SilverStone MS09 SATA m.2 Enclosure Review

TweakTown's Rating: 92%

The Bottom Line

The Silverstone MS09 might be a simple device but it opens the average consumer up to having some insanely quick storage in a very small form factor.

I don't often attribute Silverstone to storage devices but if we look back over the now six years of content I have here at TweakTown, you will see their name pop up a couple times per year.

To start off 2018, the MS09 will be the first piece of content I have on Silverstone. This is quite a unique take on USB 3.0 storage as it puts the power of choice into the consumer's hand while offering the basics of what's needed in an enclosure.

That enclosure is quite unique in itself as it is the first I have seen to take advantage of the m.2 form factor, albeit limited to SATA drives. The MS09 is offered in three color options: charcoal, silver and black all using the same internals including the USB 3.1 Type-C connector and VIA VL715 controller. As I briefly mentioned above, the MS09 only supports B Key SATA m.2 SSDs.

Operating system compatibility includes Windows 7 through 10 and macOS 10.8.6+. MSRP of the Silverstone MS09 comes in at $36.99 with a one-year warranty.

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Packaging for the MS09 gives an image of the device centered with 10Gb/s marketing at the bottom left.

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The back goes into more detail with a full specification sheet and features in several languages.

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Included in the box, we have the enclosure, screws and screwdriver along with reading materials.

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The enclosure appears to be aluminum with a brushed exterior and SilverStone logo centered.

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The backside houses the cover for the enclosure secured by four screws. In the center we have the sliding mechanism for the drive.

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The interior of the enclosure has been milled as seen by the markings on the bottom.

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The PCB gives access to both 2280 and 2260 m.2 for factors, the slot is B keyed for SATA drives.

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On the flip side we have the SATA 6GB/s to USB 3.1 10Gb/s bride controller.

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Once setup the drives Type-C connector slides out, colored blue to denote USB 3.1

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For this testing, I used a SATA m.2 Kingston SSD in the 256GB capacity. As you can see the MS09 has great read performance reaching 554 MB/s sequential and 119 MB/s with 4KQ32. Write performance, however, was low but appears to be limitations of the drive itself rather than the MS09.

For the most part, I've always been impressed with Silverstone products. The countless number of enclosures and even storage towers I have reviewed over the years have all worked flawlessly.

With the MS09, I enjoy something about how simple this device is, with just a milled out interior a few screws and custom pcb this block of aluminum has become a storage device.

Using our Kingston SSDNow G3, read performance was fantastic reaching the limits SATA 6GB/s at 554 MB/s while write performance came in at 340 MB/s, again due to the drive used.

That said, the market for the MS09 is rather interesting. As I see it this device is for those that have purchased a prebuilt that came with a SATA m.2 that you quickly replace with something faster, likely NVMe. You can then take your replaced drive and pop it in the MS09 and have a very quick flash drive.

The second use case is for those that want the highest amount of performance in the smallest form factor available, with the MS09 you could install an 850 Pro in your favorite capacity and have the quickest flash drive on the planet.

Tyler's Test System Specifications

• Motherboard: ASUS Prime Z370 (buy from Amazon)
• CPU: Intel Core i3 8350K (buy from Amazon)
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance 32GB 4x8GB DDR4 3200 (buy from Amazon)
• Cooler: Corsair Hydro H115i (buy from Amazon)
• Case: Corsair Air 540 (buy from Amazon)
• OS Storage: Samsung 960 EVO 250GB (buy from Amazon)
• Power Supply: Corsair RM850x (buy from Amazon)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 (buy from Amazon)
• Wi-Fi NIC: ASUS PCE-AC88 (buy from Amazon)
• 10Gbe NIC: ASUS XG-C100C (buy from Amazon)
• Thunderbolt 3: ASUS Thunderbolt EX3 (buy from Amazon)