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!

 

[Spicedaddy]

Starting to have a collection LOL.
From left to right: Orico enclosure with JMS583 chip / Generic NVME to USB-A with RTL9210 chip / Samsung T7 with ASM2362 / JEYI Thunderbolt 3 enclosure with Intel JHL6340 chip.

The Orico was unusable until I updated the firmware. Seems ok now, but I don't trust JMicron too much lol.

The RTL9210 USB-A adapter works nicely, I use it for data recovery.

The Samsung T7 is the drive I carry around. Thin, light, doesn't get too hot and works with USB.

The JEYI I just received today. (ordered from AliExpress) It's the fastest of course and very well built. Downside is it only works on TB3 and costs 80$ US.

 

[apoelistasaudi]

Well with rtl9210 1.21.20 fw and my previous configuration settings (standby enabled) I have disconnects on usb 3.1 gen 2 pc. When usb device is on standby and When entering computer management - disk management. Message pops up usb device not recognised last time mulfunctioned ..... and disconnects.
Standby timer still causes problems.
Can anyone confirm??

Also I get random disconnects after usually >10mins.

 

[apoelistasaudi]

After chipset driver update random disconnects seem to be resolved though I do get some disk management errors. Will try to confirm Monday.

Also I was not able to convert disk to GPT using disk management or diskpart.


---
Disconnected again when running disk management when on standby.

Rtl9210 firmware 1.20.12 with idle time enabled is not working properly.
-----
I was able to convert disk to GPT with diakpart after selecting partition 1.

More tests for GPT.

At the moment no disconnects with firmware 1.18.1 and 1 min standby. firmware 1.20.12 has issues. Decided to downgrade to jeyi firmware. More time related stability tests for 1.18.1 fw.
Pluggable disappointment

1.18.1 is more reliable and stable. Enclosure is cool about 37oC when idle but will depend on ambient temp. Will check over a longer time span for possible disconnect issues.

Will keep lower fw version since it works marginally better..
----
Final verdict.
1. 1 min standby works fine only with fw 1.18.1, however when running crystal diskmark I had a disconnect. Problem not solved.
2. Convert to GPT is possible with diskpart.


My final.preference.at the moment is jms583 bcs idle works properly.

Rtl9210 works well only with idle disabled. Probably this is why there is a revised hw chip.

Having that said asm2364 deserves a chance to compete against jms583.

 

[Andalu]

@apoelistasaudi,
I have tested my RTL9210 with firmware 1.20.12 (stand-by mode set to one minute) running Disk Management while the enclosure was in sleep-mode: I immediately got a disconnection. Here the error code:



No problem if awakened via explorer.exe.
Same behavior for the RTL9210B (stand-by timer set to 10 minutes) but no disconnection using the RTL9210 with firmware 1.21.17 (stand-by timer set to one minute).

But from here I got no more disconnection on the following many tests (more than 10) launching Disk Management while the RTL9210 with firmware 1.20.12 was in sleep-mode. The same for the RTL9210B.

I used the identical configuration in all my tests, included cable and NVMe disk. I also tried with my three realtek enclosures connected at the same time without any problem of that kind.
I do not really understand the reason for the first disconnection and especially why it did not occur again. I'm not so sure it can depend on the firmware version.

I agree with you about the JMS583 chipset, it has become my first choice since the firmware update to version 2.0.9.
The RTL9210B is the worst, at least until now: I had some disconnections (maybe due to thermal throttling) and the safe remove command doesn't work.


I'm waiting for a new enclosure with the ASM2364 chipset (USB3.2 Gen.2x2), most likely I will able to test it within this week.

 

[dontasciime]

Sorry to be a pain I tried reading through from start to finish. I'll go back to start to see if like some other forums the first post has latest of everything. But can someone link to 2 latest [or best] firmwares for me please.

A firmware for a Sabrent EC-NVMe with JM853 [which firmware is latest that stops disconnect on an x570 chipset] ?

and A firmware for my RTL9210 Orico MP2V-C2 [crystaldisk info listed it as having firmware 211070WD.

I'll continue from page 7 (i did read 16/15/14/13 backward seeing if I could see a mention of which to use for certain on these enclosures]

Also can I ask if anyone noticed disconnects on other usb3 drives connected to the computer they used the sabrent ec-nvme enclosure on eg when it was connected at same time to a 10Gbps port . I have 4 mech hdds usally connected and my 2tb seagate 2.5 was going mental on / off / on / off in windows I thought it might be broken eg the bridge chip] or about to break so I backed up the 1.8tb in use on it to another 14tb drive but also after taking the sabrent ec-nvme offline and using my orico that was delivered today my seagate xbox drive today that I use on pc also had some disconnects whilst using the orico on 1 of the 2 10Gbps ports.

