Blueendless External SSD Hard Disk NVME Enclosure 10G Online Reading Writing Speed SSD Case For M.2 NVME SD Docking Station (WHL #104)
Ah, well, it’s December already, the time for some larger hardware changes (when people have some spare time in case things go wrong, which they often do – and some even have a higher budget at that time).
Storage. Once again.
So I was pondering about my options. Yeah, the 836 Supermicro case with its 16 LFF bays is terrific, and I like the options in terms of computing power and hard drives (including the cheapo options of “small, but very many”) very much. But it’s inconvenient to use when powering off after access, or terribly expensive when running it 24/7 (electricity is 0.3€/kWh!). Since my New Year’s resolution for 2024 was to go paperless for ordinary bills and stuff, I really need to run more backups than I currently do. It’s all fine with having a digital copy when there’s a secondary copy on paper, but with all eggs in one basket, a simple MicroSD backup until I actually move it to RAIDed disks is not enough for me. So I want more convenient direct-attach storage. Fully encrypted and with ZFS RAID Z.
It basically came down to four options, which I also laid out on the Level1 forums where all the storage nerds hand out for fun. Note that my main laptop is a TP 25 Anniversary, so a Thinkpad T470 with fancy keyboard. The fastest interface options is a single USB-C port that does Thunderbolt 3 (40Gb/s, but half of that is permanently reserved for DP video streams) or USB3 2×1, so 10Gb/s.
- Buy a professional pre-built NVMe case like the iodyne Pro Data. Simple, sleek, 12-bay. Eyewatering prices at 5k USD @ 12TB (too small for everything, too big for everyday stuff), 7k5 @ 24TB and 17.5k @ 48TB.
- Buy 4-bay NVMe cases for Thunderbolt, options include the “common” (as in common for a Thunderbolt case) OWC 4M2 and Startech M2E4BTB3, or the unicorns of Netstor NA622TB3 (EOL?), JEYI ThunderRate-4*NVME (also EOL and a refresh is coming according to customer support) or Trebleet TRE-8145PLUS and 8145PRO (both not even sold here). All of these are 300-600 USD new.
- Buy 4-bay NVMe “cases” for USB4 from AliExpress, those apparently can be had for as low as 60 USD. Those have vertical, free-standing NVMes flapping around in the breeze and are not the typical metal cases where the drives are screwed down in an ordinary connector, though. 10Gb/s USB hubs can be had for really cheap, 20€ if 10Gb/s uplinks are required, cheaper if 5Gb/s ports do the job.
- Buy as many single-drive USB3-ish cases as needed (start at like 10 bucks each), and cascade them over a Thunderbolt hub that distributes its “40Gb/s” to multiple 10Gb/s or 5Gb/s uplinks. The Club3D CSV-1580 TB4 for example offers 3x10Gb/s and costs 150€, maybe an external many-amps 5V power supply would be a good idea to power all those single drives.
While option number 2 has JUST materialized for me over eBay while writing this blog post, I’m still thinking about option 3 with the free-standing drives. Is that a good idea? Do these have contact issues? Is that great for cooling – or terrible?
Well, thankfully those docks also exist in single-bay flavour. So I got one!
It’s a Blueendless SD03A, effectively costing me 9.51€ (Aliexpress) after all the Black Friday rebate things that are going on at the moment.
The SD02 and SD01 models are a tad cheaper (1-3€) but can only be used for either PCIe or SATA drives in M.2 format. The SD03A can do both (so it says), but I only have PCIe ones here for testing. Nice to have, though, since one day when everything has gone fully PCIe a SATA drive will come up and then I’ll have the a reader device for it 
Dramatic re-enactment of the unboxing (the item has had a thin plastic sleeve over it, didn’t bother to retrieve that from the trash):
They even included a little 3-page instruction leaflet with some Windows 7 screenshots (did we have USB 10Gb/s back then?) and a FAQ section full of Chinglish. The backside is the same thing, but in Chinese.
Well, that’s all there is to it. The unit is surprisingly heavy at 61g, so I bet they’ve added some internal weights to make it appear more solid and upscale. The outer shell is made from plastic, though. Generally nice surface finish.
A dual-mode USB-C to C and A cable is also present, very nice addition. These probably go for like a third of the item price when purchased separately, so that’s an interesting choice. I’ve tested it both ways and it runs full speed; the -A adapter likely does 10Gb/s as well on a suitable port (I don’t have any), since when combined with another A-to-C adapter so that I can plug it back into my USB-C port, it’s back to 10Gb/s. Very pleased with that.
And that’s the enclosure™ from the top. USB-C is off on one side. One white status LED on the top (thankfully not an overdriven blue one!) So, the tool-less claim from the box can be checked right there: Yup, no screws, no nothing. The SSD is directly pushed into the unit and that’s all of the mounting support that it ever gets.
