TR Forums

Hi,

I want to run the Samsung 860 Evo off a External SSD Enclosure running USB 3.0 Gen 1

Looking at the Transcend 25CK3 and other models online. I want to get an enclosure that will max out the drives performance.

Do you guys recommend a enclosure that will give me the speeds on USB 3.0 that I would expect running the drive off a SATA port.

I have the Samsung T5 and I believe the 860 EVO should out perform if I buy the right Enclosure.

Thanks in advance!

I've generally had good results with Vantec's enclosures in the past.

There aren't a whole lot of companies making the bridge chips for SATA to USB, so performance is probably going to be fairly similar across brands. It is basically going to come down to build quality. For mechanical HDDs cooling (or lack thereof) is also a concern, but this should be less of an issue for a SSD.

I haven't looked into this recently, but once upon a time the USB->SATA chipsets that also supported eSATA tended to have better performance (and fewer issues), so looking for an eSATA port on the enclosure led you to the better designs. But that was in the pre-USB3.x days, and eSATA has kind of faded mostly thanks to USB 3.x, so I dunno.

I second the Vantec enclosures. I'm currently using four of them. The one I have the most usage on is a Vantec NexStar CX I picked up at Microcenter. I've never had any problems with it (or any of my other Vantec enclosures) and it's well built. It's only USB 3.0 but Vantec makes a couple of USB 3.1 2.5 inch enclosures I have yet to try.

http://www.vantecusa.com/products_detai ... Enclosures

Here are the two USB 3.1 enclosures:

https://www.amazon.com/Vantec-2-5-Inch- ... 99FE2?th=1

https://www.amazon.com/Vantec-2-5-Inch- ... LWP4Z?th=1 (USB Type C).

I got one of these for $1 after MIR. Haven't used/owned it very long, but it's working.

If I may, is there a specific reason you need to "max out the SSD's performance" on an external drive? I wouldn't bother buying a primo SSD with the highest random IOPS, but instead focus on a budget drive that can do sequential reads/writes decent. Perhaps something like this 2TB Micron 1100 that can be had for around $260 on sale (Rakuten frequently does 15% off sitewide sales with a $50 max savings)

It's been a while, and I've been out of the loop for some years now, but back then the only chipset I'd trust was Oxford Digital. OWC's Pro line or some such and Oyen Digital were the only enclosures I was aware of that used Oxford Digital chipsets. So that may be a good place to start. Full disclosure, this would not be a cheap route to take, but I after having multiple backup and system drives become corrupted from non-premium enclosures, I found the expenditure on a particularly good quality product well worth the cost.

Here's a few quick links. You'll have to do your own research from here. (For all I know they don't even use Oxford chipsets anymore, there may be better options, et al.) If it's possible, I would highly recommend paying a bit more to get an enclosure with eSATA as well rather than solely USB 3.

https://oyendigital.com/
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-dr ... ves-HD-SSD

Enclosures supporting eSATA are getting harder to find. I guess this is unsurprising, given that the primary advantage of eSATA (back in the USB 2.0 days) was faster transfer speed. With USB 3.0 now the de facto standard for external data storage, eSATA has lost the speed advantage; furthermore, it is (still) at a disadvantage in terms of percentage of systems which have the requisite external port. It has become a niche interface, like FireWire/1394 did before it.

I've successfully hosted VMs off of external USB 3.0 enclosures. As long as you're not using one of the early ASmedia USB 3.0 host controllers it seems stable enough for most purposes. (And if you are unfortunate enough to have a motherboard with an early ASmedia controller, do yourself a favor and get a PCIe card with an NEC/Renesas chip on it.)

Goldenboy wrote:

I want to get an enclosure that will max out the drives performance.

Then you need an enclosure that supports UAS (USB Attached SCSI).

rephlex wrote:

Goldenboy wrote:

I want to get an enclosure that will max out the drives performance.

Then you need an enclosure that supports UAS (USB Attached SCSI).

Or better, Thunderbolt. Probably not many non-Apple computers supporting it. :/

Thanks everyone!!! I will definitely go with a UASP supported devices.

The reason I'm doing this is I feel the external SSD drives that are on the market are over price, and size isn't a big deal for me so if I can get a 1TB 960 Evo + adapter to run at top speeds for $220 it's a better deal than buying a small 1tb SSD external for $400, of which I own plenty.

I feel like there is very little documentation being provided by the vendors.
So I'm not a fan of Amazon.com but I did buy a hand full of products, and I will see what devices runs the fastest and post my results.

From my own experience my SSDs loses around 40% in IOPs and sequential throughput with SATA3->USB3 enclosure versus native SATA3. Even so for normal consumer use it's not enough gonna be noticeable at tall.

strangerguy wrote:

From my own experience my SSDs loses around 40% in IOPs and sequential throughput with SATA3->USB3 enclosure versus native SATA3. Even so for normal consumer use it's not enough gonna be noticeable at tall.

Was that with our without UASP?

The rosewill enclosures from newegg are decent, cheap, and reliable.
(I have 4 of them)
usb2 to ide 2.5"
usb2 to sata 2.5"
Usb3 to sata 2.5"
usb3 to sata 3.5"

The oldest one I've had for 5-6 years.

just brew it! wrote:

strangerguy wrote:

From my own experience my SSDs loses around 40% in IOPs and sequential throughput with SATA3->USB3 enclosure versus native SATA3. Even so for normal consumer use it's not enough gonna be noticeable at tall.

Was that with our without UASP?

Device manager show the controller as "UAS Mass storage device" with loaded Uaspstor.sys so its with UASP.

is long time and still get nice value for monies from SSD. I recommend Sandforce SSD. Is impressive performance loading things from it when working properly.

haha, yes I see the date, but just to play along:

You'll have a very hard time buying new Sandforce (-controller based) SSDs. Intel 535 is the most recent I can think of. I have plenty of Sandforce based SSDs still in service, working perfectly. In fact, I'm pretty sure I haven't lost a Sandforce drive yet, except for a Corsair F90 where the plastic around the SATA and power connector snapped.

As far as USB enclosures, I like this one (Newegg link). It has a metal body although the tray inside is plastic. I got a different Syba IOCrest last month and the whole thing is plastic, and the "tray" is pathetic.

/necro

I've also had universally good experiences with Vantec enclosures, including a few of the USB3.0 -> 2.5" variety. FWIW, I would expect eSATA to be a good amount faster than any version of USB, due to lower overhead and being the native interface of the drive (though admittedly, this would still depend heavily on the exact bridge chip used, which is almost never listed, nor tested by anyone). A good choice if you wanted max speed for an SSD would be this Vantec eSATA/USB3.0 enclosure for only 20 bucks, with the drawback of needing a separate power adapter for eSATA use.

I like Vantec's support attitude. They seem like a small company that's less official and more friendly than usual.
I've had two enclosures of theirs. They work fine, but both aren't great as far as physical design is concerned.

The Egg wrote:

with the drawback of needing a separate power adapter for eSATA use.

Not USB-powered?

eSATA used to be on my checklist of desirable features for an external enclosure, but USB 3.x has made eSATA largely irrelevant unless you're dealing with older systems.