Jump to content

Thunderbolt External enclosure for NVMe SSD

TakerTX
 Share
Posted

Hi people of the Linus Land!

 

I was wondering if anyone has any idea how to use NVMe SSDs  as a portable, external solution around here? 

 

I have searched all corners of the internet and from the looks of things so far there are only M.2 external enclosures available from manufacturers and no viable solutions for the NVMe SSDs so far.

 

I have two NVMe SSDs that I would very much like to be able to use externally on the go and with a proper connection, Thunderbolt 3.0 preferably, that allows for the near full saturation off the intended drive bandwidth.

 

Any help is much appreciated. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
8 minutes ago, TakerTX said:

Hi people of the Linus Land!

 

I was wondering if anyone has any idea how to use NVMe SSDs  as a portable, external solution around here? 

 

I have searched all corners of the internet and from the looks of things so far there are only M.2 external enclosures available from manufacturers and no viable solutions for the NVMe SSDs so far.

 

I have two NVMe SSDs that I would very much like to be able to use externally on the go and with a proper connection, Thunderbolt 3.0 preferably, that allows for the near full saturation off the intended drive bandwidth.

 

Any help is much appreciated. 

Yeah, M.2 SATA over USB 3.1 Gen 2 is the best i've been able to work out so far.

Limited by the SATA interface speed obviously.  Pity.

 

Hopefully there will be new stuff before too long.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

I think what you are looking for is the VNAND/3DNAND technology found in the samsung NVME m.2 drives.

http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/product/portable/t3.html

 

EDIT:

Annnnnd this https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-M-2-SATA-External-Enclosure/dp/B00T8F298Y

Long magic storage stick

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author
15 minutes ago, Rohime said:

Yeah, M.2 SATA over USB 3.1 Gen 2 is the best i've been able to work out so far.

Limited by the SATA interface speed obviously.  Pity.

 

Hopefully there will be new stuff before too long.

So have I, but that is no good for my use. I have a 256 Gig Samsung 951 OEM, and also a 512 Gig Samsung 950 Pro NVMe SSD which are both incompatible with all the M.2 SATA over USB3.0 or 3.1 enclosures that I have managed to find out there!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author
5 minutes ago, Xenift said:

I think what you are looking for is the VNAND/3DNAND technology found in the samsung NVME m.2 drives.

http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/product/portable/t3.html

 

EDIT:

Annnnnd this https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-M-2-SATA-External-Enclosure/dp/B00T8F298Y

Long magic storage stick

The Samsung T3 already comes in with a drive inside and cannot be purchased as an enclosure only options sadly. As said in my previous reply, the idea here is to use the drives I already have from my recent upgrades to my Precision laptops rather than purchasing ultra fast / portable new storage.

 

The StarTech M.2 SATA External SSD Enclosure - USB 3.0 with UASP enclosure is incompatible with NVMe Drives, I know that through experience!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
17 hours ago, TakerTX said:

Yeah I have found this model in my research, but unfortunately it is not portable and I already have a 6TB NAS.

I have a WAVLINK USB 3.1 M.2 SATA enclosure.   Works REALLY well (marginally faster than Samsung T3 by crystalmark) but its still only SATA speeds of course

 

https://www.pccasegear.com/products/37835/wavlink-usb-3-1-type-c-to-m-2-ngff-hard-drive-enclosure 

i put an 512GB 850 EVO in it ( I think - memory )

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 2 months later...
  • 1 month later...
Posted

Looks like NO ONE is reading the question...

I am in the same boat as the OP.

Looking to cross the 10gb/s barrier with PORTABLE adapter.

960 EVO as external.

Anyone knows of such a beast? Please share.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 1 month later...
Posted

I also would like to know this... and it seems no one reads the question... 

 

A USB to NVMe adapter, or PCIe M.2 adapter... NOT a drive,

 

There are tons of drives out there, there are tons of SATA m.2 adapters, just none that I can find that can take an m.2 NVMe or PCIe SSD and be used externally, its the only reason I have not upgraded my laptops SSD yet, I want an external box to slap the 128gb into for cloning and just to have. I don't even really care about the speed either.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 4 weeks later...
Posted

It's only been a month since the last post, but wondering if anyone has seen anything new in this regard.  I am in the exact same position as the OP:  needing to upgrade the capacity of the NMVe SSD in my Precision laptop, and looking for an enclosure to do exactly what he wanted to do.

 

Lacking this, I'm preparing to do the following:

 

1) Use a garden-variety USB 3.0 - SATA III enclosure for a garden-variety 1 TB HDD (not an SSD).  Hook this up to the Precision laptop and clone its current 256 GB NVMe drive to the external 1 TB HDD.

 

2) Inside the Precision laptop, replace the 256 GB SSD with a 512 GB NVMe drive (Samsung Pro 960).

 

3) Clone the external HDD to the new internal (512 GB) drive.

