Sabrent USB 3.2 Tool-Free NVMe SSD Enclosure Review

TweakTown's Rating: 90%

The Bottom Line

Sabrent has a fantastic solution in the USB 3.2 NVMe external enclosure for DIYers that have a spare drive laying around.

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Sabrent has taken off as of late with its Rocket NVMe lineup and, for me, the introduction to their portable SSDs. Having reviewed both the Rocket XTRM and Nano, it's time to get to their DIY solution for those that want a simple device to utilize a drive you have sitting in a drawer.

The USB 3.2 NVMe SSD enclosure is a 2280-sized solution supporting the lesser 2230, 2242, and 2260 form factors, along with 2280. It takes advantage of a tool-less mount that utilizes a unique magnet design to hold the drive securely.

It features a full aluminum body that aids with the design with a sandblasted exterior, and also heat dissipation. Connectivity is pushed through a single USB-C connection with a USB 3.2 Gen 2 backbone for 10Gbps capabilities.

The enclosure is compatible with both Windows and macOS. The MSRP of the Sabrent USB 3.2 NVME enclosure comes in at $89.99 with a one-year warranty.

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The packaging offers a good amount of information about the enclosure, including system requirements and features. Along the bottom, you will find a warning that this solution only supports M Key NVMe solutions.

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Unboxing, we have the enclosure and two cables - USB-C male to male and Type-A Male to USB-C male.

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Taking a closer look at the enclosure, you can see the sandblasted look they are going for in this image.

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On the backside, we have a keyring lock for the enclosure.

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Inside, we have a rather small PCB to handle the interface between USB 3.2 and NVMe. Sabrent uses a JMicron chipset for this. To the right, you can see the unique tool-less design in use with a magnetic pin that drops into the slots to secure the drive.

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The USB 3.2 NVMe enclosure is offered in both silver, as reviewed, and black.

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To test the device, we fired up CDM with an HP EX900 NVMe SSD. We have 971 MB/s read and 869 MB/s write.

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In ATTO, we see a peak of 979 MB/s read and 863 MB/s write.

The quality of the Sabrent NVMe enclosure is genuinely second to none. I can't think of another enclosure I've had come through that is as well built as this. The choice of materials, including the thickness of the aluminum, offers the increased protection you need for small form factor drives, such as NVMe.

CDM showed top-notch performance from the Sabrent enclosure, reaching the tops for Gen 2 USB 3.2. In testing, the enclosure was able to pull 971 MB/s read and 869 MB/s write from our HP EX900, and if we add in ATTO, there was a slight performance boost to 979 MB/s read.

Depending on the design, NVMe enclosures range from $24.99 for simple solutions like the M2X from MyDigitalSSD to $49.99 for tool-free models like the Plugable NVMe, both of which we reviewed here at TweakTown. The Sabrent USB 3.2 NVMe enclosure comes in a bit higher with its MSRP at $89.99, a tad hot I will admit, but the market and MSRP don't always mesh so, please do check the latest pricing down below.

Tyler's Test System Specifications

• Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair VIII Formula X570 (buy from Amazon)
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (buy from Amazon)
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB 2x8GB DDR4 3600 (buy from Amazon)
• Cooler: Corsair Hydro H60 (buy from Amazon)
• Case: Corsair Carbide 275R (buy from Amazon)
• OS Storage: Corsair MP600 1TB (buy from Amazon)
• Power Supply: Corsair RM850x (buy from Amazon)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 (buy from Amazon)