Thanks.

I've read it start to finsh and say abou99% of the words :lol

someone menttions the pluggable firmware on this link https://plugable.s3.amazonaws.com/bin/Realtek/USBC-NVME_RealtekFirmware202003.zip saying it includes mptool (I take it this has now been removed from the zip package)

[edit] Silly me I was tired the flasher is and allows dumping

 

[apoelistasaudi]

I have uploaded rtl9210 firmware 1.20.11 which I just found. Here is the link

 

[Andalu]

I have made some tests with the ASM2364 enclosure (USB 3.2 Gen.2x2 - 20GBps - mod. ICY BOX IB-1916M-C32) arrived just yesterday.
This chipset reminds me the JMS583 of the early times before the firmware update to version 2.0.9: the excessive heat produced clearly affects its functioning. It is even worse considering that I did intensive tests with the JMS583 in summer while now the environment is much cooler but the ASM2364 becomes very hot anyway. CrystalDiskInfo has also detected a temperature of 80°c for the asmedia chipset. Unfortunately, also for this chipset the stand-by mode can't be enabled as for ASM2362.
However, so far I have not detected any sudden disconnection.

Below are two series of three consecutive CrystalDiskMark benchmarks by connecting the enclosure to a PCIEx to USB 3.2 Gen.2x2 - 20GBps card (ASM3242 chipset) using either the supplied USB C cable and a Thunderbolt3 cable.

I also wanted to calculate the time taken to complete each test and, as from the images below, the first test performed on a cold boot with the enclosure just connected, is completed in normal time (just under 6 minutes) and with the expected results while both the second test (more than eight and ten minutes required) and especially the third test (with almost 14 minutes required) show that the ASM2364 chipset is in trouble when used intensively and the results are negatively affected.

Tests with the included usb c cable:

 

[Andalu]

Tests with a Thunderbolt3 cable:

 

[Andalu]

Just out of curiosity, I made the same benchmarks using the JMS583 pcb (10GBps) inserted in the M2PJM-C3 box, here are the always constant results (the time required was just over 6 minutes in all 3 tests):




About the ASM2364 enclosure model IB-1916M-C32, for a better heat dissipation it would be appropriate to place a thermal pad on the chipset to make it come into contact directly with the aluminum but the space is so large that you can not fill even by overlapping the two supplied thermal pads.

At the moment, I was not impressed by this enclosure.

 

[apoelistasaudi]

For discussion
firmware 1.20.11 has introduced a new parameter
RM_INTERNAL_RD = 0

If anyone is intersted what this parameter does, after testing, here is the info

It keeps blue light on all the time and flashes when it works, as opposed to no light when not in use.


Also note there is a different cfg for rtl9210b within this file. I believe it uses same firmware. You could use latest fw 1.20.12 instead of 1.20.11.

So I believe you can reflash your rtl9210b failed update if you tried to update in the past. Only configuration file changes. So now you have this 🙃

Until better firmware for rtl9210, which will make sleep mode work properly, if such a possibility exists, back to jms583 which is problem free thanks to latest firmware and probably better overall technology, for the time being. Now Jms583 installed in a new better Orico enclosure (since Order arrived was for 5Gbs but same size pcb)

 

[Andalu]

For discussion
firmware 1.20.11 has introduced a new parameter
RM_INTERNAL_RD = 0

If anyone is intersted what this parameter does, after testing, here is the info

It keeps blue light on all the time and flashes when it works, as opposed to no light when not in use.


Also note there is a different cfg for rtl9210b within this file. I believe it uses same firmware. You could use latest fw 1.20.12 instead of 1.20.11.

