JEYI M.2 to Thunderbolt enclosure

[Synchro3]

Most of the M.2 cases in the market are USB-C, and there are a few external Thunderbolt SSD's, but hardly any pure Thunderbolt M.2 cases.

I want to share this product I found at Aliexpress: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/JEY...ME-TO-TYPE-C-aluminium-TYPE/32952100894.html?

The package included an USB-C cable, so at first glance I wasn't sure if I bought a Thunderbolt or just a USB-C case. But it is indeed a real Thunderbolt case! Just use a 40 Gbps Thunderbolt cable and ignore the enclosed USB-C cables.

Also the included heat conduction pads were to thick. I installed them and I could not close the case completely. On the second try I used thermal paste.

When these hurdles are overcome you have a very fast bootable external drive. I formatted the drive APFS and installed macOS without issues (enable external booting in the T2 security setting before).

Some pics:

 

[DRDR]

Thanks, looks very interesting!

 

[brandair]

Well done for taking the lead as Guinea Pig! Incidentally, I was eying this enclosure last week at aliexpress and bookmarked it for the future. Thanks to you we now know that it actually works and performs quite to the specs. TRIM is supported, too. What about SMART support?

 

[Sun Baked]

So an unpopulated drive with the same board as the populated TEQK Rapide, in a different case.

You can at least check out additional reviews of that one on Amazon, since quite a few already swapped in their own 1TB 970EVO drive. Along with a test at barefeats also.

A stateside direct order without a drive would be nice also.

the inside of the TEKQ Rapide drive...

 

[Synchro3]

So an unpopulated drive with the same board as the populated TEQK Rapide, in a different case.

You can at least check out additional reviews of that one on Amazon, since quite a few already swapped in their own 1TB 970EVO drive. Along with a test at barefeats also.

A stateside direct order without a drive would be nice also.

the inside of the TEKQ Rapide drive...

Thank you for the picture: I realised the controller chip and the Thunderbolt port need cooling.

I inserted the thermal pads now the same way.



As there is no place for a thermal pad on the upper side (SSD 970 EVO, Chip 1, 2 + 4, chip 3 is lower), I used thermal paste. Temperatures not going over 42°C during normal usage.

 

[StellarVixen]

WOW, those are crazy speeds! This is amazing!


Now I care even less about soldered storage.

 

[Ploki]

Thanks for testing it, I was hesitant to order one until I saw your post.

 

[Ploki]

It was enough space for thermal pads on the top in mine
(The thin red thermal pads, not the blue fat ones)

I already assembled it with EVO 970 1TB, but don't have a Mac yet to test it lol.

 

[shockwaveriderz]

I also purchased one of these Leiden Pro's and got it today. Here are some of the tests and my impressions of it. Easy to take apart and re-assemble, nor problems there. Instead of using the stock thermal pad I used SilverStone TP01-M2 thermal pads on both sides of the Samsung Pro 970 1tb. At rest temperature is 42C. Using CrystalDiskMark6 I got almost 2880 Read and got a paltry 550 on Write. I then used samsung magician to performance test it and got 2800 on sequential read and 560 write...so I ran the performance optimization from SM and ran the perf test again ang got virtually the same figures as before. I have no idea why it's showing such poor write performance....I have 2 other Pro 970 512GB internally and they both show about 3500/2400 on seq read/write.....Any ideas on That? So I then did a system image backup using Macrium Reflect 7 Home. About 250GB in size....took about 15 minutes total with Macrium saying it was doing about 1.5 to 2.0GB/s....then it did a quick verify of the image....the temperature rose from 42C to 62C...the datasheet says the Operating Temp Range for the Pro 970 is 0-70C...soits getting really close. the device is warm to the hand on both sides at rest. At 62C if you leave your fingers on it it is hot enough to burn you. This Leiden Pro was purchased from AliExpress, got here within 2 weeks for $145... I'm wondering if the Pro 970 will stand up to once a week system image backups as that's all it is used for. The normal backup from the Pro 970 C; to my USB 3.0 (Gen 1) external wd 5200 rpm drive usually takes at least twice as long, so the faster backup speed is cutting that time in half, so that's good. It takes a solid 10 minutes for it to cool down. I'm gonna take back apart and see if i can get the pcb off so i can put a thermal pad underneath the pcb. This is a PC Intel NUC8i7HVK. I may also get another TB3 certified cable to see if that helps any. Hope this information helps. Would I buy it again? Probably not. I worry about the temperature cycling effect on the long term health of the Pro 970. It has a 5 yr warranty, time will tell. The price is ok.....I'm sure by mid to late 2019 USA companies using Chinese manufacturing will have better versions of these devices available at lower prices.

