External storage drives have become a part of my life nowadays, so much so that I always have a few in my laptop bag. But lately I’ve moved away from pre-built external SSDs and instead buy enclosures and M.2 drives separately. This lets me have the combination of performance, capacity, and cost that suits my needs.
Also: The best M.2 SSDs you can buy
As such, I’ve been testing a lot of enclosures with different strengths. Some put portability at the top of the list, while others, such as the Ugreen 40Gbps USB4 M.2 NVMe SSD enclosure makes performance a priority.
There are three things that stand out about this Ugreen enclosure that have made it a firm favorite for me — in fact, I now have about five of them!
First, it’s easy to fit M.2 drives. There’s one sensibly-sized screw holding the enclosure together, and another fastener holding the drive in place that’s equally sensible. There’s no having to mess about with tiny fasteners, and my aging fingers and eyes appreciate that.
The fasteners are sensibly sized!
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Next up, it’s fast, allowing for up to 40Gbps/3,700 MB/s data transfer rates. These obviously depend on the M.2 drive you’re using, but if you want speed, get a fast drive and you’re good to go. It supports drives up to 4TB in a range of form factors: 2230, 2242, 2260, and 2280.
The enclosure is built to accept a range of M.2 drives.
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Also: I tried using the world’s thinnest SSD enclosure – it made a big impact on my workflow
The enclosure is well-made, as well. It’s solid, and machined from aluminum to dissipate waste heat. Helping the enclosure keep things cool is a built-in fan that kicks in when the internal temperatures hit 40°C. The kit also comes with a silicone shelve of the enclosure to protect it from bumps and scratches.
You can choose the drive to suit your needs.
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The enclosure is powered by the excellent ASMedia ASM2426PD chip, which supports USB4/Thunderbolt Gen3 x2, and PCI Express Gen4, and has S.M.A.R.T drive monitoring support.
ZDNET’s buying advice
All in all, the Ugreen 40Gbps USB4 M.2 NVMe SSD enclosure is an incredible enclosure, and it’s on sale for $75.99. Measuring only 4.72 x 1.89 x 0.75 inches and weighing only seven ounces, it’s a very portable package.
If 40Gbps speed and 4TB of capacity isn’t enough for you, grab the Ugreen 80Gbps M.2 NVMe SSD enclosure. Externally, this enclosure looks the same, but it supports a theoretical 7,000MB/s and M.2 2280 drives up to 8TB. The downside is that this enclosure is a lot more expensive (normally priced at $299, but Amazon Prime members can get it for only $209).