Question Suggestions for a Thunderbolt adapter for connecting an M.2 NVMe SSD to a laptop ?

[Manuel Jordan]

Hello Friends

Two cousins need to solve the following situation:

There exists two laptops where each one:

• Has M.2 NVMe SSD with 500GB and 1TB respectively
• Has Thunderbolt 3 and 4 respectively
• Laptops cannot be opened to increase the SSD, as they are new and is not wise lose the warranty.

About storage and being not the case:

• If is only need it more space to store then is enough buy a pendrive (USB Flash Drive)

But the situation and being the problem is:

• Is need it more space to store and use data in realtime

For example, for:

• Rendering in architecture
• Editions of video
• VirtualBox .vdi files for each one with 500GB

Therefore because is not possible:

• Upgrade the current "M.2 NVMe"
• Buy a new "M.2 NVMe" and put it within the laptop itself as secondary storage

I thought the following:

1. Buy a "M.2 NVMe" with a higher capacity (2TB, 4TB)
2. Buy a Thunderbolt adapter for "M.2 NVMe" to Laptop

Yes, I know the difference about data transfer between

• "M.2 NVMe" directly to the Laptop's mobo
• "M.2 NVMe" through the Thunderbolt adapter

Of course the latter should be slower than the former. How slow? I don't know but because it is Thunderbolt it should be faster than USB Type A,B etc.

Therefore according with your own experience (members of your family, co-workers)

Question

• What is your best suggestion(s) for a Thunderbolt adapter for M.2 NVMe to Laptop?

Manufacturer and model(s)

I am assuming should exist as:

• Hybrid adapter to work as either 3 or 4
• Specific adapter to work as 3
• Specific adapter to work as 4

Of course, it involves the Generation and Lanes of the "M.2 NVMe" too

Thanks in advance

p.d: If you have a better suggestion, pls let me know

 

[Aeacus]

p.d: If you have a better suggestion, pls let me know

I wonder, 🤔 why the additional storage drive needs to be desktop M.2 drive?

External drive should suffice. Also, a lot easier to set up and doesn't require specific adapter that may or may not work.
Further reading: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-external-hard-drive-ssd,5987.html

For raw storage, best option: HDD (easy 6TB)
For good read/writes + relatively cheap: SSD (2.5" SATA)
For fast read/writes: M.2 (e.g SanDisk Pro-G40 SSD)

 

[USAFRet]

What will this drive be used for?

 

[Aeacus]

What will this drive be used for?

OP did actually say it;

• Is need it more space to store and use data at realtime

For example for:

• Rendering in architecture
• Editions of video
• VirtualBox .vdi files for each one with 500GB

 

[Manuel Jordan]

Aeacus
Thanks for the reply

I wonder, why the additional storage drive needs to be desktop M.2 drive?

Because I am assuming all the components of the chain:

* Storage SSD
* Thunderbolt

Must work with high data speed.

Consider if you have the laptop with a unique and primary SSD with 500GB and you need run a VirtualMachine through VirtualBox with 500GB too.

Therefore is need it a secondary external device to work by hours and wanting "almost" the same throughput as if this secondary device is directly connected to the mainboard

So according with my understanding M2 NVMe is faster than SSD 2.5.

External drive should suffice. Also, a lot easier to set up and doesn't require specific adapter that may or may not work.
Further reading: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-external-hard-drive-ssd,5987.html

Thanks for the link

For raw storage, best option: HDD (easy 6TB)
For good read/writes + relatively cheap: SSD (2.5" SATA)
For fast read/writes: M.2 (e.g SanDisk Pro-G40 SSD)

Correct, and according with the scenario explained that's why the third one is the best option. Therefore M2 NVMe

Thanks for your understanding

 

[Aeacus]

Consider if you have the laptop with a unique and primary SSD with 500GB and you need run a VirtualMachine through VirtualBox with 500GB too.

Laptop is not the right machine to do the said work. For VMs, i'd use desktop PC since those have the high performance needed to run VMs.
Sure, it can be done with laptop as well, but it would be painful and slow.

and wanting "almost" the same throughput as if this secondary device is directly connected to the mainboard

What one wants and what one can get, are two different things.

PCI-E 3.0 (Gen3) M.2 NVMe SSD bandwidth is 8 GB/s.
PCI-E 4.0 (Gen4) M.2 NVMe SSD bandwidth is 16 GB/s.
PCI-E 5.0 (Gen5) M.2 NVMe SSD bandwidth is 32 GB/s.

Thunderbolt 3 and 4 bandwidth is 5 GB/s.

Even when both laptops would have the PCI-E Gen3 M.2 SSD, the speed to ANY external drive over Thunderbolt will still be slower.
Now, if laptops have PCI-E Gen4 drives, then speed compared to external drive is considerably slower (3 times slower).
And if laptops have PCI-E Gen5 drives, external drive is peanuts compared to internal drive.

So, if one "wants" to have best possible speed, then open the laptop and mount the drive directly to M.2 slot, while voiding warranty. Since else-ways, there is no other option.