So I believe you can reflash your rtl9210b failed update if you tried to update in the past. Only configuration file changes. So now you have this 🙃

Until better firmware for rtl9210, which will make sleep mode work properly, if such a possibility exists, back to jms583 which is problem free thanks to latest firmware and probably better overall technology, for the time being. Now Jms583 installed in a new better Orico enclosure (since Order arrived was for 5Gbs but same size pcb)

Hi dude, thanks for your report.
Here the new added parameters are two: RM_INTERNAL_RD and HS_AUTO_SWITCH and don't seem depend from the firmware version but from the UTHSB_MPtool v1.8.0.0206.
I tried that version and also the MPtool v1.8.0.0108 with my two RTL9210 enclosures (firmware v1.20.12 and v1.21.17): the new parameters are visible throught "Dump Device Information" only using the MPtool v1.8.0.0206 while they don't appear with the v1.8.0.0108. Below one image to better explain what I noticed (nothing changes by selecting a bin. file):



I haven't tried to activate them yet, so I don't know what comes out of it.

 

[apoelistasaudi]

Nice thanks forthe additional info. Will use latest mptool from now on to avoid fw config issues.

Reminder we need firmware 1.21.17 for further tests. Where is realtek???? Current firmware is not acceptable. Please upload one with sleep mode working properly I.e. disk manager opened while on sleep mode= disconnection

Until then JMS583 will be used instead.

 

[whyami]

Hi all,

I joined just to thank all of you for contributing so much information about the different controllers / enclosures for NVMe drives. I hadn't thought that there was that much variability.

I had tested two enclosures with the JMS583 but both of them were overheating and dropping the connection, so I sent them back. Then I found this forum. So I guess I may probably have fixed my problem with the 2.0.9 firmware, but too late to try that now.

For the meantime, I've ordered an Orico M2PJM-C3 (with RTL9210B) and will likely stay with that and hope for a firmware update that fixes the issues people have mentioned here. I chose this because it is compatible with PCIe NVMe drives and also SATA.

Will check out the M2PJM-C3 firmware version once it arrives. On that note, @Andalu, where did you find the MPtool v1.8.0.0206? I only have v1.8.0.0108 from the pluggable firmware update ZIP.

Have a good day everyone!

 

[Andalu]

Hi all,

I joined just to thank all of you for contributing so much information about the different controllers / enclosures for NVMe drives. I hadn't thought that there was that much variability.

I had tested two enclosures with the JMS583 but both of them were overheating and dropping the connection, so I sent them back. Then I found this forum. So I guess I may probably have fixed my problem with the 2.0.9 firmware, but too late to try that now.

For the meantime, I've ordered an Orico M2PJM-C3 (with RTL9210B) and will likely stay with that and hope for a firmware update that fixes the issues people have mentioned here. I chose this because it is compatible with PCIe NVMe drives and also SATA.

Will check out the M2PJM-C3 firmware version once it arrives. On that note, @Andalu, where did you find the MPtool v1.8.0.0206? I only have v1.8.0.0108 from the pluggable firmware update ZIP.

Have a good day everyone!

Hi whyami
most likely the M2PJM-C3 enclosure will already have the latest available firmware for the RTL9210B chipset,
i.e. version 1.21.10 and you will not need to upgrade also because the version included in the "UTHSB_MPtool_Lite_Mini_x86_x64(Ours_V1.20.11)" package is older (1.20.11) even if the MPtool version is newer (1.8.0.0206).

To check the firmware version only, you can also use MPTool v1.8.0.0108 I reported how to do it here

Of course, use it at your own risk!!

 

[Andalu]

Nice thanks forthe additional info. Will use latest mptool from now on to avoid fw config issues.

Reminder we need firmware 1.21.17 for further tests. Where is realtek???? Current firmware is not acceptable. Please upload one with sleep mode working properly I.e. disk manager opened while on sleep mode= disconnection

Until then JMS583 will be used instead.

I don't know which version of windows you are using. Assuming it could be Win10, until the firmware version 1.21.17 is available, you could try to avoid automatic disconnection of the RTL9210 v1.20.12 enclosure when Disk Management tries to wake it up from sleep mode following this procedure that worked on a Win10 release where I encountered the same problem you reported:
go on Control Panel -> Power options -> Change Plan settings of the Preferred Plans -> Change advanced power settings -> USB settings -> USB selective suspend setting -> switch setting on Disabled.

I must also add that the same method was not successful on another system but I hope it may be due to the reason that it was an obsolete version of windows10 not updated anymore.

 

[Ende4711]

Hallo,

I need your support I have a FIDECO USB3.2 to M2 NVME SSD Enclosure Model : M209CPS.

Can someone provide me the Firmware of these M209CPS?

Apprecciate your support…

 

[Andalu]

Hallo,

I need your support I have a FIDECO USB3.2 to M2 NVME SSD Enclosure Model : M209CPS.

