Which nvme external enclosure?

darael

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matja said:
The RGB LEDson the ASUS ROG Strix Arion can be disabled/controlled by some ASUS software that only runs on Windows (https://www.asus.com/us/support/FAQ/1042468/), but the settings are not saved to the enclosure.

I installed ASUS Armoury Crate on my laptop and disabled the RGB, everytime I plug the enclosure into that laptop, the enclosure does a 1-2 second of RGB effect then turns off.

If I then plug the enclosure into another machine (either Windows or Linux) then it reverts back to the cycling RGB rainbow effect.

I'm pretty anti-RGB and actually don't find it too distracting because they are not too bright, even considering the number of LEDs :) (4 next to the transparent plastic bit on the led, and another 4 under the diffuser on the logo on the back), but I can see how it would be annoying after a while.



There's two SKUs, I didn't find out what the difference is:
  • 90DD02H0-M09000
  • 90DD02H0-M09010
Looking at my order from that popular competitor, I assume I have the 90DD02H0-M09000, but I chucked the box already and don't see any number like that on the case/PCB.



Yes this seems to work fine. CrystalDiskInfo 8.13.3 in Windows 10 shows features "SMART, TRIM, VolatileWriteCache" for my 4 enclosures, with the standard NVMe attributes and temperature.
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After your post last night, I ordered an enclosure before heading to bed. While it is expensive, it seems as though it will be money well spent on good quality.

I note that you had similar issues with the Sabrent enclosure that I did - I suspect most of the problems were caused by the connector being too recessed. If you look at the supplied USB cables and compare the USB-C ends with your normal USB-C cables from other devices, you might see that the Sabrent ones have fractionally longer connections. This makes me suspect that Sabrent knew of this problem.

I hope the Asus is as stable as my RSTECH enclosure was. I could literally swing it around and it wouldn't disconnect once. But as long as it's more stable than the Sabrent, I'll be happy enough.

I'm going to make sure I do some large file transfer tests when I get the enclosure. I don't want data corruption as I experienced with the RSTECH drive.

Something I've realised while writing this post, is that the RSTECH enclosure never seemed to go into standby. The Sabrent enclosure goes into sleep and the light goes out after a certain time. The RSTECH always stayed on, but I never questioned it. It will be interesting to see what the Asus one does when I test it.
 

darael

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Well I'm not really sure what's going on now.

I'd received the Asus enclosure. Initially I was happy with it, in particular the build quality. But that's about where it ended, sadly.

Benchmarks revealed it was around 10% slower than my Sabrent. Thinking I could live with this as long as the connection was rock solid, I tried flexing the cable a little. It disconnected after a few seconds on jangling the connector around in the socket.

People probably think I am getting too hung up on the connector issue. But I put the enclosure on top of my case, which has the USB 2.0/3.0 ports at the top, where a 5.25" drive would otherwise be. So when I need to unplug anything, I usually end up having to move the USB-C cable out the way to plug whatever in. That's why this is quite important to me.

Finally, good old data corruption returns. I'm not quite sure what to think about this. Is it my PC, cable or drivers? Either way, copying several Windows 10 ISO images (total of around 16GB) wasn't successful. I use the FC command at command prompt to compare files and this is what shows corruption. Copying exactly the same files to the same drive, only in the Sabrent enclosure, worked perfectly.

I'd tried reconnecting the cable at each end to ensure it wasn't a connectivity issue. I am wondering it's because the cable is a 2 meter cable, in order to reach the USB-C port on my motherboard's header at the back of the case. Or is it a poor quality cable? Either way, why don't I get such data corruption issues on my Sabrent enclosure?

Fed up and not having a spare USB-C cable, I've sent the Asus enclosure back. When I am more inclined and have more time, I will look into buying another 2m USB-C cable with perhaps the same enclosure - or maybe even an additional model to try, in case another Asus lets me down.

