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I recently received a 13″ MacBook Pro with an internal 512GB SSD. I support a lot of different products and need to virtualize many different environments to do so. Naturally, 512GB fills up pretty fast when creating a bunch of virtual machines so I started shopping for decent external SSDs. It seems silly to waste my money on SSDs based on USB 3.x interfaces as they generally top out between 500MB/s to 1050MB/s when we now have Thunderbolt 3 which is 4 times faster at 40Gbps.

The Sticker shock of these new TB3 SSDs is a bit much as at the time I’m writing this, the Samsung X5 2TB SSD is a whopping $699.99. I just couldn’t justify this purchase and started doing a bit of research. Turns out you can buy the enclosure and an M.2 2280 SSD and save yourself over $300. I just booked the order at Amazon and will update this when the parts arrive and I’ve put it together and tested.

Here are the parts for reference and calculated savings:

ineo Thunderbolt 3 SSD Enclosure, PCIe Thunderbolt 3 (40Gbps) to NVMe M.2 SSD Case – (SSD not Included) [C2604]129.99
Sabrent Rocket Q 2TB NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 Internal SSD High Performance Solid State Drive R/W 3200/2900MB/s (SB-RKTQ-2TB)249.99
m.2 Thermal pad， 70x20x1mm for M.2 2280 SSD NVMe Heatsinks (4PCS Pack)8.99
Amazon Coupon (Not sure why but I’ll take it)-13.00
Roll Your Own Grand Total375.97
SAMSUNG X5 Portable SSD 2TB – Up to 2800MB/s -Thunderbolt 3 NVMe External Solid State Drive, Gray/Red (MU-PB2T0B/AM)699.99
Roll Your Own Savings324.02

Update: Mar 11 19:56:26 EST 2021

I’ve been using this little speed demon for some time now and I must say I’m impressed.

I’d buy this one again as the prices for the Samsung X5 2TB are still $599 @ Amazon.

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Ingredients:

  • 2 cups flax seed meal
  • 1 Tablespoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 5 beaten eggs
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/4 cup oil

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Prepare pan (a 10×15 pan with sides works best) with oiled parchment paper or a silicone mat.

  1. Mix dry ingredients well – a whisk works well.
  2. Add wet to dry, and combine well. Make sure there aren’t obvious strings of egg white hanging out in the batter.
  3. Let batter set for 2 to 3 minutes to thicken up some (leave it too long and it gets past the point where it’s easy to spread.)
  4. Pour batter onto pan. Because it’s going to tend to mound in the middle, you’ll get a more even thickness if you spread it away from the center somewhat, in roughly a rectangle an inch or two from the sides of the pan (you can go all the way to the edge, but it will be thinner).
  5. Bake for about 20 minutes, until it springs back when you touch the top and/or is visibly browning even more than flax already is.
  6. Cool and cut into whatever size slices you want. You don’t need a sharp knife; I usually just cut it with a spatula.

Nutritional Information:

Each of 12 servings has less than a gram of effective carbohydrate (.7 grams to be exact) plus 5 grams fiber, 6 grams protein, and 185 calories.