Like this:
So…do I trust the no-screw insertion mechanism? Well, partially. It does seat well with an audible thump, therefore it does have a somewhat noticeable insertion resistance. However, after that the drive is unsupported and literally flaps around in the breeze. I didn’t have any contact issues during testing at all, no error in the dmesg log, but I’m not 100% convinced that this is how it should be done. For regular, every-day use as a dock with two or more cycles per day, I also fear the contacts will at some point soften and wear out. That’s probably true for regular M.2 slots as well, but having to un-screw these should deter people from doing that all too often. What’s the rated insertion cycle count of these, by the way? It’s difficult to source regular full-sized PCIe slots with 500+ cycles, so these tiny slots should have like…50?
Those things sorted, what about temperatures?
Front:
And back:
Photos taken during the test runs shown below. The controller can be seen on the thermal image as it is the hottest part, but it still only reaches 48°C on the surface. My 970 Evo Plus 1TB (so same drive, but half capacity) of my Epyc desktop system often times hovers at 65°C in idle, and that thing has air flow from a mighty Noctua cooler. I also had this very disk stowed away in a classic NMVe case with screws, and that one got uncomfortably hot during write tests, certainly in the 55°C+ region. As much as I’d like to say “that’s a stupid idea”…well, free-standing convection cooling actually works, temperatures are much lower than expected.
Just one thing left: Performance tests!
So this is how the device announces when plugged into USB-C:
usb usb3: New USB device found, idVendor=1d6b, idProduct=0002, bcdDevice= 6.08 usb usb3: New USB device strings: Mfr=3, Product=2, SerialNumber=1 usb usb3: Product: xHCI Host Controller usb usb3: Manufacturer: Linux 6.8.12-060812-generic xhci-hcd usb usb3: SerialNumber: 0000:3d:00.0 hub 3-0:1.0: USB hub found hub 3-0:1.0: 2 ports detected usb usb4: New USB device found, idVendor=1d6b, idProduct=0003, bcdDevice= 6.08 usb usb4: New USB device strings: Mfr=3, Product=2, SerialNumber=1 usb usb4: Product: xHCI Host Controller usb usb4: Manufacturer: Linux 6.8.12-060812-generic xhci-hcd usb usb4: SerialNumber: 0000:3d:00.0 hub 4-0:1.0: USB hub found hub 4-0:1.0: 2 ports detected typec port0: bound usb3-port1 (ops connector_ops) typec port0: bound usb4-port1 (ops connector_ops) usb 4-1: new SuperSpeed Plus Gen 2x1 USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd usb 4-1: New USB device found, idVendor=152d, idProduct=0581, bcdDevice=42.04 usb 4-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3 usb 4-1: Product: USB to SATA/PCIe Bridge usb 4-1: Manufacturer: General usb 4-1: SerialNumber: 0123456789ABCDEF scsi host1: uas scsi 1:0:0:0: Direct-Access General Generic PCIE 4204 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6 sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0 sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] 3907029168 512-byte logical blocks: (2.00 TB/1.82 TiB) sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] 4096-byte physical blocks sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 53 00 00 08 sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Preferred minimum I/O size 4096 bytes sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Optimal transfer size 33553920 bytes not a multiple of preferred minimum block size (4096 bytes) sdb: sdb1 sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
(SSD included of course, just ignore the last block)
I think it is hilarious to once again see an empty serial number field, but I’m not entirely sure this is a good idea for multi-drive systems. Are all OSes clever enough to handle several drives with serial number 0123456789ABCDEF?
Other than that,
usb 4-1: new SuperSpeed Plus Gen 2x1 USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd
is the magic line – full 10Gb/s speeds!
Example write benchmark:
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=1M status=progress oflag=dsync count=10240 10547625984 bytes (11 GB, 9,8 GiB) copied, 38 s, 278 MB/s 10240+0 records in 10240+0 records out 10737418240 bytes (11 GB, 10 GiB) copied, 39,9706 s, 269 MB/s
269MB/s – that’s far from the 1GB/s-ish bandwidth limit of USB 10Gb/s, but these are fully synced writes of 1MB chunks, limited by the disk. Upping the size to let’s say 8MB, the Samsung 970 Evo Plus closes in on USB 5Gb/s speeds at 394MB/s:
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=8M status=progress oflag=dsync count=1280 10703863808 bytes (11 GB, 10 GiB) copied, 26 s, 411 MB/s 1280+0 records in 1280+0 records out 10737418240 bytes (11 GB, 10 GiB) copied, 27,2785 s, 394 MB/s
Further upping the block size has diminishing returns, e.g. 16MB blocks yield 427MB/s and 1024MB blocks yield 520MB/s.
