StarTech 2.5-Inch Aluminum External Disk Enclosure

For some quick benchmarks I compared the performance of the StarTech enclosure to that of an older USB 3.0 Seagate 2.5-inch enclosure and then as well when the drive was connected directly to a SATA port. A Samsung 850 PRO 256GB SATA 3.0 SSD is what was used for all of the testing. Benchmarks were done from Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS x86_64.

This StarTech USB 3.0 enclosure was performing better than a simple Seagate USB 3.0 enclosure, but obviously not to the speeds of directly to a SATA 3.0 port.

For about $30 USD, I am satisfied with the purchase. This aluminum 2.5-inch enclosure is built better than other cheaper enclosures often made of plastic, supports UASP, is faster than the older Seagate enclosure I was replacing, does play nicely if wishing to boot a Linux OS from the enclosure itself (an issue I've encountered with some enclosures in the past), have not run into any thermal problems even after hours of benchmarks, and does support eSATA too if that's important for you.

This enclosure can be found from retailers like Amazon.