Question *STABLE* NVMe - USB Adapter?

[cyberjedi]

I'm looking to buy a *RELIABLE* NVME-USB external adapter, that doesn't disconnect randomly, can keep up the close to 1GB/s speed.
So far all adapter's reviews contain frighteningly high % of reports of malfunction, random disconnects, sub-par speeds, falling to even under USB 2.0 speeds, etc.
There are 3 main chipsets in the market: JMicron JMS583, Asmedia ASM2362, and Realtek RTL9210 (no product has surfaced with the latter yet, so no REAL reviews, experiences yet UPDATE: it is on the market already).
Also ASUS has a new product, ROG Strix Arion, but there isn't enough feedback about it yet, and I mean real life feedback not just being able to run a few benchmarks, but real stress test to see if the device (adapter) can keep it up, without disconnecting or slowing down hard.
I would really appreciate any feedback from those who have GOOD experiences during stress-tests, like tons of random 4k writes with a stable speed, cloning 100's of GB-s at a stable high speed close to 1GB/s.
I know SSD's very well, so please stick to the point and don't start to educate me on how their speed falls after some writes, etc. I'm aware and this is NOT the point.
You can help if you can point me to a STABLE and RELIABLE NVMe-USB-C adapter that WORKS as expected.
Thank you in advance!

 

[PRSXFENG]

Hi all So what's the deal here?

I wanted an NVME in an enclosure for reliable data storage (obviously with additional backup).
Got a Crucial P2 2TB and the NVME M.2 SSD enclosure - USB-C 3.1 - 10Gbps - Sky Gray (RTL9210). I don't care about speed.
Copied some files on it and the day after I got the "incorrect function" error as many others reported here.
Updated firmware to 1.29.12 as some suggested but the drive still won't initialize properly.
I don't have a free mainboard slot to "reactivate" it atm, but honestly, if this is not reliable I suppose I would have to switch to a usual SATA SSD + enclosure (if that is any better).

Can anyone suggest a stable solution for this?
I don't understand how these products have thousands of reviews and 4+ stars on amazon...
Is this like a chip lottery? I send it back and the next one will work just fine?

Obviously Orico did not answer my support request...

Have you tried other usb ports? my enclosure does not like my USBA 10Gbps port, but will happily work at USB2 or USB3 5Gbps or USBC 10Gbps ports

 

[somedude269]

Have you tried other usb ports? my enclosure does not like my USBA 10Gbps port, but will happily work at USB2 or USB3 5Gbps or USBC 10Gbps ports

I tried on 2 rather new laptops with USB3 type A ports (not sure about the speed) and once on a USBC port.
I must note that I have never "reactivated" the NVMe itself on a mainboard as I was hoping I could reactivate it through the USB enclosure once firmware was updated - but no luck.

Do you think that once the NVMe is reactivated successfully this will start working reliably?
Thanks for your quick reply!

 

[igor_kavinski]

Obviously Orico did not answer my support request...

Go with Ugreen. I have it. No problems so far.

 

[somedude269]

Go with Ugreen. I have it. No problems so far.

I was actually considering the one from Sabrent with the RTL9210b mainly because they provide chipset firmware through their official website.

I noticed from an older post of yours that you have the Ugreen version with an ASM2362 chipset. From some other posts I thought the RTL would be more reliable.
So it seams that the chipset does not matter so much after all?

However, the big question remains about whether I will be able to initialize the NVMe again without using a PCIe adapter or a motherboard.

Thanks for your help and I would really appreciate some more thoughts on this.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I also have this one: HAYSENSER USB Type C SSD External Enclosure Disk Case Box External Hard Disk for PC M.2 NGFF NVME SATA M/B Key Hard Drive: Buy Online at Best Price in UAE - Amazon.ae

It's probably a European brand so may not be available in US. It's slower than Ugreen but also no issues with it. I think it's better to avoid Realtek since you already have a bad experience with it.

 

[mountainmanjoe]

no amount of firmware updating will make up for cheap Chinese enclosures with janky construction. When you just slightly move the USB cable the drive disconnects. I'm not a big fan of these new USB-C connectors either. They don't provide a very positive latch mechanism.

 

[magnets110]

I also have this one: HAYSENSER USB Type C SSD External Enclosure Disk Case Box External Hard Disk for PC M.2 NGFF NVME SATA M/B Key Hard Drive: Buy Online at Best Price in UAE - Amazon.ae

It's probably a European brand so may not be available in US. It's slower than Ugreen but also no issues with it. I think it's better to avoid Realtek since you already have a bad experience with it.

That is a generic chinese case. Highly likely just an amazon seller rebrand of this https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003334124713.html

is the RTL9210b actually stable yet?

 

[somedude269]

So in the end I ordered a Ugreen with the RTL9210b https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B09C8DPNZJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1.
The problem is that I still couldn't re-initialize the NVMe on which I already moved some data through the Orico adapter that failed on day 2.
There are just too many people complaining about the drive deactivating itself for no reason. Some managed to ''reactivate" it by installing it on a mainboard but I don't have a free M2 slot around.
Maybe the RTL9210b would have worked just fine if I managed to reactivate it first, but who knows for how long and I would not have been able to reactivate it again. So for me a good adapter must be able to reactivate it.

Some adapters claim to be PCIe based, I wonder whether they would allow me to reactivate it.
Does anyone have any experience with that??

Considering build quality, I must say I liked the Orico one way better.