 

I'm anticipating that this'll be a bit tricky.  Planning to use a commercial disk-cloning program - most likely Casper - for the two cloning operations.

 

For the 2nd clone, I'll boot from a recovery USB thumbdrive.  Then will have to install the cloning SW again before I can carry out that HDD-to-new NVMe clone.

 

I see some potential pitfalls with this approach.  Will probably have to  fiddle with the laptop's BIOS after the new NVMe drive is installed to make sure it recognizes both that drive and the external HDD.  Also, I'm not entirely sure how the re-installation of the cloning SW will go:  it may require internet connection, which would have to be re-configured after the recovery boot.  Also, if the BIOS (as well as the OS) doesn't see the new SSD, I may be stuck at that point.

 

So... if anyone has been through this process and has any tips, please post!  Thanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
On ‎2017‎-‎04‎-‎16 at 8:55 AM, TakerTX said:

Hi people of the Linus Land!

 

I was wondering if anyone has any idea how to use NVMe SSDs  as a portable, external solution around here? 

 

I have searched all corners of the internet and from the looks of things so far there are only M.2 external enclosures available from manufacturers and no viable solutions for the NVMe SSDs so far.

 

I have two NVMe SSDs that I would very much like to be able to use externally on the go and with a proper connection, Thunderbolt 3.0 preferably, that allows for the near full saturation off the intended drive bandwidth.

 

Any help is much appreciated. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

So I've been looking for such adapter for over a year and two companies have replied. said there isn't any and there's no one that wants to produce any either. Apparently it defies speed purpose. This is the message I got from a renown manufacturer of adapters.

 

Thanks a lot for getting back to us.

Actually, there don’t exist any manufacture that makes IC for PCI-e NVME  to USB until now.

So I’m sorry that there is not much we can do.

 

What we now have is AHCI PCI-e.

 

Pete

 

Do not hesitate to call this number +886 2-7736-0128 #567

For well communication!

Français and Mandarin available

 

BPLUS LOGO EN

Pete  (Marketing & Sales dep)

Direct: +886 2-7736-0128

Mail: pete@bplus.com.tw

So the only left to do is clone it and reinstall the clone in your system or get tunderbolt2 or 3 but they already come loaded with PCI-e NVME SSD's and you can't get them without them. I will post if I hear but I'm giving up. I'll keep it as spare in case my new replacement gets full or crashes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

How can speed be a reason not to make such an enclosure? We have USB and Thunderbolt standards which can keep up with NVMe.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 1 month later...
Posted

Hi everyone,

 

Just found this: http://www.storagereview.com/netstor_na611tb3_portable_nvme_enclosure_review (Netstor NA611TB3 Portable NVMe Enclosure)

 

Price tag is kinda high though (360$ + shipping, without disk). I might pull the trigger on one of these, I use heavy VST libraries (200GB+) for music production and I'd like the fast loading time.

 

What do you think? I'm sure that in a year from now prices will have dropped significantly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 4 weeks later...
Posted

In the same situation looking for something. What about the Akitio node lite:

 

https://www.akitio.com/expansion/node-lite

 

And something like one of the following:

 

http://amfeltec.com/products/pci-express-gen-3-carrier-board-for-4-m-2-ssd-modules/

 

https://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-SLG3-2M2.cfm

 

http://amfeltec.com/products/pci-express-gen-3-carrier-board-for-2-m-2-ssd-modules/

 

Seems like this could get the job done, not to portable though. Has anyone tried something like this?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Might as well go with the Highpoint NVMe RAID controller card if you're going to be doing an x16 slot solution.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

I believe the issue is that nv.me is basically expecting to interface a pci-e bus. That is something that is hard to replicate from anything other than a main pc chipset/cpu.

 

 It seems it should be possible to accomplish the task over thunderbolt, as it is allegedly just pcie over a wire. And indeed, I belive it is possible once you add an expansion chassis, adapter card and drive. So then we just have to wait until it seems economical enough for someone to condense whatever thunderbolt interface, bridge, and driver chips are needed into a single bus powered package and we’ll have our super fast storage.

 

I suspect by the time that engineering occurs there may just be another simpler technology for ultr-fast portable storage.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 1 month later...
Posted

Can't be too long until we have enclosures: TEKQ Rapide External NVME SSD

Edit: Found one more external SSD: Nekteck 480gb Thunderbolt 3

And a enclosure for dual M.2 NVME setup: Dynapower USA NA611TB3

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 3 months later...
Posted
On 6/24/2018 at 3:47 PM, Sucah said:

Just find this : https://www.aliexpress.com/item/USB3-1-Type-C-NVMe-SSD-Enclosure-Adapter-M-KEY-Connector-M-2-NGFF-to-USB/32882129492.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.7a814c4dtIrS8j

I'm glad I stumbled upon this thread...

 

I didn't realise this was an issue until after purchasing an NVMe SSD.

 

I've just purchased this, so I'll try to remember to report back when I get it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing Storage Devices

×