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A Low-Cost USB 3.0 2.5-Inch Disk Enclosure That Works Fine With Linux

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  • A Low-Cost USB 3.0 2.5-Inch Disk Enclosure That Works Fine With Linux

    Phoronix: A Low-Cost USB 3.0 2.5-Inch Disk Enclosure That Works Fine With Linux

    If you are looking for a low-cost 2.5-inch disk enclosure that plays fine under Linux, here's one I recently picked up and has been working fine...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    Funny to see it supports windows 98 and me, since they probably do not have support for USB3.
    That also means that the enclosure does not talk UAS (as 98 and me definitely do not support UAS), but only plain mass storage, so no working access to smart features :-(.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by Ardje View Post
      Funny to see it supports windows 98 and me, since they probably do not have support for USB3.
      That also means that the enclosure does not talk UAS (as 98 and me definitely do not support UAS), but only plain mass storage, so no working access to smart features :-(.
      Do you mean that a USB HDD can't support both USB attached SCSI and mass storage? That sounds odd, because UAS is quite new and one can't really expect that every OS supports it.

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      • #4
        I own the same hdd enclosure. It's been fast and reliable for me too.

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        • #5
          I could use an enclosure that turns a 2.5inch Hdd into something like Seagate Wireless.

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          • #6
            I've never encountered any hdd enclosure that couldn't work under Linux.

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            • #7
              I actually received this one today: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00SFIZS4W

              £6.99 - works out at $8.35 (taking VAT off). Yeah, I've got a habit of buying the brightest vilest coloured things possible.

              It uses an IS621 USB3-SATA chip.

              It's working fine on this 2011 MacBook Pro as I set up a replacement SSD for it.

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              • #8
                Inatech has two variants, that I've found. One labelled specifically for SSD. I have both. One has a 7200 RPM HDD in it, and one the SSD, both have worked flawlessly with Linux, MS Windows, and Mac. The "SSD" targeted enclosure does seem to transfer more quickly. One Day I'll loop back and swap devices to see how much things vary. The SSD specific one was $2USD more expensive.

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by c0derbear View Post
                  Inatech has two variants, that I've found. One labelled specifically for SSD. I have both. One has a 7200 RPM HDD in it, and one the SSD, both have worked flawlessly with Linux, MS Windows, and Mac. The "SSD" targeted enclosure does seem to transfer more quickly. One Day I'll loop back and swap devices to see how much things vary. The SSD specific one was $2USD more expensive.


                  you have to look at the SATA protocol versions. running a decent SSD even on SATAv2 should be a much better experience then a HDD given the fast that you use this enclosure over USB3.0 other on USB2.0 you wont be pushing either the SSD or the HDD to their limits. However i dont think there would be any difference in the protocols on both the variants dont know why the $2 extra.

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                  • #10
                    Hmm. So far I've had terrible luck with USB3 HDD enclosures, but I think I know why.

                    The first one I bought, when connected does work, but only under very light load. Trying to, say, copy a Btrfs snapshot kills the connection and causes a USB link reset. Sometimes it doesn't even get read after booting, it has to be disconnected and reconnected again.

                    Similarly, the last one I bought and that I'm using as a recording storage device for a semi-smart TV, at first had a pretty terrible time connecting and would just click for a long time and not allow anything to be written. Though lately it has been behaving better, thankfully.

                    Looking at the specs, this is not really surprising: USB3 in fact does NOT have enough power to supply the disk! This is why you won't find a 3.5" enclosure working over USB3 alone, it's just not enough by any stretch, and for 2.5" it's still quite a stretch. I found that out myself when I compared an external drive connected over the front USB connector vs the back USB connector: it works much better when connected to the back due to shorter distance to the motherboard and thus better power supply.

                    So to use USB3 enclosures, you have to have either a specifically low-power disk that is made to be used over USB3, or use something that isn't USB3. Which is why I'm looking forward to USB Type-C: due to the Thunderbolt inheritance, it is capable of good enough power supply, even for 3.5" drives. (There was an extension for older USB standards for supplying extra power, but I am yet to see it implemented anywhere.)

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