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Another aluminum enclosure that is sleek and reliable in thermal performance. This enclosure is only available for M-Key M.2 SSDs i.e. M.2 PCIe NVMe SSDs of up to 80mm in size. Most popular brands such as Samsung and Sabrent produce them. We actually like these because often, you often get a robust heat sink on the M.2 drive. Some PCI Express-bus M.2 SSDs can run hot under sustained read/write tasks and throttle their speed. That said, unless you're running a server or something similar, where a drive is constantly getting hammered with reads and writes, that's usually not something you have to worry about. That's because many of these drives are so fast, they get their transfer duties done before they have a chance to get all that hot. One option is the Orico 20 Gbps M.2 enclosure, which actually costs slightly less than the RGB-equipped Asus Strix Arion. This well-rounded aluminum enclosure is a bit heavier than its 10 Gbps counterparts, but still fairly compact. You only have to bother with a single screw and it includes a heatsink as well as a 20 Gbps-rated Type-C to Type-C cable. The SSK Aluminum M.2 SSD enclosure stands out as a portable option to house your NVMe PCIe and SATA M-key/B+M connector M.2 SSDs. First, focusing on the applicable SSDs, it caters to M-Key and B+M connectors and accommodates 2242, 2260, and 2280 size solid-state drivers. In short, you can use both M.2 NVMe and M.2 SATA SSDs. It is plug-and-play supported. However, you would need a screwdriver to install your drive inside it. You also get an LED indicator. Designed to accommodate M and B&M keys along with a broad spectrum of SSD sizes ranging from 2230 to 2280, it offers a home for SSDs with capacities of up to 8TB.
Many enclosures, including the above-mentioned Ugreen and SSK models, also support M.2 SATA SSDs using the B+M-key pin layout, but most will be PCIe/NVMe and M-key. This one is perfect if you have two drives and do not want to use two different enclosures. Don’t worry, it works perfectly with a single drive as well. However, this only supports the M.2 NVMe SSDs, not M.2 SATA SSDs. Almost any PCIe 3.0 (Gen3) or newer M.2 SSD should be able to saturate 10 Gbps or even 20 Gbps worth of USB bandwidth. For this reason, it makes a lot of sense to use an entry-level or midrange SSD for an external enclosure. Using a high-end drive means that much of its performance is left on the table. I am all for tool-free installations, and this enclosure does not disappoint in this regard. The setup is a breeze, involving just plugging the SSD into the M.2 NVMe USB adapter and securing it with a rubber plug. This is why it’s in the third position in our list of best M.2 SSD enclosures. Early examples of the latest generation of M.2 drives, using the PCI Express 5.0 bus, also come in the Type-2280 format, but it's expected that some PCIe 5.0 slots on new motherboards will be built to support the larger Type-25110 format (25mm by 110mm), so we may well see PCIe 5.0 SSDs with these dimensions as well. PCIe 5 drives are capable of tremendous throughput speeds (in excess of 10,000MBps) that should generate abundant heat, and the SSDs we have seen so far come with substantial built-in heatsinks.Welcome to the cutting edge! You're shopping for a kind of drive that many folks don't even realize exists. As a result, you need to pay attention to several factors that may not be documented very well while you shop. Let's recap. USB interface speeds are one thing, but you also want to ensure that your spare SSD is actually compatible with the enclosure. M.2 is not an interface but a form factor that may use the SATA or PCI-Express interfaces. Additionally, M.2 SSDs come in different sizes (lengths) and with different arrangements of pins (keying).
Yeah, thats pretty similar to the bench I did in the enclosure. Though for time I limited the run to 3 instead of 5. I've got a Shinestar NVMe enclosure, but it tops out around 1GB and I know these drives go faster when plugged directly into an M2 slot. Installing an SSD is pretty easy as you just need to unscrew the cover, attach the M.2 drive along with the optional cooling pad, screw in the mounting screw and reattach the cover. Unfortunately, both the cover and the mounting screw are 5-point star shaped screws, which are not very common. However, there’s a screwdriver in the box.Most M.2 SSD enclosures use a 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface, which has the advantage of also being available on a relatively wide range of PCs and laptops. USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 (20 Gbps) is much less common, meaning that these enclosures will run at full speed on far fewer devices. Thunderbolt 3/4 or USB4 offers up to 40 Gbps of bandwidth but these interfaces are very rare outside of MacBooks and niche PC motherboards. USB Bandwidth Chart Generally if the drive is readable I'll boot off a custom WinPE disk I built and run USMT to salvage the user profile data to a compressed MIG store. Then I'll replace the drive or laptop, re-image, and restore the salvaged profile. So the faster the drive is the faster I can complete these tasks. Which makes users happier. I've been using a M2 Sata enclosure, but I also have 2.5" external cables that let me plug a 2.5" directly into a USB port.
Utilizing the latest USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C interface, this ORICO M.2 Enclosure supports the UASP acceleration protocol, ensuring a theoretical data transmission speed that reaches up to 10Gbps. It is imperative to note that when coupled with high-performance NVMe media, the read/write performance has the potential to surpass 900 Mbytes/sec. In the box, you’ll find USB-C to USB-C and USB-C to USB-A cables. On a few M.2 enclosures, including the SSK SHE-C325, we found that our test Kingston Rage Fury SSD’s built-in graphene heat spreader, which adds 3.5mm of z height to the drive, didn’t leave much vertical clearance. However, the SHE-C325 could close anyway, without scraping the drive’s surface. Considering that many M.2 SSDs have built-in, non-removable heat spreaders, every enclosure should accommodate them.
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Cheap PNY 8GB commodity drive. Thing was so damned slow I changed it to 512GB and only ran 1 pass. Thats not a mistake, the random write tests are slow low as to not even register. RND4KQ32T16 is something like .0003MB/s. These enclosures can be used as external accessories to our smartphones, tablets, and other devices like gaming consoles, computers, and smartphones. Simply insert your M.2 SSD into these enclosures, and then connect them to your computer using USB cables.
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