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  • RU482 - Tuesday, September 18, 2018 - link

    Does anyone know of a USB adapter like this that has PCIe x4 support for higher end drives?
    Ultimately I'd like to build a little enclosure with USB connectivity that allows easy, external, transferrable connection of a U.2 drive for retrieving data.
  • Billy Tallis - Tuesday, September 18, 2018 - link

    You can put a PCIe x4 drive in this enclosure; it'll operate with just two of its PCIe lanes active. There won't be any point in enclosures like this supporting more than two PCIe lanes until USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 20Gbps host connections are available, and even then the USB link will still be the bottleneck for high-end drives.
  • WithoutWeakness - Tuesday, September 18, 2018 - link

    USB 3.1 tops out at 10Gbps while PCIe 3.0 is nearly 8Gbps per lane. Any drive that can saturate an x2 connection will quickly be bottlenecked by the USB port as the 2nd paragraph says. I'm not sure what the benefit of adding an x4-compatible chip would be other than checking a box and increasing the cost.
  • oRAirwolf - Tuesday, September 18, 2018 - link

    Excellent. I have been looking for an excuse to upgrade the Toshiba XG4 512GB SSD in my XPS 15. This will allow me to put it good use. Thanks for the head's up.
  • vortexmak - Tuesday, September 18, 2018 - link

    I'll wait for drives that support both SATA and NVMe SSDs
  • Billy Tallis - Tuesday, September 18, 2018 - link

    That might never happen. I don't see any reason for someone like JMicron or ASMedia to make a USB to SATA+NVMe ASIC. USB to SATA and USB to NVMe bridge chips are primarily intended for fully integrated products. Bring your own drive kits like this are a small fraction of the market for these bridge chips, and the market for a combo SATA+NVMe portable enclosure is even smaller.
  • vailr - Tuesday, September 18, 2018 - link

    Another similar NVMe compatible external USB 3.0/USB-C enclosure is available on Aliexpress.com, shipped free direct from China. About $28.00 USD, if using the "$4 off, first time buyer" coupon. Works fine with a Samsung Evo 960 NVMe SSD. Received mine about 6 weeks ago; can be optionally used as a bootable external "Win-to-Go" Windows operating system. Can get fairly warm when operating, but not too hot to touch.
  • vailr - Tuesday, September 18, 2018 - link

    "JEYI i9 NVME" is the search term to find it.
  • Lockean - Wednesday, September 19, 2018 - link

    Can confirm. Have two of the same model and they work great with both EVO and PM-series drives.
  • petteyg359 - Tuesday, September 18, 2018 - link

    As opposed to MyAnalogSSD? Chinese brand names these days...
  • Billy Tallis - Tuesday, September 18, 2018 - link

    I agree that the brand name isn't at all creative, but they're not Chinese. The company is based upstate New York.
  • Death666Angel - Tuesday, September 18, 2018 - link

    Looks like an interesting product. Several JSM583 based products available on ebay, now that I know what to search for. :D I like having external adapters to products I'm using inside my PCs, makes troubleshooting easier. I'll get a SATA and NVME one, since I doubt we'll be seeing a combined product. They are even price competitive with USB thumb sticks and much more performant I'd guess. Not as tiny though. :)
  • Death666Angel - Tuesday, September 18, 2018 - link

    And since you seem to be responding to post here, Billy: Can you query MyDigitalSSD on their plans for Europe? They aren't really available here in Germany (usually one seller per product, heavily overpriced). They seem to be a good brand with well priced offerings. I wouldn't mind having another option here for great mid to low end SSD stuff. :)
  • Mikewind Dale - Tuesday, September 18, 2018 - link

    Yes, finally! I have a laptop with only one M.2 slot and I've wanted to upgrade the NVMe SSD but I knew that cloning my drive would be difficult. Whenever I upgrade a SATA drive, I just connect the new drive to a USB enclosure, clone, and then swap the two SATA drives. Now I can finally do the same with my NMVe drive! Yay!
  • tokyojerry - Thursday, September 27, 2018 - link

    Interesting that NVMe is starting to be supporting over USB3.1 Gen2 in these compact external cases. But unless such a case supports TB3 (thunderbolt 3) rather then USB3.1, will it not be an effort in futility to insert an NVMe module versus just a SATA-based module?

    For myself, I purchased a WD (Blue) M.2 SATA SSD 2TB and want to get an appropriate case for it. Would something like this WavLink be the most appropriate case to achieve best performance? ( https://goo.gl/mwNavV )
    Thanks.
  • Sushi_Desires - Wednesday, December 25, 2019 - link

    Perhaps I am misunderstanding the issue, but if the limiting factor on data transfer speeds for these external NVMe drives is the bandwidth of the USB interface, what is stopping firms from writing a custom firmware that lets users plug in 2 or even 3 of the same connectors to the drive at once to roughly double or triple the bandwidth?
  • Barney4 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link

    You claim in this article - "(M.2 SATA drives and M.2 PCIe drives that use AHCI instead of NVMe are not supported, but there are already plenty of enclosures for the former."

    THIS IS TOTALLY INCORRECT!!!

    And I have been looking since before you wrote this!!

    You tell me where all these AHCI enclosures are????

    I have been looking for an AHCI external enclosure for about 3 or 4 years since I have 3 of these things.
    The only external enclosure I found that is available is over US$600 (which works out to be about $1000 where I live) for an enclosure which is a ridiculous price, even for a Thunderbolt 3 enclosure.
    I am waiting for Icy Dock to release it's new U2 to USB 3.1 gen 2 adapter (CP087) later this year so I can start to use them again.

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