Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsMuch Slower than description states!
Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2023
Let me start by saying I Love OWC and will always buy their stuff. However, this $22 USB 4 cable is much slower (around 450MB/s) than the one that comes with the $19 SSK external enclosure which performs around 640MB/s.
SSK Aluminum M.2 NVME SATA SSD Enclosure Adapter, USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) to NVME PCI-E SATA M-Key/(B+M) Key Solid State Drive External Enclosure Support UASP Trim for NVME/SATA SSDs 2242/2260/2280
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MNFH1PX
I'd guess it's because most other external enclosures chipsets and/or my HP ZBook's chipset or driver is using TDR (Time Domain Reflectometer) tech to determine the cable’s length and with all cables over 8" long, the chipsets or driver negotiate a slower speed: around 450MB/s. Also, at this speed, when I clicked the eject USB devices icon in the Windows 10 icon tray, I noticed the enclosure’s name in under a heading called something like “PCIe device”.
How I tested:
I found these speeds to be what matters to me with my real world / real life testing by simply copying a single 22GB video file using normal Windows 10 Pro (22H2) windows explorer (drag and drop) and seeing what the speed hovers around. I also double checked this speed estimate by timing the transfer and dividing by 22GB.
The shorter cable that comes with the SSK is about 8" long and using it with the SSK enclosure (or any of the other 2 "fastest" external enclosures I found on Amazon [ORICO & Ankmax]) would always exceed 600MB/s! Therefore, why buy any other enclosure and then have to buy the SSK enclosure just for the cable that comes with the SSK?
Yes, the problem seems to be the other enclosures come with USB-C cables longer than 8". The other 2 enclosures performed around 450MB/s with their included cables. However, using the cable that comes with the SSK, they performed around 600MB/s! I was unable to find anyone on Amazon selling a USB-C 4 (or thunderbolt 3 or 4) cable 8" or shorter. If you find one that also supports 240w, 40Gb, and 8k please add the link in a reply to this post as it would be preferable to have all my USB-C cables have all the same capabilities.
Lastly interesting note: The SSK enclosure still performed over 600MB/s using the cables that came with the ORICO and Ankmax enclosures. And no, I’m not paid or connected in any way with SSK. I’ve just done a ton of testing since all the online lab tests failed to yield the “fastest” results of what I constantly do: transfer large amounts of data. Consequently, I now have 4 of these SSK external enclosures and I love them all!
$139 ORICO 40Gbps M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure USB4 PCIe3.0x4 USB-C Aluminum Adapter, Upgraded NVMe PCIe 2280 M-Key External M2 Solid State Drive Enclosure, Compatible Thunderbolt 3/4 USB3.2/3.1/3.0/ Type C
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2JXDB77
$130 Ankmax USBC 40Gbps Enclosure for NVMe M.2 SSD, UC4M2 USB Type-C 40Gbps Interface Compatible with Thunderbolt 4/3 USB4.0/3.1/3.0, Tool-Free Aluminum External Hard Drive Enclosure(8TB Support)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09KQBYQHM
The drive I used in the enclosures:
Crucial P3 Plus 4TB PCIe Gen4 3D NAND NVMe M.2 SSD, up to 5000MB/s - CT4000P3PSSD8 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B25M8FXX
The drive in my HP ZBook with 32GB Ram:
Samsung 970 EVO Plus SSD 2TB - M.2 NVMe Interface Internal Solid State Drive with V-NAND Technology (MZ-V7S2T0B/AM) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MFZXR1B