S**C
Problems that make it unusable
STAY AWAY!!!! Since day 1 I had issues with it. At the surface level it appears to work but has numerous issue. One of the main issues is it unmounts itself frequently as it gets hot. The controller on the board gets so hot during normal use it resets the drive and the transfer gets killed. Yes I made sure there was a thermal pad on controller(first time i failed as the design of the case is such it pulls the pad off as you close the case). This makes it only usable for short time periods for not too massive transfers otherwise it's guaranteed to reset on you. I'm using a 1TB 970 evo in it and it's the controller in the enclosure that gets hot not the drive. The second major problem I had as of a few days ago where usb type A connection no longer works. What's bizarre is that it works on my laptop but not my desktop. The OS can't see the drive at all. I even went and bought a pci-e to usb 3.1(type c and type a ports) as i suspected my motherboard may have failed but even with that card it has issues. I even reinstalled windows 10 thinking it was a driver issue and same thing happens. Using a usb type c to type c usb 2.0 cable the PC will see the drive and is usable(only at like ~50MB/s transfer though) but any other connection the light stays blue and doesn't go green like when it gets mounted. My best guess is it's because of some power requirement for usb c that failed where c to c seems to work but type a to c won't work either because of a negotiation issue between enclosure and host pc or some kind of power difference in connector. Wonder if i just have a defective product or this product(and all the others like it that are nvme as they use the same chipset) are based on crappy hardware(or drivers) and not something that is ready for market.Update: When using a powered usb 3 hub it mounts it fine with type a. As suspected appears to be some kind of issue in relation to power delivery. I still consider the drive unusable because of the two issues.
D**Y
Perfectly Small, Great Performance!
I was searching for the smallest USB 3.1 Gen NMVe enclosure I could find and this one seems to be it. I debated whether or not to give this device 4 stars or 5 stars for two reasons:First, The USB cable provided is a Type-C to Type-A and I wanted a Type-C to Type-C. The product image clearly shows a Type-A end so this is not misleading in anyway. I just wondered why include a Type-A cable. Being concerned about the performance I tested the both the included cable (using the Apple brand adapter) on my MacBook pro against a certified Type-C to Type-C cable (designed for USB 3.1 Gen 2) and the performance was exactly the same. This means the provided cable is the right cable, so I felt I could not knock the product for this.Second, there are no instructions on how to properly install the card including the proper placement of the thermal gel pads. In general, this wouldn’t be a concern for me, but these NMVe devices generate a lot of heat and must be heat-sync’d properly. Case in point, when I first installed the device (with the thermal pads) it was getting extremely hot. It was so hot it was difficult to hold. I finally decided to re-open it and change the positioning of the thermal padding and now the device is operating at a temperature that I would consider reasonable (I did not measure it but the device feels warm to the touch instead of hot).I really like this device for the following reasons:1. It performs well (more at the end)2. It dissipates heat well3. It is very small4. The design is nice and it looks good (the photo does not actually do it justice)5. Very easy to install the device and comes with everything necessary (although, it comes with some extra parts and without any documentation I do not know what they are for).I put a Samsung 970 PRO 512GB - NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD (MZ-V7P512BW) device in my enclosure and using it on a MacBook Pro 15 2018, I get 955 MB/s read and 955 MB/s write. The theoretical throughput on USB 3.1 Gen 2 should be 1,250 MB/s. This performance seems to be reasonable to me (I do not expect the theoretical throughput). I have not tried other devices so I have nothing to compare this too. I am guessing that most devices are using the same or similar chipsets and will yield similar results.I would love to have this in a Thunderbolt 3 based enclosure but the cost is 4x this device, so for now, at this price I think this is a great option!
Trustpilot
1 week ago
5 days ago