Can someone provide me the Firmware of these M209CPS?

Apprecciate your support…

Hi Ende4711,
your enclosure also seems to be equipped with the RTL9210B chipset, so the same applies to you here.
First you need to know the version of the firmware already installed.
What problems have you encountered with your enclosure that require a firmware update?

 

[Ende4711]

Hallo, yes it is the RTL 9210B.
is this firmware bin available ?

 

[ehbello]

Hi everyone,

I recently bricked my ORICO PFM2-C3 with the RTL9210 chip while trying to update the firmware to the latest version. Now the LED does not light up.

I don't know if there is any way to flash the firmware again using JTAG or similar. The board has a flash chip model FM25Q04. Maybe it is possible to desolder it and flash it?

Does anyone have any suggestions here?

Thank you.

 

[Andalu]

Hi everyone,

I recently bricked my ORICO PFM2-C3 with the RTL9210 chip while trying to update the firmware to the latest version. Now the LED does not light up.

I don't know if there is any way to flash the firmware again using JTAG or similar. The board has a flash chip model FM25Q04. Maybe it is possible to desolder it and flash it?

Does anyone have any suggestions here?

Thank you.

Hi ehbello,
in order to try to help you, other information should be provided:

- on which platform did you tried the update (windows or mac)?
- from which and to which version of the firmware did you try to update?
- before updating, did you change any parameter in the .cfg file?
- did MPTool give you the "fail" message or something else happened?
- have you already tried to connect the enclosure to another pc?


I report my experience with a failed update for my RTL9210 enclosure with firmware v1.20.12 (the last one available for download) trying to enable only one of the two parameters mentioned here.

The "RM_Internal_RD" can be correctly set to 0x01 but I didn't notice any change in the behavior for using the enclosure. So no difference enabling this parameter to 1 or leaving it to 0 (n/a).

Instead, setting the "HS_Auto_Switch" parameter to 0x01 causes the update process to fail as from the image below:


from this moment the container was no longer recognized in the "Device manager" even if connected to another pc.
Its led was always off even with an NVMe drive mounted on it.

I solved by reconnecting the enclosure with the NVMe drive already mounted and then updating the firmware again (clearly, in my case, I have first edited the .cfg file by returning the "HS_Auto_Switch" parameter to 0).
I tried twice and in both cases, after the failed update, I fixed it this way.

I don't know if this can help you solve it too. I just reported my experience. Please consider that for each firmware update it is recommended to remove the NVMe drive and also that my NVMe disk did not contain any important data.

 

[ehbello]

Hi ehbello,
in order to try to help you, other information should be provided:

- on which platform did you tried the update (windows or mac)?
- from which and to which version of the firmware did you try to update?
- before updating, did you change any parameter in the .cfg file?
- did MPTool give you the "fail" message or something else happened?
- have you already tried to connect the enclosure to another pc?


I report my experience with a failed update for my RTL9210 enclosure with firmware v1.20.12 (the last one available for download) trying to enable only one of the two parameters mentioned here.

The "RM_Internal_RD" can be correctly set to 0x01 but I didn't notice any change in the behavior for using the enclosure. So no difference enabling this parameter to 1 or leaving it to 0 (n/a).

Instead, setting the "HS_Auto_Switch" parameter to 0x01 causes the update process to fail as from the image below:
View attachment 32604

from this moment the container was no longer recognized in the "Device manager" even if connected to another pc.
Its led was always off even with an NVMe drive mounted on it.

I solved by reconnecting the enclosure with the NVMe drive already mounted and then updating the firmware again (clearly, in my case, I have first edited the .cfg file by returning the "HS_Auto_Switch" parameter to 0).
I tried twice and in both cases, after the failed update, I fixed it this way.

I don't know if this can help you solve it too. I just reported my experience. Please consider that for each firmware update it is recommended to remove the NVMe drive and also that my NVMe disk did not contain any important data.

Hi Andalu,

Thanks for your reply.

- I did the update using a Windows virtual machine as a guest of a Linux operating system.
- The first time, the update to the latest v1.20.12 was successful, but I wanted to play with other options (Update Mode and Update Binary Mode) of MPTool and the second attempt failed.
- No changes were made to the .cfg file. I just wanted to update the firmware.
- I don't remember what error the MPTool showed. Probably a break in the middle of the update.
- Yes, I tried another PC but the enclosure is not detected as device.

