Vantec NexStar RT Rugged USB 3.0 2.5" SATA SSD/HDD Enclosure

Many of us we don’t really think about backups until its too late, then we wonder why we never got around to having a backup, or if we did have one, why we didn’t update it. Prior to my purchase of the Vantec NST-266S3-BK, I was using portable USB drives which unfortunately have a high failure rate due to their use of Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) technology. These manufactures never let the consumer know that they were buying an inferior product just so they could make larger profits, that is I'd have gladly paid the same amount of money for a portable USB drive that used Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) technology i.e. a 750GB CMR is much better than a 1TB SMR drive.My backup scheme is as follows:Copy 1: On a 2nd drive on the local PCCopy 2: On a 2.5-inch solid state drivesCopy 3: On a 3.5-inch hard drives used in earlier systemsIn addition each machine's boot drive is duplicated in a standalone USB Disk Duplicator (Syba SY-EN50071) and stored in a folder for each PC in the file cabinet. I bought my first Vantec NST-266S3-BK in February 2021 to replace a failed SMR based USB portable drive, and have since purchased 5 more to replace the rest of the SMR based USB portable drives as they begin to fail. The Vantec NST-266S3-BK design uses the ASMedia ASM 1153E controller and when it was first designed, the largest commercially available hard drives at the time were 4TB in size with 6TB just beginning to be sampled but not in volume production. The ASM 1153E controller uses LBA48 addressing mode which means in theory the largest drive that the device can support is about 144.1 PB (the same as 144,000 TB) so there should not be an issue supporting larger drives.This device is cool to the touch, has a design which minimizes fingerprints on its case, was easy to install (they even provide screws and a screwdriver). As for ventilation, the device has many holes on one of the sides. A 2.5 inch HDD may get a little hot, but SSD's should not get that hot and many SSD's have built in thermal sensors which will throttle the drive until the temperature drops to comfortable levels.The 2.5 inch drive fits nicely in the enclosure and can be attached via the supplied screws. I used two at the far end which is enough to hold the SSD in place. Once the tray is back in the outer enclosure, another 2 screws secure it. Vantec supplied 5 of the screws needed to secure the drive to the tray and 3 to secure the tray to the enclosure i.e. 1 extra of each.On Windows 7, I was only able to see 228/222 MB/s Read/Write speeds mainly due to Windows 7 not supporting the USB Attached SCSI Protocol (UASP), however on Linux I was able to get 441/432 MB/s Read/Write since UASP support was enabled. One should get similar performance for Windows 8/10 as UASP support exists in those Operating Systems. Even though the SSD is capable of 560 MB/s (read), the top speed is capped by USB 3.0 which has a theoretical max of 500 MB/s and after accounting for overhead the results are pretty good.The SSD was recognized as an SSD and I was able to use TRIM. For those who are having problems using TRIM, open up an elevated command prompt in Windows and type the following command:fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify.If DisableDeleteNotify is set to 1, rerun the command with a 0 on the end:fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0(thanks to programmers it's a double negative). In addition both HDD and SSD support SMART through the USB cable.We use the Vantec NST-266S3-BK on both Windows (7, 8.1, 10) and Linux (Linux Mint 20.1). Again, it's a little slow on Windows 7 due to a lack of UASP support but it's acceptable and it's very fast on all the other systems.With many manufactures resorting to the use of Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) technology in external USB drives, this devices lets you use Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) technology drives which are far superior.In the attached photo I have circled the asmedia controller chip on the circuit card.Some additional notes:If you are running Windows, Windows has a feature that is enabled by default that will turn off power to USB ports. You can verify this by going into Device Manager, expanding the Universal Serial Bus Controllers, and then selecting any (and all) USB Root Hub, then in the pop-up, look for Power Management and uncheck "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power". If you don't do that, it's possible that windows shuts power off toyour device and you experience a "disconnect".If you are running Linux, Linux has a feature that right out of the box all USB ports are disabled. If your PC goes into a sleep mode, it can be hard to wake-up the PC just by moving the mouse or pressing the space bar on the keypad and even having long transfers via this device.You can write a startup script that will enable all USB ports:(1) Save the following in a script named usbwakeup in /etc/init.dgrep disabled /sys/bus/usb/devices/*/power/wakeup | awk -F: '{print "echo enabled > "$1}' | sh -s(2) Create a link in /etc/rc3.d called S99wakeup that points to ../init.d/usbwakeupHope this helps other potential buyers or those who have purchased this product and may not have had a positive experience (i.e. they blamed the device instead of Windows).

