OWC 8TB Express 1M2 Portable NVMe Thunderbolt (USB-C) SSD USB4 Ultra Fast External SSD Drive with Aluminum Heat Sink Enclosure

I have a Mac mini M2 Pro, with 2 TB of Apple internal SSD. I only use iCloud for Apple Calendar and Contacts; I do not otherwise store stuff up there. SO, pictures, music, email (from 1985 or so) are kept online. I was running out of space. The only options were to start using iCloud or some other cloud, buy a new bigger Mac, or connect secondary storage. I opted for additional external storage. I looked around and settled on this 8 TB of external SSD. As I'd purchased other OWC devices in the past, I gave them a shot here. The device came quickly; plugged it in, formatted it (APDS, Car-sensitive, encrypted, owners enabled) and started migrating stuff. Files that I don't directly use/touch/open (Library, etc.) are left in the standard home directory on the integral SSD. But, my Mail, Parallels VMs, and the Osiris Data medical images database are also kept on the internal SSD. EVERYTHING else, including my pictures, music, are on the SSD. I've been running like this for 3 and a half months. When Apple fixes Apple Mail to allow its database to migrate (much as does the Music and Photos), I will move that the the SSD, as well. There have been zero problems, thus far. Try not to move it around too much as it has disconnected on me when I picked it up to dust; either its USB connector or those on the Mac mini are finicky. However, it connects right back up.

I reached out to OWC to inquire what their very best SSD External Back up drive was for Mac Time Machine and the Technical Representative praised this 8TB SSD OWC Express drive. I deliberated with other options and selected this one via Amazon. It is both lighting fast, secure and small so it does not take up a great deal of desk space. No Electrical wires required, simply a Thunderbolt USBC plug which was supplied with the Drive. I love it! And so far, I would highly recommend this drive over all other options. I have have Lacie Back up drives as well both SSD and HDD, and they serve their purpose, but no comparison to the speed of this drive.

This drive is fast as heck! It works with Time Machine on my Macbook. It feels very well-constructed and it's a decent size. I have two of these and they both work really well.

Wicked fast, super big but very expensive and totally unreliable in my setup. That all works for me except the totally unreliable part. They work really well, but only until they thermally throttle and then shut down without warning. OWC has excellent customer service and I appreciate their responsiveness, but a $1,000 hard drive (actually, I have FOUR), needs to work all the time. Doing raw video file editing, my files can be as big as 1.5 TB each, and transferring them overtaxes the drives pretty consistently. I bought a laptop cooler and set my drives on it and now they work perfectly, but they really shouldn’t require additional expense at that price. Perhaps an 8TB 40gbps fabless drive isn’t realistic, but if that the case, why sell the product? Or, at least, offer a warning!

I had been looking forward to the arrival of the 8TB OWC 8TB Express 1M2 40Gb/s Portable NVMe SSD USB4 External SSD Drive. I ordered it to be the new host for my approximately 4TB of photos. When I plugged it into my M4 Max MacBook with the included USB4 cable, nothing happened. I substituted another USB4 cable I had and it lit up. I formatted the drive and then went out for the afternoon, leaving the formatted but empty drive connected to my sleeping computer. When I returned about four hours later, the OWC enclosure was hot to the touch even though the drive had been idle. I disconnected the drive for the night. When I returned this morning, I connected the drive using the same cable that had worked yesterday, but nothing. It didn’t mount and show up on my computer. I switched to the cable that came with the drive that hadn’t worked on day 1 and still nothing. I’ve left it idle connected to my computer for about an hour and it was hot on the outside. When I disconnected and reconnected the cable, surprisingly, it mounted. After about 15 minutes, it spontaneously disconnected. I am returning it because I cannot risk having my photos on such an unreliable drive.