HTH

 

[Synchro3]

I also purchased one of these Leiden Pro's and got it today. Here are some of the tests and my impressions of it. Easy to take apart and re-assemble, nor problems there. Instead of using the stock thermal pad I used SilverStone TP01-M2 thermal pads on both sides of the Samsung Pro 970 1tb. At rest temperature is 42C. Using CrystalDiskMark6 I got almost 2880 Read and got a paltry 550 on Write. I then used samsung magician to performance test it and got 2800 on sequential read and 560 write...so I ran the performance optimization from SM and ran the perf test again ang got virtually the same figures as before. I have no idea why it's showing such poor write performance....I have 2 other Pro 970 512GB internally and they both show about 3500/2400 on seq read/write.....Any ideas on That? So I then did a system image backup using Macrium Reflect 7 Home. About 250GB in size....took about 15 minutes total with Macrium saying it was doing about 1.5 to 2.0GB/s....then it did a quick verify of the image....the temperature rose from 42C to 62C...the datasheet says the Operating Temp Range for the Pro 970 is 0-70C...soits getting really close. the device is warm to the hand on both sides at rest. At 62C if you leave your fingers on it it is hot enough to burn you. This Leiden Pro was purchased from AliExpress, got here within 2 weeks for $145... I'm wondering if the Pro 970 will stand up to once a week system image backups as that's all it is used for. The normal backup from the Pro 970 C; to my USB 3.0 (Gen 1) external wd 5200 rpm drive usually takes at least twice as long, so the faster backup speed is cutting that time in half, so that's good. It takes a solid 10 minutes for it to cool down. I'm gonna take back apart and see if i can get the pcb off so i can put a thermal pad underneath the pcb. This is a PC Intel NUC8i7HVK. I may also get another TB3 certified cable to see if that helps any. Hope this information helps. Would I buy it again? Probably not. I worry about the temperature cycling effect on the long term health of the Pro 970. It has a 5 yr warranty, time will tell. The price is ok.....I'm sure by mid to late 2019 USA companies using Chinese manufacturing will have better versions of these devices available at lower prices.

HTH

Did you enable TRIM?

Terminal: sudo trimforce enable

 

[philipma1957]

So defective case? Defective nvme? Defective cable?

Or poor cooling pads?

 

[shockwaveriderz]

Did you enable TRIM?

Terminal: sudo trimforce enable

This is a windows PC, but yes TRIM is enabled according to Samsung Magician. I'm trying to find a Win program that will allow me to verify that TRIM is indeed enabled.
[doublepost=1545866598][/doublepost]

So defective case? Defective nvme? Defective cable?

Or poor cooling pads?

Well the Case is from China so go figure it could be some kind of knockoff I suppose. It came in a plain brown box inside of a plain brown box. The cooling pads are the thick blu kind both top and bottom of Pro 970. This is a Leiden Pro made purchased from AliExpress direct from China with a supposed 30 day return. I was over at the Intel support forums and a guy posted a similar problem with his internal Pro 970 about 6 months ago. So I posted over there to see what ever happened. They said they were able to reproduce the problem under testing and may have a fix by now.

here's the link : https://www.aliexpress.com/item/JEY...&terminal_id=97db9e04e054462fba2992dfa69e83d0

 

[philipma1957]

This is a windows PC, but yes TRIM is enabled according to Samsung Magician. I'm trying to find a Win program that will allow me to verify that TRIM is indeed enabled.
[doublepost=1545866598][/doublepost]
Well the Case is from China so go figure it could be some kind of knockoff I suppose. It came in a plain brown box inside of a plain brown box. The cooling pads are the thick blu kind both top and bottom of Pro 970. This is a Leiden Pro made purchased from AliExpress direct from China with a supposed 30 day return. I was over at the Intel support forums and a guy posted a similar problem with his internal Pro 970 about 6 months ago. So I posted over there to see what ever happened. They said they were able to reproduce the problem under testing and may have a fix by now.

here's the link : https://www.aliexpress.com/item/JEY...&terminal_id=97db9e04e054462fba2992dfa69e83d0

Could be the nvme Samsung. We know Apple toshiba nvme whines. But maybe Samsung gets hot and fails. So Apple went with toshiba over Samsung. Well at least it is all external and can be backed up allowing easy replacement.

