Well a few months ago, I got the really terrific (but expensive at $119) ZikeDrive Z666 and it has held up well with its AM2464PD controller, with a nice 7GBps drive inside of it, it has reliably delivered really great performance with the AmorphousDiskMark, I was getting these numbers.
Note that on the M4 Max, the 4K Random 4K but I do see Amorphous has changed to using a default Queue Depth (how many active reads and writes are there from 32 to just 8).
We can also see the MacBook Pro M4 Max is marginally faster than the M1 Max, they are both still like lightening on sequential, but the impressive change is on the Random access where it really doubles, so the latest drive is very good on I/O or it could be that the disk has a bigger cache.
So in reading a great post about why the ZikeDrive is so fast and there is a whole family of enclosures like this, they mention that this is because of the new ASM246X controller and now there are lots of enclosures with this, so I thought I would try a new one where the price is just $55 vs $110 for the ZikeDrive on Aliexpress and pair it with the still very fast Samsung 990Pro. This Haggis is supposed to be fast. As an aside, the difference between 3700GBps and 3100GBps is the reserved bandwidth the Display Port. The ASM2460P when its in the right mode doesn’t reserve anything, so you get higher 3.7GBps.
And I was a little depressed by the result, despite the speed advertised, the sequential read/write was really slow, like it was on a USB, but in fact the System Report reported it as a Gopod Group Limited enclosure running at 40Gbps. So then I tried to switch cables and docks and learned a bit about compatibility, here’s the eye chart:
| Drive | Cable | Sequential R/W 1MB Queue Depth 32 (MBps) | 4K Random Queue Depth 64? |
|---|---|---|---|
| MacBook Pro M1 Max 2020 | None | 6300/6900 | 582/90 |
| ZikeDrive 666 addlink S95 on M1 Max | CalDigit Thunderbolt 4 Cable via Thunderbolt Dock | 3200/1900 | 440/57 |
| ZikeDrive 666 addlink S95 on M4 Max | CalDigit Thunderbolt 4 Cable via Razor Dock | 3158/2158 | 645/233 |
| MacBook Pro M4 Max 2024 | None | 6826/6817 | 1204/208 |
| Hagibis ASM2464/990 Pro/M4 | USB4/240W | 1012/1022 | 216/81 |
| Hagibis ASM246X/990 Pro/M4 | JUX Superspeed | 1016/1035 | 222/81 |
| Hagibis ASM246X 990 Pro/M4 | CalDigit Thunderbolt | 1015/920 | 225/81 |
| Hagibis ASM246X/990/m4 | CalDigit Thunderbolt via Razor dock | 3160/2294 | 620/141 |
| Hagibis ASM246x/990/m4 | USB4/240W via Razor Dock | 3160/2345 | 1203/207 |
| Hagibis ASM246x/990/m4 | JUC Superspeed Cable/Razer Dock | 1907/1721 | 617/140 |
| ZikeDrive Z666/s95/m4 | USB 4/240W | 3822/3299 | 721/236 |
| ZikeDrive Z666/s95/m4 | JUC 3 Cable SuperSpeed | 1917/1807 | 617/1 |
| ZikeDrive Z666/s95/m4 | CalDigit Thunderbolt 4 Cable | 3742/3307 | 638/224 |
So basically, I was kind of surprised, there are a few things going on particularly for sequential operations where bandwidth matters
Use a Thunderbolt Dock between the Hagibis and your Mac but Zike is most versatile
- The Thunderbolt dock does make a difference, it cuts down on the throughput (this makes sense, you have a device between the downstream and the upstream). Does it make a practical difference, probably not, but if you want the best speed, direct connect.
- The Hagibis has compatibility problems with these cables even the vanilla Thunderbolt cable. To get to any speed, it needs the Razor dock in between. Net, net, although the ZikeDrive is $119, it is probably more compatible and worth it than the Habbis. I think there is probably something that the firmware in the Habbis that is confusing it so that even with legitimate USB 4/Thunderbolt ¾ cables, it is confused.
Note that this really only matters for big sequential reads, the figures come down when it is just about the number of IOPS
Thunderbolt 5 is coming 2x speed
Last note is that a bunch of this is moot as the 80Gbps Thunderbolt 5 is coming, we should speeds that are basically identical to the internal drives of the very fast MacBooks and they will run hot too.
So more reporting to come as these come out and the new OWC has these drives. This means that you should be able to get the full 7GBps out. So the strategy is to keep my SSDs and wait it out a bit for a nice m.2 SSD enclosure supporting Thunderbolt 5 and of course a dock that does it too
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