M1 Mac Mini crashing when using SK Hynix Gold P31 SSD with Acasis USB4/TB3 enclosure

2/24/2021 Update & Correction

I forgot to add a correction to my assessment. The SK Hynix Gold P31 NVME, combined with the Acasis USB4 enclosure (USING INTEL 7440 CHIPSET) is the reason why the SK Hynix does not work with the M1 Mac. I also tried using the SK Hynix with a Jeyi USB 3.1 gen 2 (10Gb/s) enclosure, and that worked without issue with my M1 Mac Mini, and at about near the max speeds for USB 3.2 gen 2 (Jeyi uses the Realtek RTL 9210 controller chip, which is supposedly the best now compared with JMicron JMS583 chip). Also tried the SK Hynix with a Sabrent Thunderbolt 3 enclosure, which also CRASHED my M1 Mac Mini exactly the same as the Acasis USB4/TB3 enclosure.

Summary: SK Hynix Gold P31 M.2 2280 SSD will NOT work (currently) with any USB4/Thunderbolt 3 enclosures. SK Hynix will need to updated the firmware for their Cepheus controller chip to allow it to work with M1 Macs/MacOS systems.

Just received Sabrent Thunderbolt 3 enclosure from Amazon. Tried using SK Hynix Gold P31 SSD with Sabrent and M1 Mac Mini. The Mac immediately crashed and performed exactly like the Acasis USB4/TB3 housing. So now I know that the SK Hynix Gold P31 SSD (Cepheus controller chip) does not work with Intel's Thunderbolt 3 chips (6540, 7440). Tried the PNY CS3030 SSD with the Sabrent enclosure, and no problems again. Tomorrow I am receiving the WD Black SN750 SSD, and Saturday receiving the Mushkin Pilot-e SSD. I will try both and decide which SSD works best with Acasis or Sabrent enclosure.

This is excellent information wjpjr. Thank you. I'm happy to see there is a source that addresses the many brands and models of m.2 nvme ssd that need firmware adjustments to work with Macs. Your references give me hope since it may be only a firmware issue with SK Hynix and Macs. This was the same with Samsung EVO Plus ssds, as Samsung needed to update their firmware in order for Macs to be able to use them. However the firmware update is not yet 100% as the write speeds hover around 1,400 while the read is around 2,400 on my M1 Mac Mini with the EVO Plus inside an Acasis USB4/TB3 enclosure. Also after reading some other MacRumors comments concerning best nvme to use with Acasis USB4 enclosure, one member noted that the WD Black SN750 actually performed the best with his M1 Mac, and reached near the claims read/write speeds. Because of that post, I have ordered the WD Black SN750 (arriving tomorrow), and the Mushkin Pilot-e (arriving Saturday) for testing. Thank you Amazon Prime return policy.

Just got the WD Black SN750 1TB and installed it into my Acasis USB4/TB3 enclosure. Speeds are good. 1700 write, 2400 read. It's 300 better on write and about the same for read as the Samsung EVO Plus 1TB. Tomorrow I will receive the Mushkin Pilot-e 1TB and try that.

The WD Black SN750 is actually faster. My first test was when I was backing up 660GB of data. Without doing this background work, I got 2250 write, and 2460 read. So far the WD is the fastest and works without problems with Acasis USB4/TB3 and Sabrent TB3 enclosures with M1 Mac Mini. If the Mushkin Pilot-e does not perform better, I will be keeping the WD.

Acasis enclosure with WD Black SN750 only became slightly warm after repeated large (350GB+) file read/writes. I have a thermal pad covering the SSD, and confirmed it is in full contact with the Acasis enclosure's aluminum body. I don't think I will encounter any thermal throttling with this combination. With a Samsung EVO Plus SSD, the Acasis enclosure was markedly warmer, but never hot. Also, the write speed does not drop steeply after the cache has been exhausted. So Acasis enclosure combined with WD SSD is the fastest combination that works with M1 Macs and MacOS Big Sur.

Go to “About this Mac”, then check out hardware

Thanks for adding your experience wjpjr.

I think I mistakenly wrote that the issue is a conflict between SK Hynix Cepheus controller and Intel's Thunderbolt 3 6540/7440 chips. I meant to write that it may be the combination of SK Hynix Cepheus controller, Intel's Thunderbolt 3 6540/7440 chip, and the M1 Mac's hardware and/or Big Sur MacOS that may be causing the crashing. But it is interesting to note your situation with a 2019 Mac Pro and the SK Hynix connected internally through your PCIe adapter board. I am curious why SK Hynix would not want to correct for this issue with Mac hardware/software as they would increase their sales by adding the Mac community. Being that SK Hynix has really only just started marketing and selling their own branded storage solutions, maybe it will only take a relatively short time for them to correct for the conflict.