I am extremely happy with this thing, and I'm going to buy at least one more to use with an old laptop drive I found lying around as an external. I'll keep my comments brief.First of all, it's beautiful. It may seem silly to say that about such a simple product. But it is! It's elegant and slim, and feels really nice in the hand.Second, it's cheap! It even went down two dollars since I bought one last week.Third, a lot of thought has gone into this thing. It feels like the reason they were able to keep the price down was by making smart decisions, as opposed to using cheap materials or shoddy craftsmanship. The packaging is really nice, and it's one of those things that's pleasurable to open (think opening a brand new iPhone package). It comes with extremely easy to follow instructions, a small bag of tiny screws, a soft protective pouch, and an itsy-bitsy screw driver. The assembly is incredibly simple, just be sure to do it in such a way that you don't lose the little screws. It does come with two extra, though (see what I'm saying about the amount of thought they put into this...?).People complaining about rattling must not have secured their drive with the included screws (two in the front & two in the back), or the drive itself was noisy to begin with. I've had no trouble with that at all.The only thing I would say is that the casing is made of (I think) aluminum, so it is quite light (a good thing in my book) and quite hollow. It feels strong, but I wouldn't take it on a camping trip or shove it in your pocket before showing your friends the new trick you learned on your skateboard.It's a great product: pretty, cheap, easy to use, thumbs up, buy it you won't be disappointed.

Like some others, I bought this to retrieve the data from my drive in a non-functioning laptop. (Yes, a glass of red wine spilled into the keyboard is a great way to make an expensive MacBook Pro non-functional). This enclosure which I paid under $10 worked very well for that purpose. The drive came very impressively packaged for a basic rectangular metal enclosure and a SATA connector attached to an endplate backplane that slides inside the enclosure and is secured with two screws. (And provided tiny phillips screwdiver). But it came with very scant instructions... just a warning for anyone not sure of what they are doing. It's pretty simple to figure out, though. I docked one star for no mention of using the supplied cable.It does come with a mini USB (drive end) to a Y'd standard type-A 2.0 USB (two connectors, computer side). I do not use the supplied connector as I had a nice short straight single USB (not Y'd) from another drive which works great. As I stated, the instructions are lacking and there is no mention of the supplied cable but I'm sure it's not necessary to connect both USB cables (from the supplied cable) to the computer unless you are connecting it to older USB 1.0 ports that provide less power. A typical standard USB 2.0 port should supply enough power for the enclosure and drive. I read an earlier review saying there is not enough slack to connect to each port on opposite sides of a MacBook Air. This should not be necessary. In theory one of the connections is supposed to be for power and the other for Data but I tested the Y-cable by connecting just one USB connector (the first in the chain, the one the second extends from) to my new MacBook Pro and watched an HD movie from the enclosed drive without issue. If you want to be sure, connect both of the provided USBs to your computer, but I proved it's not necessary.One note about removing a drive from my 2008 Macbook Pro. Before I could slide the Hitachi drive into the enclosure I had to remove 4 mounting screws from the drive casing. These were not used to install them in the Mac but nonetheless were there for alternate installations and prevented the drive from fitting into the Vantec NexStar enclosure. These required a special Torx screwdriver, which I happened to have from other projects, to remove them. The drive had an attached clear plastic square tab for pulling the drive out of the computer. When folded back against the drive this provided the perfect amount of snugness when I slid the drive into the enclosure. Because of this I found the whole enclosure to be fairly sturdy to travel if you are careful but it's probably better suited to use just at home or office. I'm very happy overall with this purchase.