You can have USB type-C interface connected to any USB standard, but in the case of this enclosure having it wired to a SATA to USB 3.1 bridge means that there is a lot of wasted bandwidth even with the fastest SATA SSD used inside the enclosure.
Well, there are a few things, one is the physical connection format which will become more and more commonplace, the second is the higher power delivery specs of the the type-c interface. There are some drives out there (HDD's not SSDs) which exceed the 7.5w max of USB 2.0.
The type-c interface allows a much broader range of voltages starting at 10w (5v@2A) to 100w (20v@5A). This would allow you to power not only small 2.5" HDDs off the USB bus directly, but even the higher power 3.5" HDDs which can't run off the power provided by the USB 2.0 spec.
I don't think it's wasteful. Through strange, arcane magic, the drive could be unplugged and then a different thingy that uses more bandwidth can be connected instead. I know it's a really revolutionary concept and difficult to grasp when we've been dealing with earlier generations of the USB standard that, IIRC, soldered themselves forever to a particular port once connected, but you can trust me. I've read at least one, maybe even two articles on the Internet about USB 3.1's features and capabilities so I'm currently a well-known subject matter expert.
It would be interesting to see a M.2 enclosure in a similar form factor. That would make for a blazing fast external disk. That being said I agree with the others. The faster we can replace the other USB standards and get to a fully type-C world the happier we'll all be.
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Chaitanya - Friday, December 30, 2016 - link
What a waste of usb 3.1 interface, not even the fastest ssd will be saturating it.tarqsharq - Friday, December 30, 2016 - link
I disagree. It's a great device to ease the transition for people who end up with only USB-C on their ultraportable devices.Chaitanya - Friday, December 30, 2016 - link
You can have USB type-C interface connected to any USB standard, but in the case of this enclosure having it wired to a SATA to USB 3.1 bridge means that there is a lot of wasted bandwidth even with the fastest SATA SSD used inside the enclosure.bill.rookard - Friday, December 30, 2016 - link
Well, there are a few things, one is the physical connection format which will become more and more commonplace, the second is the higher power delivery specs of the the type-c interface. There are some drives out there (HDD's not SSDs) which exceed the 7.5w max of USB 2.0.The type-c interface allows a much broader range of voltages starting at 10w (5v@2A) to 100w (20v@5A). This would allow you to power not only small 2.5" HDDs off the USB bus directly, but even the higher power 3.5" HDDs which can't run off the power provided by the USB 2.0 spec.
BrokenCrayons - Friday, December 30, 2016 - link
I don't think it's wasteful. Through strange, arcane magic, the drive could be unplugged and then a different thingy that uses more bandwidth can be connected instead. I know it's a really revolutionary concept and difficult to grasp when we've been dealing with earlier generations of the USB standard that, IIRC, soldered themselves forever to a particular port once connected, but you can trust me. I've read at least one, maybe even two articles on the Internet about USB 3.1's features and capabilities so I'm currently a well-known subject matter expert.vladx - Friday, December 30, 2016 - link
The big question is, is there TRIM support?Otherwise it's useless for external SSD use.
ender8282 - Sunday, January 1, 2017 - link
It would be interesting to see a M.2 enclosure in a similar form factor. That would make for a blazing fast external disk. That being said I agree with the others. The faster we can replace the other USB standards and get to a fully type-C world the happier we'll all be.