Portable Performance: Four USB 3.0 Enclosures For Your 2.5” Drive

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USB 3.0 is set to become the de facto standard for performance-oriented portable devices. We take a look at four enclosures that bring modern performance to pocket-sized storage. If you have an old laptop drive laying around, throw it in one of these.

A Best-Case Scenario

SuperSpeed USB (also known as USB 3.0) brings 5 Gb/s transfer rates to the world of portable devices. That level of performance even appears to compete with established storage standards like SATA, but it’s going to take a while for developers of USB hardware to catch up.

With proven performance and storage-specific features, such as native command queuing (NCQ), controller-based RAID support, and TRIM for SSD drives, eSATA is set to remain the standard for fixed external devices over the next few years. However, portable storage solutions usually don’t need those features, as hot plug and removal are often easier to manage without them, and the USB connector even provides enough amperage to power most pocket-sized devices, while larger storage alternatives and eSATA both require a separate power supply.

Today, most USB devices can’t even maximize the 60 MB/s limit of USB 2.0. But some of those devices don't need to go any faster than that. Portable mass storage is where we can reap the benefits of a faster interface, as it can take several minutes to transfer something as small as a movie file using USB 2.0. Notebook hard drives have already broken through the 100 MB/s barrier, and USB-2.0-to-SATA bridges have remained stuck at less than 40 MB/s. SSD drives are up to three times faster still, and even the left-over unit from your recent notebook upgrade is probably 50% to 100% faster than any USB 2.0 enclosure you can find for it. 

Given that USB 2.0 is unsuitable for our high-capacity portable storage needs, we tracked down several pocket-sized USB 3.0 enclosures to put a few of our own 2.5” drives to better use, unfettered by the bottleneck imposed by last-generation's peripheral bus.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
28 Comments Comment from the forums
  • I know this isn't relevant, but what is in the pcie1 slot?
    Reply
  • Gin Fushicho
    You guys are really benching cases? I figured they'd all be close to the same anyway.
    Reply
  • Crashman
    SubSonix1I know this isn't relevant, but what is in the pcie1 slot?
    Nothing, the slot is covered by an extended chipset heat sink.
    Reply
  • TomD_1
    So basically, they all have identical hardware, and IMO all look ugly
    Reply
  • Crashman
    TomD_1So basically, they all have identical hardware, and IMO all look ugly
    You forgot to mention they all fit in a shirt pocket. That is the most important part.
    Reply
  • thejerk
    Scraping the bottom of the barrel for non-iPad news?
    Reply
  • warmon6
    thejerkScraping the bottom of the barrel for non-iPad news?
    Um.... few things,

    1. They haven't been just covering the ipad. They been covering alot of other things.

    2. This isn't news. This is a review. Learn the difference.
    Reply
  • kelfen
    if ya think about it this is more cost effective per GB to buy one of these and a hard drive then buying a usb drive
    Reply
  • Good... so I can share my pirated movies more faster?( sarcasm )
    Reply
  • rooket
    What's the performance like if you use it with a hard drive? Just same as usb 2.0 I'd imagine? Odd that they're only hitting 35MB/sec with USB 2.0. It should go 60MB/sec. Why is this only half the speed?
    Reply