ROG Strix Arion S500 Portable SSD - USB-C 3.2 Gen 2, NVMe SSD with DRAM, up to 1050 MB/s transfers, 256-bit AES Disk, 500 GB Capacity, NTI Backup Now EZ Software, Aura Sync

As above, plus when plugged in, the colors cycle the the whole rainbow. It’s tough as nails and a great way to add an SSD MVMe drive for additional storage! Great product!

The fact they require a proprietary pinhole device to open it is beyond me. This is the first thing lost and since its so tiny a normal paperclip wont due. Plus if you are installing a M.2 drive, youll need a screw anyway so it makes it pointless. I wouldnt have minded so much if they made it a standard pin-hole and had the locking screw inside a toolless screw but they dont. I was onsite and needed to replace the drive quickly only to find out I couldnt. If it was a little bigger and not as deep <insert joke here> then it would have been fine.

Was skeptical about an nvme enclosure actually having good read and write speeds but its surprisingly great.

I was in the process of updating my PC SSD, so I needed an external enclosure, this Asus ROG Strix Arion enclosure therefore served me two purposes; to hold my new SSD to be cloned and then to house my old SSD afterwards. For anyone not in the know, ROG stands for Republic of Gamers, and represents the gaming division of Asus so this SSD enclosure is oriented towards gamers but can be used by anyone looking for a high quality SSD enclosure. Off the bat the presentation is top notch, high profile, glossy, full colored box that contains the ROG Strix Arion SSD enclosure nestled within a dense foam container. No cheap plastic product containers here and of course it is a little bit of overkill, but the presentation cannot be denied. Inside the box is the ROG Strix Arion SSD enclosure, a short USB-C to USB-C cable, another short USB-C to USB-A cable, a rubberized protective covering for the unit that has a built in handle for the included strap and very plastic carabiner clip shaped into a R to represent ROG. The only shortcoming that I have with this is how extremely cheap the carabiner clip is, needless to say I will not be using it at all. Holding the ROG Strix Arion SSD for the first time, wow! This aluminum enclosure is one very solidly built device! It has some heft to it without being heavy and the fit and finish is top notch all around including the super awesome RGB LED lights. SSD installing is a breeze as this SSD enclosure opens up with just a pin eject tool, the same kind that opens up the SIM/SD card slot on cell phones. Inside there is a thumbscrew that is easily turned by hand, and if need be the pin eject tool can be used as a quick screwdriver. Place the NVME SSD inside the slot, reattach the thumbscrew, close the unit and you are ready to go. Connected to a USB 3.2 Gen 2 port on my desktop PC, I was getting 941 MB/s read and 882 MB/s write, good results if just a tad slow but very much in line with most other USB 3.2 Gen 2 external NVME drives, I also tested this on my laptop with Thunderbolt 3 and I was getting 1,050 MB/s read and write, much better and closer to the threshold for USB 3.2 Gen 2 which is approximately 1,250 MB/s. The drive inside is a 250 Gb Samsung 981a which is capable of 3,000 MB/s read and 2,200 MB/s write. I didn’t test the RGB software because I most likely won’t be using this drive for my PC, more than likely as a miscellaneous drive for maybe Xbox or music or something else so I’m not really concerned with whatever color it is but I do like the RGBs on this device, one of the reasons I chose it. Excellent enclosure and what I think is a respectable price for a quality product of this caliber. Highly recommended.

So historically there hasnt been enough power on a serial bus to support power for an external hard drive, so theyve always needed a power brick, or best case 2 USB ports to supply enough power over a USB Micro-B Super Speed cable. Now however the USB type C ports have the power, and they have the high speed data to make an external unit like this convenient on the level of a standard USB key, but with the speed and capacity of whatever m.2 drive you want to stick in there. Initially I was thinking this was just such a cool piece of hardware I wanted one for when I had an m.2 drive laying around, but then I realized I had a 6 year old Ultrabook that had finally died, and it had a 500gb m.2 in it. I immediately opened it up slotted it into the Asus Arion, and boom I had a 500gb drive smaller than my cellphone... and that I could plug into my phone to watch movies on if I wanted. With the included USB-A cable transferring from another external Type C drive I could get 25 MB/s, but with type C to type C I averaged around 135 MB/s. Im sure thatd be faster if you were directly transferring from an internal hard drive, but overall, with 1 cable for fast data transfers and for power and the cute RGB, its honestly the best external drive Ive owned in 33 years of computing. Mine came with type C and type A cables, a SIM tool which you use to open it, and a rubber bumper case to surround it and cover that release hole. In the rubber bumper theres a slot for an included velcro attached strap with a spring loaded hook in the shape of an R. Cute, but since its entirely flimsy plastic and the only other holding it in is velcro, well, I wouldnt rely on that for anything and Ill either be modding that or replacing it entirely with something respectable. All told though, if you have an m.2 laying around and want to use it for a sneaker net, this is an awesome piece of kit.