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=16M status=progress oflag=dsync count=640 10351542272 bytes (10 GB, 9,6 GiB) copied, 23 s, 450 MB/s 640+0 records in 640+0 records out 10737418240 bytes (11 GB, 10 GiB) copied, 25,1721 s, 427 MB/s
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=1024M status=progress oflag=dsync count=10 10737418240 bytes (11 GB, 10 GiB) copied, 20 s, 546 MB/s 10+0 records in 10+0 records out 10737418240 bytes (11 GB, 10 GiB) copied, 20,6539 s, 520 MB/s
Un-synced 8MB writes however do pass through at 746 MB/s, and that is very clearly beyond the capability of USB 5Gb/s. This HAS to be true USB 10Gb/s transfers, so the enclosure does deliver the advertised spec!
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=8M status=progress count=1280 10309599232 bytes (10 GB, 9,6 GiB) copied, 11 s, 937 MB/s 1280+0 records in 1280+0 records out 10737418240 bytes (11 GB, 10 GiB) copied, 14,3905 s, 746 MB/s
As for reads: 918MB/s, that’s very likely interface-limited while the SSD could go faster:
sudo dd if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/null bs=8M status=progress iflag=dsync count=1280 9965666304 bytes (10 GB, 9,3 GiB) copied, 10 s, 996 MB/s 1280+0 records in 1280+0 records out 10737418240 bytes (11 GB, 10 GiB) copied, 11,6964 s, 918 MB/s
One little drawback: Since this is USB, the SSD will not announce as NVMe. The nvme command in Linux therefore will not be able to address the drive, which also blocks direct access to e.g. SMART data and temperature readouts, hence no controller values in the previous temperature check. I have seen data on my other NVMe enclosure with Crystal Disk Info software under Windows, but I’m not sure this enclosure can do that as well.
Example – nvme0 is my system disk, any further disk should show up as nvme1(+x)
sudo nvme list Node Generic SN Model Namespace Usage Format FW Rev --------------------- --------------------- -------------------- ---------------------------------------- ---------- -------------------------- ---------------- -------- /dev/nvme0n1 /dev/ng0n1 PNY43191910240407129 PNY CS3030 1TB SSD 0x1 1.00 TB / 1.00 TB 512 B + 0 B CS303225
Back to speed tests: Connected via USB-A at 5Gb/s, this is what shows up:
usb 2-4: new SuperSpeed USB device number 19 using xhci_hcd usb 2-4: New USB device found, idVendor=152d, idProduct=0581, bcdDevice=42.04 usb 2-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3 usb 2-4: Product: USB to SATA/PCIe Bridge usb 2-4: Manufacturer: General usb 2-4: SerialNumber: 0123456789ABCDEF scsi host1: uas scsi 1:0:0:0: Direct-Access General Generic PCIE 4204 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6 scsi 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0 sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] 3907029168 512-byte logical blocks: (2.00 TB/1.82 TiB) sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] 4096-byte physical blocks sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 53 00 00 08 sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Preferred minimum I/O size 4096 bytes sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Optimal transfer size 33553920 bytes not a multiple of preferred minimum block size (4096 bytes) sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
SuperSpeed, no SuperSpeed Plus. Performance is then limited to 450-ish MB/s regardless of sync settings, as the interface is the bottleneck and not the SSD:
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=1024M status=progress oflag=dsync count=10 10737418240 bytes (11 GB, 10 GiB) copied, 31 s, 342 MB/s 10+0 records in 10+0 records out 10737418240 bytes (11 GB, 10 GiB) copied, 32,3379 s, 332 MB/s sudo dd if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/null bs=8M status=progress iflag=dsync count=1280 10561257472 bytes (11 GB, 9,8 GiB) copied, 24 s, 440 MB/s 1280+0 records in 1280+0 records out 10737418240 bytes (11 GB, 10 GiB) copied, 25,1706 s, 427 MB/s
And, as mentioned earlier, adding another USB A-to-C adapter to the original cable, effectively making the C-to-C cable a C-to-C-to-A-to-C cable, also allows the enclosure to run on full 10Gb/s:
usb 4-1: new SuperSpeed Plus Gen 2x1 USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd
In conclusion: I’m thoroughly impressed that this product works as intended – I would have thought the free-standing mount is unreliable from the start in terms of contacting the drive, terrible in all thermal regards, and also likely to not achieve 10Gb/s speeds. It does, and for 9.51€ that’s a steal, every geek should own one for all the random “uh, what’s on that SSD” needs. Now I’m curious about the 4-bay enclosures that do the same thing, but likely have an internal USB hub…I still regard these as subpar for a multi-drive RAID array, but at 60 bucks instead of 300-600€ of their Thunderbolt counterparts…uuh, that really makes me think. Even with two cheap/used OWC 4M2 quad NVMe docks at hand
