ASUS TUF Gaming A1 External M.2 NVMe SATA PCIe SSD Enclosure - USB-C, M.2 Q-Latch for Easy Installation, Drop Resistance, IP68 Water and dust Resistance, PS5 and Xbox Support,Black

Bought to clone my old ssd to a larger one on my laptop. Ran relatively cool for the hour it took to complete the format. Now I use it connect the cloned drive to my Xbox One S as external game drive. Had to buy a separate USB C male to USB A 3.1 male cable though. USB A 3.0 female plugged into a USB A 3 male to USB 3 male only let's the Xbox recognize the drive as media storage. But research shows that's an Xbox issue, this still gets 5 stars. It's also durable as hell.

Asus is always the best.

Normally I'm not a fan of ASUS' build quality, as I've had nothing but problems with their motherboards. However, THIS thing is built solid as a rock and I actually completely trust it to protect the internal solid state drive. It's a bit of a shame that the design isn't tool-less, but I understand that the hex bolts may be needed for extra water/dust/dirt resistance.

As the name says this case is tuf. Easily install an M.2 drive in the case. To a Windows system this looks like an internal drive. I have a drive setup for imaging computers with Acronis. It holds about 30 different images. I can then image a new system in under ten minutes. I also have lots of IT tools on the drive as well. It just works.

I got this after retiring my old boot-drive to re-purpose it as an external drive. Depending on what cabel i use the drive doesnt seem to get enough power to remain on but ive had the most sucess with type-c to type-c cabels with no dongles in-between as for the durability of the unit- i feel comfortable to hammer a nail into place with it. Its a tank and i feel safe throwing it into my bag.Despite what it may seem like the notch in the top isnt some sort of carabiner. And while i dont own any to test i would imagine its too narrow for one.Onto instalation: its fairly easy to install a full length NVMe SSD and i would imagine it wouldnt be difficult to install shorter drives. Though i do take issue with their choce of hex key screw as most enthusiests dont have a proper screwdriver for those as they arent really used in PCs. I cant recall if it came with a tool for it either but quickly reviewing the asymbly video on their youtube channel reveals they are using those awful L shaped wrenches for them so if it did come with a tool it was probably that.As for speed: its obviously being bottlenecked by USB transfer rates but this results in faster random reads and writes than your average external drive or thumbdrive. (You can even game off of it lol) that being said this speed comes at a cost and that cost is heat. Luckily the whole enclosue is one big heat spreader so it should stay cool enough to mantain decent speeds and not fry. Though i have not run extended stress tests on mine to verify this.

I wanted a unit short term to get data off a 2230 card onto my laptop and then long term be used to clone my nvme in the laptop (2280) with a new larger drive and then be used for additional storage.For the most part, this met the use case I needed but was caught off guard when it came in. I was looking originally at the ROG version but none of the features people wanted that one for did I need, so I got the $10 cheaper version and was sort of surprised it didn’t have a spot for the 2230. Granted it clearly says this way down the page, but after seeing the ROG version have a peg hole for the 2230 I was shocked this one didn’t. Asus has a gaming handheld on the market for a year now using the 2230 and this unit wasn’t updated to support that?My 1 star off is only for how, mainly Amazon, handles multiple versions of an item from the same vendor.Either way the 2230 fit in the case and works fine sitting there undisturbed while I copied what I needed off of it. Since this card won’t be used after the data is off of it, it doesn’t really matter.That said, if you want a solid enclosure that doesn’t get constant disconnects (I had a cheaper $30 one that does all the time) then this is for you unless you have a 2230. Then you need to pony up the extra cash to have it be installed properly.

This case is very solid. It's also very easy to install the drive into it. I ended up buying a second one. The only draw back is the weight, but that adds to the solid feel and probably help to dissipate heat.

This works great and gives you way better options than a pre made external hard drive. You can use multiple and can use a faster card than the external’s usually have.