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

This enclosure is for a drive specific to one set of purposes: long-term document storage, access and portability. It holds a WD SN570 M.2 SSD Being a Blue drive means its not built for speed, so if thats what your benchmarking this for, look elsewhere. Dont blame the controller... I have a 2TB WD Green drive thats 8+ years old. I expect this drive in this enclosure will go at least 5. Im betting on longer. Since everything useful is USB 3.1/3.2 or higher nowadays, this enclosure checks that off the list as well. As far as portability is concerned, its as easy to move around as any type-C device can be. No more needing dongles for wayward co-workers and friends. Whichever storage point suits your needs, this enclosure is worth the expense.

Ive has cheaper enclosures that had better features then this device. such as a data access indicator. There is no indication when data is being accessed on the drive other then what you can see on the pc. Sad Transfer Speeds Also you can forget about reaching usb c speeds on this. MAX i seen was 200 to 300mbps out of the rated 1000mbps on a top of the line motherboard.

I had very positive experience with ASUS ROG STRIX. My goal was to clone Samsung MZVLW1T0HMLH-000L7 1TB NVMe SSD to Samsung 970EVOPlus 2TB NVMe SSD. My 1TB drive was installed into Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 2 running Windows 10. The ASUS device looks very solid with ample thermal pads. This is exactly what I was looking for, as you do not want to fry your brand new $300+ SSD. I did not have any issues mounting the 2280 drive inside the enclosure or closing it with click. The enclosure build is very solid and cools looks is a plus. The cloning. I connected the enclosure via included USB-C cable to my Yoga laptop. Windows recognized the drive and I was able to initiate and quick-format it via Windows Disk Manager without any issues. I used Samsung Data Migration by Clonix ver. 4.0.0.14. Again, this tool recognized the 970EVOPlus drive in the enclosure immediately. I run cloning of about 900GB on my laptop 1TB disk into 2TB SSD in the enclosure. The whole process took about an hour with speeds around 260-280 MB/s. Enclosure warmed up uniformly and the heat dissipation was very good. After the transfer completed the cloning soft hang about 5-7 minutes on 100% and then confirmed a successful cloning. I swapped the disks, rebooted my laptop and were able to work instantly having extra 1.1TB extra disk space. To finish I did some optimization using Samsung Magician and was ready to roll. I recommend ASUS ROG to everyone who wants to clone high capacity disks without running into a trouble.

I bought this ASUS ROG STRIX Arion external SSD enclosure primarily so I could clone my Samsung 970 EVO Pro PCIe SSD onto a new drive in case I had a system SSD failure. Who want to have to reinstall everything again and start over on settings, etc. Not me. And I was looking for something that would be glitch free and something Windows would recognize as well as cloning software so I could do a reliable clone. And also something I could use to execute and play games. And this is the product in my opinion. It is not a flimsy product. Very well made with ample aluminum case and thermal pads to VERY EFFECTIVELY dissipate heat, which is a real concern with these SSD enclosures. After hours of use it is just warm to the touch. I was quite impressed and surprised. It comes with a A to C and C to C USB cable and everything you need other than a screwdriver to install you SSD disk. Just be sure to use the SSD install screw properly so the enclosure lid closes - place the SSD in between the grooves on the screw and tighten. I have an ASUS ROG STRIX Hero XI motherboard, and this enclosure uses the same lighting scheme Im using on my system. And BTW, this enclosure is pretty cool to look at - shiny black surface with the RGB lighting very pleasing to the eye. All I did was install the SSD, plug the enclosure into a USB 3.2 Gen 2 port (it is backward compatible also) and I was off and running. And I mean Running - with the 3.2 connection you get blinding fast speeds. I cloned, which takes longer than simple copying, a 115GB system Windows drive in under 7 minutes. One caveat that I was aware of before buying the enclosure you need to keep in mind if you intend to use this to clone your system disk. Windows WILL NOT recognize the SSD brand (Samsung, etc) as a branded product - i.e. Samsung 980 Pro, etc. It will only recognize the enclosure but will know it is an SSD with 512GB, etc. Just not the brand. Which means Samsung or any OEM cloning software WILL NOT work to clone your system disk. However, products such as Acronis True Image 2021, which I used will and will accurately clone the drive. This is not a limitation with this enclosure - its a windows USB thing. I highly recommend this product.

USB 3.2 Gen 2x1 is supposed to have 10gbps speed. even factoring in transferring loss, I should have got around 8 to 9 gbps speed. but this enclosure can only get me around 480MB/s (4 gbps) speed. I used a 2TB WD black SN770 NVME drive. The 1 ft cable is too short. 2 ft should be optimal. The TUF Gaming A1 build quality is top notch. It is heavy and sealed well. The Q latch is plastic so how durable it could be remains to be seen. Overall, Im not satisfied with the price and speed I get.

This is an overpriced piece of art and well worth it in my opinion. I had a 2tb m.2 that I wasnt using, and I didnt want just some crap enclosure that wouldnt be quick enough for the m.2. I know that looking at the results the m.2 still isnt near the speed its capable of, but my laptop only has 2 m.2 spots and I already have 2 2tb drives in there. Im using it mainly as a media drive and things go so quick. My only con is the size, its kind of bulky when compared to the size of a m.2 drive, you could put two m.2 side by side and still have room and its about as thick as 3-4 m.2. That being said, I know the controller needs a lot of room to operate at the speeds it does. So, I tested my 2 drives in my laptop, a 5tb western digital black hdd external drive with usb-c 3.0 and the asus arion with a samsung 980 pro. Its 10 times faster than my hdd and about a quarter to a fifth as fast as the m.2 pcie slots.

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.

I was a little worried based on other reviews, especially concerning the comments about the screw inside for the SSD. They complained that the screw sticks up when the drive is installed, preventing the cover from closing. This is not true! If you read the installation instructions, you will note there is a slot on the screw that the top edge of the SSD is supposed to go into. You are not supposed to place the screw on top of the SSD! If you take a moment to look at the instructions, there is no problem at all. My Samsung 980 Pro fits perfectly inside and the performance is right on. I routinely see the rated 10Gbs performance via my USB-C4/TB4 data ports. The drive will get warm but not alarmingly so. I love that the enclosures lights sync with my ASUS Aura system!

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.

Very solid well made, thick aluminum case. Thumb screw may need a bit if grinder love to get latch system to work perfectly. Worth it.