If you need the fastest possible speeds for external storage, Hyper might have the tool for you. The company’s new HyperDrive enclosure uses USB4 V2 to turn any NVMe drive into a high-performance external drive, but you’ll have to pay a hefty sum for the privilege.
The HyperDrive Next USB4 V2 M.2 PCIe Enclosure—quite the name—is one of many external USB enclosures for NVMe drives on the market today. You take an M.2 NVMe drive, place it in the enclosure, and then the NVMe becomes an external SSD you can use across all your devices. I have a 2TB Samsung 980 Pro SSD in a USB enclosure, and it’s been helpful for PC backups and temporary storage for video editing.
This model is special because it supports USB 4 Version 2.0, using the maximum 80 Gbps protocol, as well as Thunderbolt 5. The actual transfer speed for the drive is limited to 64 Gbps, but that would still give you full speeds with most (if not all) PCIe Gen 4 SSDs. For example, the 2TB WD_BLACK SN7100 has read speeds of up to 58 Gbps (7,250 MB/s), and the 2TB Samsung 990 Pro’s read speeds max out at 59.6 Gbps (7450 MB/s). Newer PCIe Gen 5 SSDs have even faster speeds, but this enclosure doesn’t support them.
The HyperDrive Next has a USB Type-C port for connecting to a host computer, tablet, phone, or other USB-compatible device. That port only provides 7.5W to the drive, though, so you can optionally plug in the other Type-C port for up to 25W of power to the connected drive, ensuring the fastest-possible speeds. It’s a bit strange that it doesn’t support full power over just one port, though.
Credit: Hyper
The enclosure has a tool-free design, an integrated thermal pad, and a silicone sleeve for IP55 water and dust protection. Hyper also says the enclosure works for AI accelerator cards, not just NVMe storage.
The HyperDrive Next USB4 V2 starts at a whopping $200 from the company’s online store. If you don’t already have an NVMe drive, those have also creeped up in price over the last few months—just not as much as DDR5 RAM. You also need a computer with USB4 V2 or Thunderbolt 5 to get the promised drive speeds.
If you want to turn a spare NVMe drive into an external SSD, the UGREEN 40 Gbps USB4 enclosure is less than half the price of the HyperDrive Next with a slower (24 Gbps less) maximum drive speed. There are also many affordable USB 3.2-based NVMe enclosures that can reach 10Gbps. That’s a substantial bottleneck if you pair it with a fast SSD, but still much faster than a typical flash drive or external hard drive, and you can always move the SSD to a better enclosure in the future.
Source: Hyper
