Best SSD and Hard Drive Enclosures

[Admin]

You can take any M.2 or SATA storage drive, put it in an enclosure and connect to a computer via USB. We tested more than a dozen enclosures to help you find the best one.

Best SSD and Hard Drive Enclosures : Read more

 

[RichardtST]

I've tried a few cases too....

The ROG case is pretty, but is not tool-less. It requires a pin. A pin is a tool. It also has compatibility issues with a number of USB chips we've tried it with. For example, it won't stay stable on a Dell workstation or one of the custom cases we bought. On my workstation it seems fine though. I think it is just finicky. I hate finicky. Users whine at me when things don't work 100%.

All the "slide-in" cases have a tendency to overheat as there is no contact with the actual drive. Note that this is only a problem when copying over about 100GB. It does happen, but it's usually me that it is annoying. Maybe I am just easily annoyed.

You left out my all-around favorite enclosure, the Sabrent. Truly tool-free, yet still makes contact with the drive to help keep it cool. And, best of all, is perfectly compatible and stable with all the machines in the office. It is my go-to enclosure now. Everyone that needs a usb drive gets this one.

I also have a couple Orico drives with fans, but those are just overkill and mostly for show. They do work, just big and require tools to swap drives.

Sabrent enclosures are the hands-down winner here.

 

[cani]

Why not even mention the Acasis case? Pretty bad reviewer.

 

[cmw_a1]

Do any of these support an 8TB MZ-77Q8T0B/AM SSD? I seem to be buying all the ones that can't go that high. Any that have been tested to work?

Conor

 

[Xii-Nyth]

Installation is a hassle and screw is an uncommon star shape.
I won that enclosure and I swap out drives in 15 seconds, it comes with the screwdriver you need, and its not uncommon either, its regular torx.

Its the best of the 10gbps nvme drives, it has better contact for cooling compared to tool less ones with little pressure, and its cheaper as well, but then isnt garbage like the skk.

The rog one is the same thing with worse cooling for 4x the price and you give it more stars??

Note: I get 900/1000 and 1000/1000 with my 2 drives. Don't know whats causing the slowdown to 700 in the test setup used.

 

[aqs4]

I can't find a UGreen CM472 anywhere. Is this the right product iD? Thanks, Jon

 

[JoBalz]

I've tried a few cases too....

The ROG case is pretty, but is not tool-less. It requires a pin. A pin is a tool. It also has compatibility issues with a number of USB chips we've tried it with. For example, it won't stay stable on a Dell workstation or one of the custom cases we bought. On my workstation it seems fine though. I think it is just finicky. I hate finicky. Users whine at me when things don't work 100%.

All the "slide-in" cases have a tendency to overheat as there is no contact with the actual drive. Note that this is only a problem when copying over about 100GB. It does happen, but it's usually me that it is annoying. Maybe I am just easily annoyed.

You left out my all-around favorite enclosure, the Sabrent. Truly tool-free, yet still makes contact with the drive to help keep it cool. And, best of all, is perfectly compatible and stable with all the machines in the office. It is my go-to enclosure now. Everyone that needs a usb drive gets this one.

I also have a couple Orico drives with fans, but those are just overkill and mostly for show. They do work, just big and require tools to swap drives.

Sabrent enclosures are the hands-down winner here.

I also have the Asus ROG Strix Arion Enclosure. It was on the expensive side for what you get (gotta pay for that lighting Bling!) and I found it a bit exasperating to access the inside of the case with the little PIN tool. The instruction sheet that came with it was none too clear as to the location of the access point where you use the PIN, so I was looking all over for it. Once I had the M.2 drive installed, it was a bit of a pain to get the case put back together again. Once it was done, it did do fast back-ups which is the main reason for getting it. So overall, great quality and it does do fast file storage, but the case is a pain to open and close if you need to install or change your drive.

 

[abaymajr]

I liked very much the unreviewed Fanxiang. It is cableless, does 10Gb/s and has both Type A and C USB ports. Also, it's very easy and fast to replace SSD M2 devices.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005772628857.html

 

[mallardduck]

Whatever you do, don't order a zikedrive. Their shipping carrier is incompetent - it takes weeks to deliver the product, and support is completely unresponsive to contact attempts.