Tag: NVME

Plugable USB-C NVME SSD Enclosure Review

Plugable sent over their USB 3.1 Gen 2 NVME SSD enclosure for me to review and I decided to put it to use after I upgraded my production system’s Samsung 970 EVO NVME to a new 4TB drive. You can check it out in the latest video on my Gadget Picks (formerly Extras) channel.

While you will likely experience a drop in performance due to the speed of NVME drives vs. the slower USB data rate, the convenience enclosures like this offer is the tradeoff. These enclosures are especially useful if you’re looking to migrate from a smaller NVME to a larger one.

The price point is quite reasonable, hovering around thirty dollars. The package includes the metal enclosure and two USB cables: one for USB-C equipped PCs and the other USB-A. The assembly process is straightforward and does not require any tools. Just pop the drive in using its rubber stopper to hold it in place, and slide the metal cover back over until it clicks.

I tested the enclosure on a Lenovo Yoga 9i’s Thunderbolt port. After connecting the drive, I was pleased to see all my old production drive popped right up just like any other external drive would.

Performance is decent too. The Blackmagic disk speed test revealed a consistent sequential read and write speed of over 900 megabytes per second – effectively maxing out the Gen 2 USB connection the drive supports. The CrystalDiskMark test further confirmed these results and also showcased some impressive random read and write capabilities.

In comparison to other USB-C drives I’ve tested, this DIY solution with Plugable’s enclosure and my Samsung NVME drive performed competitively, even outpacing some on random reads and writes.

If you have an NVME drive lying around after an upgrade, this enclosure from Plugable is a fantastic way to repurpose it. Just remember, it’s designed specifically for NVME drives, so M.2 SATA drives are not be compatible.

I Upgraded the Storage on my Production PC with a Great Crucial NVME Prime Day Deal

Ever since I switched my production workflow to 4k I’ve been meaning to upgrade the internal storage drive on my Vmix computer to a higher capacity drive. It’s not unusual for a single recording session to rack up 200GB or more of raw footage.

I’ve been using a 1 TB Samsung SSD for the job and it has performed admirably since I built my system three years ago. But during Amazon Prime Day I got a great deal on a 4 TB Crucial NVME drive. It’s still pretty reasonably priced now too.

Crucial has carved out a nice segment of the SSD market for people looking for high capacity storage that don’t necessarily need the fastest performance. This drive is very much in that market segment, delivering reads and writes at “only” about 2.6 gigabytes per second.

Newer drives running on the Gen 4 and 5 standards are almost exponentially faster, but this much capacity in drives that fast are prohibitively expensive for this YouTuber who works out of his basement. And as you can see here this low spec device can easily handle the 4k 30 video I record and beyond too.

Crucial also makes portable SSDs in this lower cost market segment. For example their X6 drive is priced very close to similar capacity spinning hard drives and delivers many of the speed advantages of an SSD. Are they as fast as some of the gaming and professionally oriented drives out there? No, but for many consumers they are more than adequate for the task.

Crucial is a sub-brand of Micron Technology, a well established chip maker that was founded in 1978. Micron manufactures the flash memory in their drives which helps keep costs in check. They used to make some pretty nice and affordable PCs in the 90’s too. In fact my very first PC laptop was a Micron XKE-233 that I reviewed a little while back on the channel.

I’ll be shooting some video on this new drive tomorrow so we’ll see how it holds up in the production environment. Stay tuned!