Had to take the screw off to fit the NVME I was using but other than that no big deal. Havent had it long but I transferred 50GB of RAW image files in about 75 seconds using the PNY XLR8. This basically allowed me full SATA speed through the USB-C port to the NVME. The Thermal features are truly unique and everyone should be copying this in their enclosures if they even want a shot against the STRIX. Im going to order more and use these as my camera/Filmmaking/Podcasting/Editing drives. I also appreciate they give not just one but two USB-C ports (one is USB-A and on the other end is USB C, one is USB-C to USB-C.) both cables are short but appreciated. Overall I havent had this long but I absolutely plan on buying more of these if after 6 months it is still doing well for me. It has already allowed me to write at 550MB/S using a PNY XLR8 in my motherboards USB-C port. That is not the advertised speed of this drive or the port but I knew that would be the case when comparing a drive that runs on a motherboards m.2 slot to a USBC 10GBPs port. I was able to achieve 550 MBPs in real world tests from my Computer, using the USB C single cable port. For me, this is acceptable for my case use but I was kind of hoping for that sweet 10Gbps but that may just be my motherboards fault. Overall though this has provided a performance boost 18x faster than my USB 3.0 drive I was using. It took 30 minutes to transfer 50GB of files using 3.0. I was able to do the same in 75 seconds using the enclosure and the XLR8 NVME. This is plenty acceptable for my use case and it should be for you too. The only reason I dont knock points is that this is a majorly profound upgrade for storage at a much faster speed. It just isnt as theoretically advertised. I say this because if you have reasonable expectations you can still have something amazing in such a portable way. Dont let tech companies inflated tech spec (and they all do it, so no favorites or enemies) guide you. Compare your case use and budget. For me this is why it deserves 5 stars.

I’ve purchased dozens of high speed thumb drives and external hard drives in the past but this one blows them all away in performance. Feels like an internal drive.

I was searching for a fast way to fix my Windows install in the case of a Disk Drive failure, call me lazy but I wanted to clone my disk drive instead of the time and patience needed to reinstall all of my files and programs as well as my passwords, etc. Call me lazy but this is my reason for purchasing this product, after reviewing other similar products I chose the ASUS ROG STRIX Arion Aluminum Alloy M.2 NVMe SSD External Portable Enclosure Case Adapter, not for the RGB lighting but for the adaptability of M Key/B+M Key M.2 NVMe SSDs. I dread the need to have to return a product and need to address a problem I had with it. After installing the 970 EVO Plus SSD 1TB - M.2 NVMe Drive the cover wouldnt close because the mounting screw kept the cover from locking into the closed position. Pro: My test speed with Crystal Disk Mark were fast for an external USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C Adapter, see my results in the pic. Con: SSD mounting screw is too tall!!! After installing my Samsung (MZ-V7S1T0B/AM) 970 EVO Plus SSD 1TB - M.2 NVMe Interface Internal Solid State Drive with the included mounting screw, the cover would not close enough to lock itself in the closed position on the end where the SSD mounting screw was located. After inspecting the inside of the cover I noticed that the top of the mounting screw was interfering with the cover plate. See the pic and notice where the screw head had scratched the aluminum coating on the cover. I had to use a metal file on the top of the mounting screw to shorten it enough to get the cover to lock itself securely into place.

I installed a Kingston NV1 SNVS/250G drive in this enclosure and I get around 700 mbps when copying from my WD Black SN850 1TB. Although speedy, I *think* I should be getting a little above that, even when accounting for USB protocol overhead. I mainly use it to ferry large files to and from my NAS, but I havent fully tested it yet. It gets slightly warm during use, but it keeps the drive working well within spec. I like that it integrates with Asus Aura (probably the main reason I bought this, after the performance). It has a few lights but nothing too fancy. You control the lighting with Armoury Crate, which a bloated mess of an app, but its better to have one bloated mess rather than several. Overall, Im quite happy with my purchase and would highly recommend if you are pursuing high transfer speeds and have other Asus Aura enabled devices.

If you’re looking at this reading reviews just buy it.