 

[igor_kavinski]

So for me a good adapter must be able to reactivate it.

In your current Windows installation, download Macrium Reflect. Create a bootable USB using it. Now remove your current M.2 SSD. Put in the troublesome SSD you want to initialize and boot with the Macrium created USB. It should detect your SSD. Then try the different options to see if you can fully delete the SSD partitions so it becomes usable for you. You may even be able to do Shift+F10, load a CMD prompt and use Diskpart from there.

 

[somedude269]

Yeah, I thought about too, but we use both of our notebooks for work and they have bitlocker turned on. Not sure how that would behave and I don't want to risk anything for this. Then again, you wouldn't know how long it would last until you'd have to go through all this again. I think I will go back to SATA SSDs for now.

 

[olavrb]

Yeah, I thought about too, but we use both of our notebooks for work and they have bitlocker turned on. Not sure how that would behave and I don't want to risk anything for this. Then again, you wouldn't know how long it would last until you'd have to go through all this again. I think I will go back to SATA SSDs for now.

I bought a cheap used NUC/ mini PC with minimum 1x SATA and 1x M.2 nvme slot for experimenting with things like that.

One can create a USB installation of Windows, a.k.a. Windows to go, by using Rufus. Preferably on an external SSD as memory sticks are painfully slow for that use case.

 

[somedude269]

In the end I took the time to install it on a PC of a friend. Sadly I couldn't even get into BIOS once the NVMe was installed - it just stopped at press f2 or del to boot into BIOS. Tried several times and removed all other disks on the system. His original NVMe worked perfectly. So, yeah, no idea what happened but it seems like the NVMe is fried too now... I'll send it all back and stick to my good old HDD for the time being. Will make sure to get my next notebook with 2 m.2 slots.

 

[igor_kavinski]

So, yeah, no idea what happened but it seems like the NVMe is fried too now... I'll send it all back and stick to my good old HDD for the time being. Will make sure to get my next notebook with 2 m.2 slots.

Cheap enclosures can do all sorts of damage. Good luck finding a laptop with two M.2 slots. Not something most manufacturers care about building into their laptops or advertising even if their laptop has two slots.

 

[somedude269]

I've seen plenty of workstation/gaming laptops come with 2 M.2 slots nowadays. But I can imagine that most of the more common laptops don't.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Preferably on an external SSD as memory sticks are painfully slow for that use case.

You could try one of these:

https://www.kingston.com/en/usb-flash-drives/datatraveler-max

 

[spike_V_sky]

@Galixte

Hi,

I have the same USB enclosure: http://sabrent.com/products/ec-snve.

I have updated it with the same firmware, version 1.29.12, available here: https://station-drivers.com/index.p...e-USB-3.1-Controller-firmware-Version-1.29.12.

The blue LED is still working well:
- Power LED: Solid blue for power on.
- Activity LED: Flashing blue LED for activity.

I recommend you to flash again this firmware with my config file: https://share.galixte.com/index.php/s/n2XGEmxnRGqMcYn.

In this file I have only reported the original parameter values from the original firmware config file dedicated to this USB enclosure.

hi, can you please reupload your config file ?

 

[spike_V_sky]

hi,

is there any changelog about v1.29.38 for B models ?

 

[bskim]

I am using the Orico TCM2M-C3.
macbook 2019 16 inch bootcamp (win10) + orico encloser + WD SN770 1TB.

There was a hang when writing a 4GB file.
So, a firmware update was performed.
Firmware: 1.29.38
In the cfg file, the corresponding variable was deactivated.
;SCSI_PRODUCT = ..
;SCSI_VENDOR = ...

After flashing, a 4GB file showed a transfer speed of 500MB/s without stopping.

READ performance is 1000MB/s ..

 

[spike_V_sky]

@bskim

hi, i see your enclouser use RTL9210B chip controller.

Can you please share a screen of your MPtool configuration used for flashing ?

 

[fantom3l]

@bskim

hi, i see your enclouser use RTL9210B chip controller.

Can you please share a screen of your MPtool configuration used for flashing ?

See post 862, you have there all you need.

 

[spike_V_sky]

@fantom3l
thanks

In the *.cfg from sabrent the serial is
SERIAL = "631345678939"

I get info of my enclouser with dump info and the serial is different.

what SERIAL i must uso to flashing the firmware ?
Is there any DISK_IPS_THRES suggest value ?

thanks

 

[PRSXFENG]

There's no problem with either, but if you want you can just edit the cfg file so that it matches what you got from the dump

 

[spike_V_sky]

hi
I flashed the Firmware 1.29.12 on EC-SNVE (RTL9210B based)
When there is activity the blu led flashing fast, while when there is not activity operation, the led flashing slow.
Is a low power mode operation indicator ?

 

[andyhi]

hi
I flashed the Firmware 1.29.12 on EC-SNVE (RTL9210B based)
When there is activity the blu led flashing fast, while when there is not activity operation, the led flashing slow.
Is a low power mode operation indicator ?

Default for the RTL9210 enclosures I own: Led flashing slow in low power mode.

See post 851 for a config change to have the LED turn off in lower power mode. Feel free to try different values for SUSPEND_LED_OFF... you may find a previously undocumented setting or Slow Flash & Off may be the only options.

 

[00Logic]

IF
the adaptor is not UASP capable, which gives you TRIM and multi threading for a start
THEN
It should NOT be on your list.