Introduction

The M.2 NVMe external hard drive enclosure I ordered has finally arrived.

This article will provide instructions on installation and speed testing for future reference.

The ultimate goal is to assemble a USB 3.2 Gen 2 SSD external hard drive.

External Hard Drive Enclosure

Continuing from the previous article M.2 SSD External Drive Buying Guide.

After considering aesthetics and requirements, I chose the iTGZ enclosure, which features the Realtek RTL9210 chipset.

I purchased it on Taobao for approximately ¥65 including shipping, about NT$295 ($43.95 USD).

The package includes:

1. M.2 external hard drive enclosure.
2. Cross screwdriver.
3. 20cm data cables: one Type-C to Type-C and one Type-C to Type-A.
4. Heat sink.

M.2 SSD

The RTL9210 itself supports PCIe Gen3×2 and is designed for USB 3.2 Gen 2, which means PCIe 3 is sufficient.

For this setup, I chose the KIOXIA EXCERIA G2 1TB from Toshiba, known for:

1. Read and write speeds exceeding 1200 MB/s.
2. Controller: Phison E12C.
3. NAND type: TLC.
4. Cost-effective.

Purchased on February 1, 2024, from Nan Fong 3C at a sale price of NT$1590 ($50.28 USD), with a NT$200 discount coupon applied, resulting in a final payment of NT$1390 ($43.96 USD).

Installing M.2 SSD into the External Enclosure

Installing the SSD into the external enclosure is straightforward:

1. Use the included screwdriver to open the external enclosure.
2. Insert the M.2 SSD.
3. Apply the heat sink.
4. Close the enclosure and secure the screws.

Connect the enclosure to the computer using the provided cable.

Formatting and 4K Alignment for External SSD

When initially connected, the SSD may not appear on the computer because it needs to be formatted.

First, press Win + R on the keyboard to open the Run dialog, type diskpart, and press Enter.

Type list disk to display information about the disks currently connected to the computer:

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DISKPART> list disk

  Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Disk 0    Online          953 GB  1024 KB        *
  Disk 1    Online           14 GB      0 B
  Disk 2    Online          931 GB   931 GB

To select Disk 2, which is the SSD in the external enclosure, on this computer, use the select disk 2 command:

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DISKPART> select disk 2

Disk 2 has been selected.

Create a primary partition with 4K alignment on Disk 2:

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DISKPART> create partition primary align=4096

DiskPart has successfully created the specified disk partition.

To format the partition as exFAT quickly, enter format fs=exFAT quick. exFAT format allows access on Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS.

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DISKPART> format fs=exFAT quick

  Formatting completed 100%.

DiskPart successfully formatted the partition.

To display the labels of the volumes, use the command list vol. Currently, Volume 3 does not have a label.

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DISKPART> list vol

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status    Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  --------- --------
  Volume 0     C                NTFS   Partition    953 GB  Healthy   Boot
  Volume 1                      FAT32  Partition    100 MB  Healthy   System
  Volume 2                      NTFS   Partition    683 MB  Healthy   Hidden
  Volume 3                      exFAT  Partition    931 GB  Healthy

To select volume 3 and assign it the disk letter E, use the command sel vol 3 followed by assign letter=E:

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DISKPART> select vol 3

Volume 3 has been selected.

DISKPART> assign letter=E

DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point.

Upon opening This PC (Windows Explorer), you will now see the external hard drive.

Hard Drive Speed Test

The speed tests were conducted using two tools, CrystalDiskMark and AS SSD Benchmark. Here are the results:

The sequential read/write speeds were observed to be around 900 MB/s.

For practical testing, copying 115 GB of data consisting of 29 files took approximately 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

The temperature started at 35°C while idle, rose to 58°C during the copy process, and dropped back to below 50°C within 30 seconds after copying.

The copying speed averaged around 700 MB/s.

Conclusion

Considering the price of NT$1685 ($53.28 USD), assembling a 1 TB USB 3.2 Gen 2 SSD external hard drive seems to offer excellent value for money.

Further updates will depend on any issues encountered during future use.