CalDigit Tuff Nano Plus 2TB - Compact Rugged IP67 USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 10Gb/s External NVME SSD, Compatible with Thunderbolt 4 Mac and PC, Up to 1055MB/s (2TB Nano Plus, Royal Blue)

Best hard drive I’ve ever owned! And I’ve owned A LOT!!

For the last 5 months, Ive been using my Tuff-Nano (1TB) as a secondary storage device with my Mac Mini 2018. That is, until yesterday. Out of nowhere, I get a system notification titled USB Accessories Disabled with the warning message Unplug the accessory using too much power to re-enable USB devices (screengrab attached). Then I realize my Tuff-Nano is no longer showing up in Finder or Disk Utility. I tried unplugging and replugging it in; tried a different Mac device; tried a different USB-C cable; tried all the USB-C ports I could find. No luck. I contacted CalDigit support. After telling the agent about the issue, they said Im afraid our only remaining recourse in this situation may be to replace the Tuff under warranty. Naturally, I followed up by asking about data recovery - were they saying the drive failed and my data was gone? did they have any knowledge and advice to share on data recovery? To these kinds of questions I basically got the response: we dont do data recovery; youre welcome to try but youre on your own. To be clear, I didnt expect CalDigit to provide data recovery services, but I didnt expect to be left completely in the dark regarding whether and what I should be doing about my personal data. Sure, I appreciate that theyll send me a replacement drive. But, honestly not even sure about getting a replacement. In order to get the replacement I have to send back this broken drive with a bunch of my irreplaceable data on it. And honestly given that support didnt have any information for me about what caused this issue, I really dont see how I can trust that this wont happen again in another 6 months or so. Ugh. So, not a great consumer experience. Will update review if I am able to learn more about the situation.

This drive was purchased to run on both macOS 11.x and Windows 10, running through a variety of synthetic benchmarks and real-world tests like Adobe Premiere footage / previews drive, and others. While the design is solid and I dont have doubts about its rugged aspects, the performance of this drive is dissappointing. For starters it doesnt get anywhere close to 10Gbps as a top read/write speeds. When brand new it consistently performed around 700 MB/s write (instead of ~ 1200) and 900 MB/s read. These are not bad by any means and certainly better than older USB drives, but not to the level expected based on whats advertised. Worse was after a few weeks use the drive started exhibiting very choppy write speeds where even with simple benchmarks the speeds randomly spike between really low numbers like 200 MB/s and somewhat higher around 500 MB/s. Drive has been tested with diagnostic utilities and shows as OK, and reformatted in different ways, but the issue persists. My opinion is that this drive will not reach the speeds most people will expect and will not hold up under heavy use very well. For occasional backups or office use its probably fine.

I have several CalDigit products, and recently purchased two Nano Tuff 500GB SSD drives over Amazon. One was purchased on July 10, 2020, and an earlier one on October 30, 2019 when they were first released. They are used to back up data every two or three weeks. No more than that. In the last month or so, this drives’ write has dropped down to lower than 75 MB/s. I used BM and and AJA System tests to gauge speed. The other drives write speeds, purchased in October 10, 2019, is a little better at about 400 MB/s. I am using them on a newer MacBook Pro 16”. I wiped and reformatted both of the drives, but that did not correct the significantly decreased read/write speeds. This is clearly unacceptable. Original write speeds were in the 800 MB/s range, and with very limited use and a reformat, the one drive reviewed here has diminished nearly 90%

I have several CalDigit products, and recently purchased two Nano Tuff 500GB SSD drives over Amazon. One was purchased on July 10, 2020, and an earlier one on October 30, 2019 when they were first released. They are used to back up data every two or three weeks. No more than that. In the last month or so, this drives’ write has dropped down to lower than 75 MB/s. I used BM and and AJA System tests to gauge speed. The other drives write speeds, purchased in October 10, 2019, is a little better at about 400 MB/s. I am using them on a newer MacBook Pro 16”. I wiped and reformatted both of the drives, but that did not correct the significantly decreased read/write speeds. This is clearly unacceptable. Original write speeds were in the 800 MB/s range, and with very limited use and a reformat, the one drive reviewed here has diminished nearly 90%

Good device, but sent the wrong color

This is used in conjunction with both an iPad Pro and a MacBook Pro. Large 200+ bitrate video files are a breeze to transfer and it is easily possible to edit leaving the files on the Nano. The main advantage is tiny size for ultimate portability.

Works well with my 2020 IPad Pro and MacBook Air, Comes with USB-C and USB cables.

This drive is fast and durable. I use it for screening uncompressed video files on Mac and PC. I’ve never had a problem with speed or dependability.

Excellent product. It feels very compact than my original thought.