Definitely, the flash memory is almost empty. I just read it with a programmer and the content of the UTNVME_A_v1.20.12.021220.bin file is not there.

I tried to use this file to flash the memory again, but its size (400K) is smaller than the flash (512K)

So, I must ask ... could someone with a programmer send me a flash dump? Thaaanks!

P.D.: I don't know where you got MPTool version 1.8.0.0206 from. I can't find it anywhere.

 

[ehbello]

I was wrong. The provided binary is useful to flash the memory, but my software (flashrom) needs the size of the binaries to match the size of the flash memory.

For Linux users who might need to fix this problem in the future, they can accomplish this with these two commands:

dd if=/dev/zero of=firmware.bin count=1 bs=512K
dd if=UTNVME_A_v1.20.12.021220.bin of=firmware.bin count=1 bs=512K conv=notrunc

Now the LED is still off and my Samsung 970 EVO seems to be undetected, but I will try to flash again with the MPTtool and a configuration file.

 

[Ende4711]

Hi Ende4711,
your enclosure also seems to be equipped with the RTL9210B chipset, so the same applies to you here.
First you need to know the version of the firmware already installed.
What problems have you encountered with your enclosure that require a firmware update?

Yes indeed its the B version here the DUMP file:
**************************************************************

Device : Realtek RTL9210B NVME #0

**************************************************************

U2PHY : 02 f4 9b e0 e1

U3PHY : 02 d4 09 00 d5 00 80

VID : 0x0bda

PID : 0x9210

MANUFACTURE : "Realtek"

PRODUCT : "RTL9210B-CG"

SERIAL : "012345678931"

SCSI_PRODUCT : "RTL9210B NVME"

SCSI_VENDOR : "Realtek"

CFEXPRESS : 0x00

LED : 0x01

PINMUX1 : 0x00000000

PINMUX2 : 0x00000070

U2_MAXPWR : 0xfa

U3_MAXPWR : 0x70

ASPMDIS : 0x00

PCIE_REFCLK : n/a

PCIE_PWRCUT_THRES : 0x05

SWR_1_2V : n/a

EN_UPS : n/a

PD : n/a

CUSTOMIZED_LED : n/a

SUSPEND_LED_OFF : n/a

FORCE_USB_SPEED : n/a

FORCE_PCIE_SPEED : n/a

FORCE_USB_QUIRK : n/a

FORCE_PCIE_QUIRK : n/a

FAN : 0x00000001

DIS_SHOW_EMPTY_DISK : 0x01

FORCE_SATA_NORMAL_DMA : n/a

UART_DBG_PIN : 0x05

FINGER_PRINT_EN : n/a

EFUSE :

00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F

-------------------------------------------------

0 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff

10 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff

20 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff

30 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff

40 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff

50 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff

60 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff

70 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff

80 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff

90 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff

a0 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff

b0 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff



Boot Mode : Flash NM

FW Ver : 1.22.18

FW Build Date : 2020.07.06

IC Ver : 0xa0010002

IC Pkg Type : PCIE_SATA

UUID : ffffffff-ffff-ffff-ffff-ffffffffffff



Disconn_ForceUSB2 : 0x00
How can I download the current installed Firmware?
Is there an updated FW Version availabel?
The Problem I had was that the Fan was not working any more. Thats why I was looking for an update. The USB C drive has been exchanged now. So I could at least provide you the actual Firmware which is now installed when you guide me how to get it uploaded for the Forum...
If you see a requirement for it...

 

[Andalu]

I re-uploaded here the package downloaded from the link (now expired) provided by @apoelistasaudi some posts above.
It contains the MPTool v1.8.0.0206 and the firmware v1.20.11 which is older than the Plugable version 1.20.12 and the latest v1.21.17 currently unavailable for download (if someone would provide it would be much appreciated )

Use it at your own risk!!

 

[Andalu]

@Ende4711
good to know that there is a more updated firmware version for the RTL9210B chipset. Until now v1.21.10 was known as the last. It would be nice to get the .bin file of the installed firmware but I have no knowledge of how to do it.

About your issue, the only parameter of your dump file that differs from mine is in fact 'FAN' that seems already enabled (mine is on "n/a" because I have a fanless enclosure).
You could try asking Fideco for the .bin file explaining the problem of the fan not working. As you can read here,
Fideco seems to be more sensitive in finding a way to resolve customer issues, unlike other manufacturers like Orico who haven't even replied to my email.