I've got one of their M2's I was using in a prior to upgrade and the drive worked well. I've since gotten away from using Phison based drives. They seem to do fine for small transfers and then just crap the bed for speed for the duration after the buffer is sustained. As for USB3.x enclosures I tested a few of those as well and the best option was the Plugable which has the same controller 9210 inside of it w/o TB support.
Yeah, and now we have PD 3.1 out which bumps the power to 140W from 100W and I suspect or saw some clowns advertising 270W. Then again it's no surprise since if you get away from the likes of SS / Apple devices you get closer to those 100W charging / power speeds.
For my laptops which aren't USB PD I use a trigger cable to get 100W when mobile through the 5.5*2.5 jack on the back. Works well for keeping it topped off but, engaging the GPU will cause the connection to flap due to excessive power requested. It's still useful for things when working on the car to diagnose things through the OBD port. Or in my case tuning the ECU/TCU to unlock more performance. The SW side though leaves something to be desired though when it comes to tracing gremlins within the systems. Just enough breadcrumbs to go hunting on Google but, no quick "this is your problem" being displayed.
ACASIS is using the firmware (1.29.1)
Yeah, I didn't bother checking for FW since I was getting speeds expected from that particular controller already with what it shipped with. My concern was on the 40gbps side since I was testing with several drives and cables to pinpoint which combo performed best.
I no longer use SS drives though because to me it's a bunch of hype for a higher priced option that performs just as well. WD is my go to at this point unless there's a compelling reason to try something different. When looking at new HW to play with I'm not usually stuck on a brand but more the underlying components. Lookin for the JHL8xxx controller on TB or finding / comparing most recent USB controllers. Kind of depends on my goal at the time. I'll take my 3.1/2.8GB/s and be happy until TB5 comes about which doubles the speeds. Then TB catches up w/ Gen 4 drives at max speed.
Forgive me for asking - what is an "8th Gen chip?"
JHL8xxx.....
Products formerly Maple Ridge product listing with links to detailed product features and specifications.
ark.intel.com
Basically it designates TB4 series in the naming Intel uses. Older tech versions like the JHL6xxx have some nuances such as not being able to have both TB/USB in the same complex.
en.wikipedia.org
It's also a good way to see if a seller is trying to dupe you with older tech than what's actually inside. If the controller series doesn't match what's being sold then it's a good indicator to stay away from it. When I was hunting down enclosures it was a bit of a PITA with sifting out all of the older controllers that didn't allow for both USB/TB to work. I didn't want to have to switch enclosures depending on which device I was plugging into at the time. Also, it would be nice if the USB side would bump their controllers to 20gbps support instead of sticking w/ 10gbps. The issue there was you could only get a 20gbps enclosure and not add TB speed. This led me to get a TB card for $60 for the server to add the higher bandwidth to it. The card is nice though since it allows for USB PD which means I can declutter a bit of cabling and power devices close to it w/ a USB cable.