So according with my understanding M2 NVMe is faster than SSD 2.5.

Yes. Even the slowest M.2 NVMe drive (PCI-E Gen3) outmatches SATA SSD considerably. 8 GB/s vs 625 MB/s.

 

[geofelt]

What is the make/model of the laptops in question?

 

[VizzieTheViz]

I’d say any thunderbolt 4 enclosure for an nvme ssd would be fine and almost all pcie 4.0 ssds too since even slower ones will saturate the theoretical maximal 32Gbps of tb 4 with ease.

 

[Manuel Jordan]

Thanks for the replies to all

Aeacus

Laptop is not the right machine to do the said work. For VMs, i'd use desktop PC since those have the high performance needed to run VMs.
Sure, it can be done with laptop as well, but it would be painful and slow.

Has sense your point, but because they go to the university then their parents bought the laptops

What one wants and what one can get, are two different things.

PCI-E 3.0 (Gen3) M.2 NVMe SSD bandwidth is 8 GB/s.
PCI-E 4.0 (Gen4) M.2 NVMe SSD bandwidth is 16 GB/s.
PCI-E 5.0 (Gen5) M.2 NVMe SSD bandwidth is 32 GB/s.

Thunderbolt 3 and 4 bandwidth is 5 GB/s.

Therefore theoretically the bold is the better option due the limit of the bandwidth of 5GB/s

But is confuse because in Google is indicated the following:

Thunderbolt 3 has 40Gbps
Thunderbolt 4 has 40Gbps

Therefore pls, explain the 5GBs (Thanks in advance)

Even when both laptops would have the PCI-E Gen3 M.2 SSD, the speed to ANY external drive over Thunderbolt will still be slower.

Agree, but it is the fastest type of connector a laptop can have..

Now, if laptops have PCI-E Gen4 drives, then speed compared to external drive is considerably slower (3 times slower).
And if laptops have PCI-E Gen5 drives, external drive is peanuts compared to internal drive.

Agree, but again Thunderbolt is the most faster connector for a laptop

So, if one "wants" to have best possible speed, then open the laptop and mount the drive directly to M.2 slot, while voiding warranty. Since else-ways, there is no other option.

Understood

Yes. Even the slowest M.2 NVMe drive (PCI-E Gen3) outmatches SATA SSD considerably. 8 GB/s vs 625 MB/s.

Thanks for that point too

geofelt

What is the make/model of the laptops in question?

An Asus and Dell

VizzieTheViz

I’d say any thunderbolt 4 enclosure for an nvme ssd would be fine and almost all pcie 4.0 ssds too since even slower ones will saturate the theoretical maximal 32Gbps of tb 4 with ease.

Understood ... remember the Thunderbolt 3 and 4 being 40GBps too

 

[VizzieTheViz]

VizzieTheViz



Understood ... remember the Thunderbolt 3 and 4 being 40GBps too

Yeah no it isn’t. It’s 32 and 16 Gbps (lowercase b) respectively. And anyway that’s gigaBIT.

SSD speeds are usually communicated in GBps (gigabytes uppercase B). Since 1 byte is 8 bits an SSD that does 4 GBps (or 5 if TB4 is 40Gbps) will be able to saturate the connection.

 

[Aeacus]

Therefore theoretically the bold is the better option due the limit of the bandwidth of 5GB/s

But is confuse because in Google is indicated the following:

Thunderbolt 3 has 40Gbps
Thunderbolt 4 has 40Gbps

Therefore pls, explain the 5GBs (Thanks in advance)

Here is data transfer rate calculator that you can use,
link: https://www.gbmb.org/gbps-to-mbs

40 Gbps means 40 Gigabit per second
5 GB/s means 5 Gigabyte per second

1 Megabyte/sec is equal to (8 × Gigabit/sec)/1000
Or the easier formula to keep in mind: divide the data transfer rate value by 8.

Whereby: 1 Gigabit/sec = 125 Megabytes/sec.
So: 40 Gbps = 5000 MB/s or 5 GB/s.

 

[Manuel Jordan]

Thanks to both for your feedback.

I really appreciate your polite support

 

[Manuel Jordan]

I found these two products:

• UGREEN M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure Adapter
• UGREEN 40Gpbs Hard Drive Enclosure with Cooling Fan

It seems the former is not Thunderbolt (because that term does not appear in the page) and the latter yes (the Thunderbolt term appears in the page) furthermore the difference of 10Gbps vs 40Gbps respectively

pls share your thoughts about

• each product
• and the manufacturer reputation

Thanks in advance

 

[Aeacus]

UGREEN 40Gpbs Hard Drive Enclosure with Cooling Fan

Review: https://www.techradar.com/pro/ugreen-40gbps-m-2-enclosure-review
Since it's the only relevant one.

and the manufacturer reputation

Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugreen

Reputable review that i linked, should be enough.

 

[Manuel Jordan]

Huge thanks for the feedback