If a new cable and enclosure fail, then I will try a clean Windows installation to see if that improves things. If so, then it could well be a driver issue.
 

matja

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I guess it could be a dodgy unit, bad cable, or an intermittent port grounding issue.
I doubt it would be a driver problem because it should use the UAS driver for each of these enclosures (at least I confirmed that on Linux).
I did some more testing with my ASUS enclosure and didn't see a single error, even when swinging it by the cable - created a ZFS filesystem, copied a few hundred GB of files, ZFS checksums pass, sha256 hashes all pass - repeated a few times for good measure. I used my front USB-C connector and also the USB-C connector from my GPU.
 

Cyber-Mav

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Still looking for an enclosure since i need to clone some nvme usb enclosure is ideal.
Reliability is main thing i need. Not fussed if its not the fastest. 150mb read write speed is enough for my needs.
 

Buttkicker

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add my 2p I recently bought the ASUS ROG Strix Arion after reading glowing online reviews however it seems to have a mind of its own very easy to swap drives etc and looks great and well built however I have 5 M.2 drives and it will only detect one of them which really bugs me considering how much it cost for just the enclosure

i was convinced it was the best external enclosure i could get for USB but to be honest very tiresome that it does not detect the bulk of the drives

my brother has 3 of the Sabrent drives mentioned here which he paid about 23 quid for and all of them work with all his drives and all my drives work in them too

so i have an ASUS ROG Strix Arion which is almost useless bar the one drive it does see

so in hindsight i would have the sabrent every time over the Asus enclosure
and it just the same with which ever cable i use also tried on different PC's life's to short for all the hassles this thing has given me
 

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matja said:
Did you contact ASUS about this? Is it a particular make/model? All of my WD's work in mine.
Click to expand...

I did not contact them about it I have 2 Wd m.2 drives and neither are seen with the Asus.. been too busy to sort it out but would never have bought it had i known it was like this... currently sat on the shelf in it's box where it has been for about 3 months the only one it will detect is my Crucial P5 plus 1tb drive which is now in my new alderlake pc build
 

Raiden85

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Been using the ASUS ROG Strix Arion enclosure for a few months and it's been great, no issues with the two drives I've used it with on an Asus X570, drives I used were a 2TB WD SN850 and Samsung 980 Pro 2TB.

I use it for doing a monthly clone of my main drive, the 980 Pro that's usually about 1.2TB full to the SN850 and it's always performed great. Really can't fault it.
 

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still on the hunt for an enclosure. the RTL9210 chipset seems to be the better one since it has smart info support. gonna use for cloning drives so need data integrity and reliability. dont matter if its slow as long as its not usb2 speeds slow lol. any other options people can weigh in on? it would be ideal if its got nvme and sata support.
 

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after watching some youtube reviews of the Sabrent EC-SNVE iv ordered one. £27 inc delivery its one of the cheaper ones too. all reviews saying it uses the realtek controller which is most reliable one out there so far. should work out well for my work purposes.
 

darael

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Cyber-Mav said:
after watching some youtube reviews of the Sabrent EC-SNVE iv ordered one. £27 inc delivery its one of the cheaper ones too. all reviews saying it uses the realtek controller which is most reliable one out there so far. should work out well for my work purposes.
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I'm tempted to give this enclosure a try, too.

If you have time, copy several large files - like ISO images - and compare the files afterwards. I'd be interested to see if you get any data corruption as I did earlier. If not, I'm wondering my motherboard's USB-C is duff.

I used the FC in command prompt to compare files and this told me when any were corrupt.
 

Cyber-Mav

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Yep will do tests. I got a slow old 128gb nvme to use in it for now but will be putting 50gig images on it so will check it for corruption.

Which enclosure were you using that gave corruption?
 

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darael said:
First the RSTECH RSH-329, then the Asus ROG Strix Arion.

I still wonder if it's my cable, despite the same one never corrupting data on my Sabrent EC-TFNE. Or it could be a conflect with my motherboard and the Realtek chipset. I'm half tempted to just order one and see what happens.
Click to expand...
that rstech one uses the realtek chipset so shouldnt be any issues with it. worth trying another cable to be on the safe side. are you overclocked or undervolted if on am4 platform?
 
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