Qwiizlab Fanless 40Gbps USB4 Thunderbolt External SSD Enclosure with Aluminum Heat Sink Chasiss, Supports M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD up to 8TB (SSD Not Included)

10/10 device. I didn't know thunderbolt devices got this warm/ hot. The heatsink design is a must. Similar to the OWC but cheaper. I do wish the thunderbolt cable was longer and labeled.. it's not an issue for me since I have a print labeler, but I'd be annoyed if I misplaced the cable or mixed it up with a regular USB cable. If you're using regular USB cables the drive won't get hot but you also won't get the fast speeds. Formatting the drive as Fat32 vs Apfs makes a difference but since I have to move files between windows and Mac it has to be Fat32... That being said, it's the fastest drive I currently own. Transferring 100s of files 50gb+ takes a few seconds. Even over USB 3.2 it'd take about a minute. I think an enclosure like this is wasted on 1tb drive or less. 2tb or more. Internal drive Samsung Evo 990 Plus, which is plenty fast.. considering that I was gonna use Fat32 file system this was good enough... Basically the same performance as the most expensive SSD they make. It's a 10/10 enclosure

Really fast enclosure. It gets very warm but seems to manage the heat well. Speeds are staying consistent at 3GB/Sec read and write. Moved all my huge audio samples off my drive onto this and also edit Final Cut video libraries directly from this drive. I store all the raw footage here, too. Has taken the place of my mac drive for nearly every intensive project. If you buy the base model mac consider this instead of upping the storage via Apple.

I got a Crucial P3 Plus 4TB (there are better SSDs, but i was optimizing for price/performance) i also replaced the cable of the case for a better one and the results are very nice.The value for money is pretty awesome, the disc came with extra thermal pads, its pretty easy to install and so far it has been great, it gets slightly warm, but it isnt uncomfortable to the touch and since its fanless it's noiseless. Recommended if you are limited to thunderbolt 4

This external SSD enclosure is very well built and aesthetically pleasing with an aluminum alloy case. The top of the unit is finned to dissipate heat efficiently. The unit matches both my Mac Mini M4 perfectly. With a 4TB SSD I installed (which was purchased separately), I now have a complete backup device.

I purchased two of these, one silver, one gray to be combined with Samsung 990 Pro SSDs for two MBPs. Overall, I’m impressed with the build quality and the passive heat removal.For those complaining that the cable speed needs to be labeled, turn the cable over. While the cable is labeled, speed is only labeled on one end, on one side.For those complaining about the screws .. get over it. The screws need to be small. If Torx were used, the hole size would be even tinier and they be even easier to damage.While the supplied tools are nice to have is you have nothing available, I agree they’re cheap. If you have quality tools at home, use those instead. DON’T over tighten the screws! They only need to be snugged.Yes, the enclosure can get fairly warm, but that’s how it’s getting rid of all that heat. As long as you can touch it for more than 3 seconds, it’s probably less than 120°F, so that’s okay. I used a laser thermometer to check the temperature and the hottest external temperature was 114°F. If you’re concerned, turn on the ceiling fan and it’ll cool down in a few minutes. MAKE SURE you don’t put ANYTHING, even a sheet of paper, over the enclosure. Don’t stick it in a tight spot with no air flow around the sides. You need to “let it breathe” at all times.Complaints:1) The installation directions say nothing about removing the plastic from BOTH SIDES of the heat sink material. When you’re done installing your SSD, before you install the screws, the lid should be stuck to the heat sink material and won’t lift up when you lightly lift up on the lid. (If you mess up or you change SSDs in the future, they give you two sets of heat sink materials. Two heat sinks that fit on the SSD and two heat sinks for the enclosure’s chip.)2) The supplied cable is ridiculously short. I understand packaging and the like, but it’s just not a very useful cable.3) It ALWAYS draws power. ALWAYS. Even with the Mac’s setup to not backup when power is disconnected, setup for low power mode when sleeping, lid closed, the enclosure STILL draws power from the Mac. ON two late 2023 Macs, these enclosures draw over 10% battery in 6 hours. Thats not good. THAT’S why I took off 1 star.A couple of other things to note:Keep in mind, with faster cables, they need lots of electronics in the cables to work. That’s why these super fast cables are thicker and have larger ends. They’re full of electronics over the entire length of the cable. As the cables will likely be the main bottleneck, I bypassed that whole issue by purchasing the latest Apple Thunderbolt 5 cable for each drive. Yes, they’re expensive. But you bought this enclosure and that awesome SSD to go fast. Don’t cheap out now.One last thing. If you’re buying this as a Time Machine external backup drive, it will be slower than if it was a regular storage drive. If you choose the encrypted APFS format, Time Machine AUTOMATICALLY encrypts in case sensitive format no matter what you select. Encryption that’s case sensitive takes longer to create. It is what it is. You can turn off throttling in Terminal which will help the initial backup go a bit faster, but it’s not a huge difference and you don’t want to leave throttling off because it’ll slow down everything else.Overall, I’m happy with the enclosures, just realize nothing is perfect. There’s always a trade off.

Update: Stays a little warm while the system is asleep, but doesn't stay hot like when it's in use. Also doesn't disconnect over long sleep periods like a lot of the other externals I have will, which makes macOS happier about not having a drive removed without ejecting.Original:Does certainly stay warm, regardless of if it's in use or not, but so does all my other NVMe fanless enclosures so that just seems to be the nature of the thing.I'll put a note here for other mac users, I decided to go with the WD_Black 850X to pair with this instead of something cheaper because of the fact it was the most battle tested drive in terms of reviews of happy people using them on macOS. I also have a day 1 850X in my windows system too so felt like it was worth the extra money to have something that has a proven track record rather than paring with a chepaer drive despite this enclusure not being able to harness it's full power.I do think the star screws are a little... pointlessly unstandard? I have a dozen of these types of cases and they all use standard phillips screws except this one, but I guess now I have a tiny star head screwdriver?

The speed at which my SSD hard drive (Samsung EVO Pro) reaches is very good; the downside is that it gets very hot. I installed an external fan, so if the fan breaks, I can easily replace it. And even with the fan, the drive temperatures are quite low.