The expert’s rating
Benefits
- Fastest External Cabinet Out of Thunderbolt 5
- Super affordable for 40 GBPS USB4
- Beautiful, easily accessible design with silicon jacket
Disadvantages
- Thermal problems under super heavy load with jacket on
Our judgment
Urreen’s solid, beautiful CM850 USB4 enclosure surpasses everything except Thunderbolt 5, giving it more than one race for its money in transfers in the real world. So does it for significantly less cash.
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If you have traded Thunderbolt in your quest for quick external Mac storage, you know that sticker mark is often a pitfall in the process. You can reduce the monetary shock by switching your search to USB4, like being an outgrowth of Intel’s PCI over-a-wire technology is as fast as Thunderbolt 4.
And it is significantly cheaper than Thunderbolt, especially if you roll your own with something like Urreen CM850 NVME M.2 cabinet.
The CM850 is a more affordable version of Urreen’s CM642 that uses the same AsMedia ASM2464PD chip. It is a gun-metal gray aluminum creation that is approx. 4.75 with 2.1 x 0.6 inches and weighs 4.4 ounces.
Its Heft is nice, just as the top panel that emerges to reveal the internal M.2/NVME slot that supports 2230 (22 mm wide, 30 mm long) to 2280 SSDs secured with a caught screw. The panel does not have small screws to handle (or lose).
Your options on Mac for 20 Gbps/40 Gbps performance are Thunderbolt 3, 4 or 5, all of which involve significantly more expensive fencing and are not supported on most of Windows machines. It can be important if you work in a mixed environment.
Adding an NVME SSD to CM850 costs you anywhere from $ 40 (256 GB) to $ 650 (8TB), where Sweet Spot is 1TB ($ 60) to 2TB ($ 160). Note that USB4 (or Thunderbolt for that matter) cannot use the additional bandwidth provided by PCIE 4.0 or 5.0 SSDS. PCIE 3.0 SSDs disappear quickly, but the point is, not overbuy.
In addition to that, avoid QLC SSDs if you regularly write large amounts of data and buy a drama design if you want to run an operating system from the drive or want top random performance. However, the best bang for the buck will be cheaper TLC HOST MEMORY BUFFER (HMB) drive.
Ugreen CM850: Performance
Cm 850 is darn fast. In fact, overall, it is the fastest external SSD we have tested. Take it with several grains of salt as I populated CM850 with the super -fast 8TB WD850X for my test.
In addition, Thunderbolt 5 OWC broadcast ultra was markedly faster in Mac synthetic benchmarks, though its real world transmitted was a little faster than SSDs with less haughty benchmark results.
The charming simple but generally fairly accurate disk speed test from BlackmagicDesign shows 3 Gbps plus you get both reading and writing with CM850 – Give a pitomable quick NVME SSD inside.
Amorphous Disco (a harbor in the original Cyrstaldiskmark) also shows well over 3 Gbps transfers.
Atto Disk Benchmark says the CM850 is perfectly capable of using much of the service that any NVME SSD will deliver. Within the framework of 40 Gbps it is. PCIE 4.0 and 5.0 SSDs can go much faster than 3 Gbps USB4 and Thunderbolt 4 allow.
I also drove the CM850 through PCWORLD’s battery of testing, which is how the “fastest” claim is substantiated.
The following are the results from Crystaldiskmark 8, as well as PCWMORDS 48 GB transfers and 450 GB of writing. These are all run on the PCWORLD -storage test tests Thunderbolt 4 ports, not a Mac. They are still signs of superior performance – given a superior NVME SSD inside of course.
Overall, the CM850 number one is among all external SSDs tested on this platform, where the CM642 ends a very close second. That said, ADATA SE920 and OWC Express 1M2 are still both very fast drives that did not have Uber Fast WD 8TB SN850X to help.
In both Crystaldiskmark 8’s sequential (above) and random (below) benefit test, the CM850 did very well.
CM850, again using WD SN850X, was the fastest external enclosure we have tested with our 48 GB transfers.
The CM850 turned the fastest 450 GB of writing we have seen from an external drive. Remember that CM642 had the same 8TB WD SN850X inside.
I ran into a problem with the CM850. While performing the 450 GB writing in the PCWorld test, the drive would disappear with the sleeve on. No doubt because of thermal problems, internal fan or no. Removing the silicone jacket allowed it to finish, just like running a fan over it.
Apart from that, I was absolutely fond of CM850’s performance. (Who other than PCWorld writes 450 GB files regularly?)
Do you have to buy Ugreen CM850?
The CM850 (or its more expensive CM642 cousin) is an absolutely amazing way to add 40 Gbps storage to your Mac without paying the heavy thunderbolt -monitoring. If you already have an NVME SSD large, if you don’t, buy one and have it. Good job, ugreen.