 

[shockwaveriderz]

I just ordered TB3 certified active and a passive THunderbolt 3 cables....active have transceivers in them and are not backward compatible with USB devices; passive are backwards compatible with USB. I went to the Thunderbolt Technology website where you can search for and purchase certified Thunderbolt stuff from various vendors. I'll post back here to see if changing the TB3 cables make any differences.
[doublepost=1545875414][/doublepost]

Could be the nvme Samsung. We know Apple toshiba nvme whines. But maybe Samsung gets hot and fails. So Apple went with toshiba over Samsung. Well at least it is all external and can be backed up allowing easy replacement.

I will check into this I do have the Samsung specific NVMe device driver installed instead of the Intel version. I had to install the latest TB3 Intel device driver to get this TB3 device to be seen and work.

 

[brentsg]

Could be the nvme Samsung. We know Apple toshiba nvme whines. But maybe Samsung gets hot and fails. So Apple went with toshiba over Samsung. Well at least it is all external and can be backed up allowing easy replacement.

It won’t get hot and fail, but it might get hot and throttle. If I recall there are 2 temperature sensors on these drives and the one on the controller gets very hot.

 

[Ploki]

This is a windows PC, but yes TRIM is enabled according to Samsung Magician. I'm trying to find a Win program that will allow me to verify that TRIM is indeed enabled.
[doublepost=1545866598][/doublepost]
Well the Case is from China so go figure it could be some kind of knockoff I suppose. It came in a plain brown box inside of a plain brown box. The cooling pads are the thick blu kind both top and bottom of Pro 970. This is a Leiden Pro made purchased from AliExpress direct from China with a supposed 30 day return. I was over at the Intel support forums and a guy posted a similar problem with his internal Pro 970 about 6 months ago. So I posted over there to see what ever happened. They said they were able to reproduce the problem under testing and may have a fix by now.

here's the link : https://www.aliexpress.com/item/JEY...&terminal_id=97db9e04e054462fba2992dfa69e83d0

odd, i got it for 99$.

I didn't get the computer yet to test it lol. already assembled for a week, with 970 EVO 1TB.

 

[philipma1957]

It won’t get hot and fail, but it might get hot and throttle. If I recall there are 2 temperature sensors on these drives and the one on the controller gets very hot.

I wonder if the toshiba whine has a relationship to it getting too hot.

 

[mikeboss]

Did you enable TRIM?

Terminal: sudo trimforce enable

"trimforce enable" is only needed for AHCI based SSDs. macOS supports TRIM for NVMe based SSDs out of the box.

 

[Ploki]

Leidian TB3 fitted with Samsung 970 EVO, vs internal 512GB SSD on an i7 mini.

Internal has faster reads, but leidian has faster writes.

edit:

also mine came with a 0,5m thunderbolt cable!

Total cost 87€ for enclosure and 250€ for drive.

edit:
whoo, this baby runs hoooooot as heck. (60 degrees under load) and the box is hot to touch. thinking of slapping a heat sink on it.

 

[RadHaz]

Here's my Leidan Pro TB3 with Samsung Evo 970 512GB.

 

[canhaz]

This is awesome. You might want to consider the Intel 660p. While not as fast, it's much cheaper and more importantly, draws *considerably* less power than EVO's.

 

[Ogre_Gandalf]

Leidian TB3 fitted with Samsung 970 EVO, vs internal 512GB SSD on an i7 mini.

Internal has faster reads, but leidian has faster writes.

edit:

also mine came with a 0,5m thunderbolt cable!

Total cost 87€ for enclosure and 250€ for drive.

edit:
whoo, this baby runs hoooooot as heck. (60 degrees under load) and the box is hot to touch. thinking of slapping a heat sink on it.

Where did you get the enclosure from? Struggling to find it cheaper than £140+.

 

[Synchro3]

Massive price increases in a very short time. That's exactly what I don't like at Aliexpress.

I bought two of them for $60 each. At least one advantage the be the 'Guinea Pig'.

Now $149. Not certain whether the price still represents a fair value.

At least now they include Thunderbolt cables. At the beginning only USB-C cables.

 

[Ogre_Gandalf]

Massive price increases in a very short time. That's exactly what I don't like at Aliexpress.

I bought two of them for $60 each. At least one advantage the be the 'Guinea Pig'.

Now $149. Not certain whether the price still represents a fair value.

At least now they include Thunderbolt cables. At the beginning only USB-C cables.

View attachment 814391

Ah - that explains that! Thank you.

 

[Synchro3]

My presumption is they were not aware at the beginning they sold Thunderbolt cases (USB-C cables included).