.2×2), simply over 1GBps with 10Gbps USB (3.x), and round 500MBps over older 5Gbps USB 3.
Note that when hooked up to a Thunderbolt 3 port, the drive runs at 20Gbps — a limitation of Thunderbolt 3, not the drive.
How a lot is the OWC Express 1M2?
The OWC Express 1M2 is offered unpopulated (no drive inside) for $120, as a 1TB drive for $220, 2TB for $300, 4TB for $450, and 8TB for $995. $120’s not unhealthy for such a unbelievable enclosure, nonetheless, you’re paying a premium for having OWC populate it for you.
Jon L. Jacobi / Foundry
The OWC Express 1M2 is presently the perfect factor entering into an exterior SSD, assuming you’re not on the lookout for one thing that may slot in your shirt pocket.
How quick is the OWC Express 1M2?
Before settling in to benchmark the 1M2 I hooked up it to number of connections from USB 2.0 to Thunderbolt 4. (Our take a look at mattress lacks a USB4-only port.) The drive functioned completely on all of them, albeit restricted to the utmost velocity of the bus in use.
Note that I needed to allow Better Performance/Enable Write caching below the drive’s (not the partition’s) insurance policies to realize full efficiency. This was probably on account of our take a look at mattress not absolutely recognizing the brand new taste of USB.
As you may see under, the Express 1M2 simply outstripped our former champion, OWC’s personal Envoy Pro FX within the CrystalDiskMark 8 sequential assessments. We additionally examined the Express 1M2 on 20Gbps and 10Gbps USB ports.
Nothing modified within the CrystalDiskMark 8 4K assessments — the Express 1M2 remained far forward of the competitors.
In our real-world 48GB transfers, the Express 1M2 reigned supreme. Notice that the 1M2’s 20Gbps mixture time was higher than the 20Gbps Crucial X10 Pro’s. Indeed, OWC takes the general USB 20Gbps efficiency title from that worthy competitor.
Finally, a touch of humility was required from the Express 1M2, because the 1TB model OWC despatched us ran out of secondary cache earlier than the 450GB write was accomplished and completed second to the 2TB Crucial X10 Pro.
Even off cache, write velocity was between 500MBps and 650MBps — hardly tragic just like the 100MBps that you simply’ll see with QLC drives.
What’s not illustrated by these charts is that the Express 1M2 was the quickest exterior drive we’ve examined over each bus: Thunderbolt 4, 20Gbps USB, and 10Gbps USB. No matter which you’re rocking, the 1M2 is the drive for velocity.
The Express 1M2 additionally formatted, trimmed, and so on. fairly quickly, although that’s probably because of the Aura Ultra IV SSD quite than the enclosure. Also, regardless of the huge heatsink, the Express 1M2 nonetheless ran mildly heat to the contact over the Thunderbolt 4/USB4 and USB 20Gbps ports, so we are able to see the necessity for stated warmth spreader.
Should you purchase the OWC Express 1M2?
The OWC Express 1M2 is presently the perfect factor entering into an exterior SSD, assuming you’re not on the lookout for one thing that may slot in your shirt pocket. It’s the quickest we’ve examined over any taste of USB or Thunderbolt, and is constructed like a brick outhouse.
Crème de la crème or not, shopping for the unpopulated model and putting in a cut price SSD is by far your finest deal. Even the slowest PCIe 3.0/4.0 NVMe TLC SSD we’ve examined ought to ship roughly the identical efficiency as even at 40Gbps, the bus is the limiting issue.
How we take a look at
Drive assessments presently make the most of Windows 11, 64-bit operating on an X790 (PCIe 4.0/5.0) motherboard/i5-12400 CPU combo with two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 4800MHz modules (64GB of reminiscence complete). Both 20Gbps USB/Thunderbolt 4 are built-in to the again panel and Intel CPU/GPU graphics are used. The 48GB switch assessments make the most of an ImDisk RAM disk taking over 58GB of the 64GB of complete reminiscence. The 450GB file is transferred from a 2TB Samsung 990 Pro which additionally runs the OS.
Each take a look at is carried out on a newly formatted and TRIM’d drive so the outcomes are optimum. Note that in regular use, as a drive fills up, efficiency might lower on account of much less NAND for secondary caching, in addition to different components. This is much less of an element with the present crop of SSDs with their far quicker NAND.
Caveat: The efficiency numbers proven apply solely to the drive we have been shipped and to the capability examined. SSD efficiency can and can fluctuate by capability on account of extra or fewer chips to shotgun reads/writes throughout and the quantity of NAND out there for secondary caching. Vendors additionally sometimes swap elements. If you ever discover a big discrepancy between the efficiency you expertise and that which we report, by all means, tell us.