I was thinking of getting a dedicated USB 3.0 or USB 3.1 external SSD, but I am now considering getting a M.2 SSD with M.2 enclosure. Have any of you done this, and is there any significant disadvantage to doing this, as compared to a dedicated external SSD?
Don't know if there's any real disadvantage besides that with dedicated external SSD you can probably be fairly sure that it's going to work (have encountered what I think may have been compatibility issues with mSATA and M.2 enclosures for some drives).
I was thinking of getting this
Startech M.2 enclosure with a Crucial MX300 M.2 SSD.
Have used that exact same enclosure, not sure that it had any compatibility problems but I think it is kind of overpriced and despite the airholes it was not much more effective (if at all) at keeping the drive cool than an enclosure without airholes.
Also this may have been just due to sample variation but a screw holding the drive fast went loose so I had to open it up to fix it (at which point the offending screw made its escape and landed on a carpet - never to be seen again).
This is the enclosure I'm using now for the M.2 drives:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-3-0-to-...rnal-Enclosure-Storage-Case-New-/322173571929
Haven't had any compatibility issues with that enclosure yet (six months use at least).
The drive is installed in the same way as with the Startech enclosure but no screws have gotten loose yet.
Seems it can be found on Amazon.com so it may be able to get it faster than ordering from that particular seller.
How's the garbage collection on this thing? I wouldn't want to have its
performance drop into oblivion without TRIM.
Do the dedicated external SSDs (like the Samsung T3 and T5) account for this?
Don't know how the garbage collection is on any of the enclosures or if any are immune to the issue you had (if that is even possible).
Nor if dedicated external SSDs will handle it better than if you were to just pick out an M.2 SSD and put it inside an enclosure.
Regarding the MX300 I'd probably vote for you to try to see if the issues with the 850 EVO can be solved.
850 EVO performs a bit better and doesn't get as hot as the MX300 does (the temperature for the 850 EVO has peaked at 57 Celsius while the MX300 can fairly quickly reach 70 Celsius).
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