Solved Looking for good external enclosures for the following SSDs

hdmi · Sep 2, 2025

Helmut said:
What a load of pointless trivial nonsense. I know there are small differences, get real.

mngerhold · Sep 6, 2025

gunrunnerjohn said:
Well, when you see scam product s like this on the same page, you have to wonder what you'd actually get!

I realise that, but the scam (if it is) will only set him back £1.90 (and I also realise I linked to an Aliexpress page). I got a genuine set of earbuds from temu for under £2. Absurd.

jimbo45 · Sep 6, 2025

Response time (if reasonable) surely isn't the point if buying a device to be used portably.

Reliability is more important.

I use several of these external nvme devices for running various OS'es on (ssd type rather than msata) - with a USBC or even a USB3 connector perfectly fast enough for typical use !! --in fact on an older laptop you might get faster response than from the laptops own internal SSD whether an old NVME device or an older 2.5 inch disk. !!!.

Prices of 1 and 2 TB devices are quite cheap now !!!. With enclosures not much bigger than some thumb drives. !!!

Cheers
jimbo

spapakons · Sep 6, 2025

You can even create a Windows-to-Go drive and run your own system in any computer. Useful for Computer Technicians to have a disk with diagnostic and troubleshooting tools.

jimbo45 · Sep 6, 2025

spapakons said:
You can even create a Windows-to-Go drive and run your own system in any computer. Useful for Computer Technicians to have a disk with diagnostic and troubleshooting tools.

Simple way with vhdx files - install ist windows system -- to get started boot a windows install system disk and choose repair system when booting.

Then in command mode create the efi system partition and a virtual disk file (vhdx) large enough for the Windows system you want -. Attach the vdisk, format it as ntfs - don't create this disk as gpt with another efi partition on it. Then install the OS via dism /Apply-Image, install the bootloader to the efi partition via bcdboot and then boot into the Windows OOB as per normal install. Now you've got a nice Windows to GO.

don't forget though to set the PortableOperatingSystem to '0' as well -otherwise update via WU won't work !!!. Also important if you "clone" this system to an internal disk -- if you don't do it then Windows will still think you are running on an external drive !.

plenty of more detailed instructions on this Forum !!.

Advantage of this method is you can have loads of different Windows versions, apps, languages etc -- and they are all activated if your original Windows is activated - (running on same hardware of course).

Just create the OS -- user data etc use other partitions just install the OS plus apps like Office, a browser etc.

Cheers
jimbo

spapakons · Sep 6, 2025

Sounds like rather a lot of trouble for an inexperienced user... However if he has step-by-step instructions he could try it.

BrianInEngland · Sep 6, 2025

For my spare SATA SSDs I didn't even buy an enclosure, I just use these

Amazon.co.uk

gunrunnerjohn · Sep 6, 2025

spapakons said:
Sounds like rather a lot of trouble for an inexperienced user... However if he has step-by-step instructions he could try it.

You read my mind!

I doubt I'd call that the "simple" way!

spapakons · Sep 6, 2025

Even me that I consider myself an expert, I would rather use a simpler method than follow too many instructions. Call me lazy...

gunrunnerjohn · Sep 6, 2025

BrianInEngland said:
For my spare SATA SSDs I didn't even buy an enclosure, I just use these

Amazon.co.uk

Ditto, I use one of these for working with bare drives...

Worked with any size SATA drive as well as NVMe drives in it's supplied carrier.

ORICO 2 Bay USB C M.2 NVMe SSD/SATA HDD SSD Enclosure Docking Station

BrianInEngland · Sep 7, 2025

jimbo45 said:
Simple way with vhdx files - install ist windows system -- to get started boot a windows install system disk and choose repair system when booting.

Then in command mode create the efi system partition and a virtual disk file (vhdx) large enough for the Windows system you want -. Attach the vdisk, format it as ntfs - don't create this disk as gpt with another efi partition on it. Then install the OS via dism /Apply-Image, install the bootloader to the efi partition via bcdboot and then boot into the Windows OOB as per normal install. Now you've got a nice Windows to GO.

don't forget though to set the PortableOperatingSystem to '0' as well -otherwise update via WU won't work !!!. Also important if you "clone" this system to an internal disk -- if you don't do it then Windows will still think you are running on an external drive !.

plenty of more detailed instructions on this Forum !!.

Advantage of this method is you can have loads of different Windows versions, apps, languages etc -- and they are all activated if your original Windows is activated - (running on same hardware of course).

Just create the OS -- user data etc use other partitions just install the OS plus apps like Office, a browser etc.

Cheers
jimbo

You and your VMs!
I'm tech savvy and have used VMs myself but wouldn't even be arsed to do something like this!

jimbo45 · Sep 7, 2025

BrianInEngland said:
You and your VMs!
I'm tech savvy and have used VMs myself but wouldn't even be arsed to do something like this!

using a physical vhdx file is NOT A VM !!!! IT'S a physical Windows installation -- it just makes being able to Multi-boot a lot of different Windows systems a lot easier and easier to back them up too.

Cheers
jimbo

SlicEnDicE · Sep 8, 2025

jimbo45 said:
using a physical vhdx file is NOT A VM !!!! IT'S a physical Windows installation -- it just makes being able to Multi-boot a lot of different Windows systems a lot easier and easier to back them up too.

Cheers
jimbo

Speaking of...have you figured out how to as easily use this same or similar concept for Linux? This question is so out of topic that a simple yes or no response is enough here and a new thread would be required for the details.

Thanks.

jimbo45 · Sep 8, 2025

SlicEnDicE said:
Speaking of...have you figured out how to as easily use this same or similar concept for Linux? This question is so out of topic that a simple yes or no response is enough here and a new thread would be required for the details.

Thanks.

Yes create another EFI partition and then Linux partitions (I know you said Yes) but the answer is simple and if on the same disk Windows boot manager can boot Linux (use a device) and Grub / systemd or Linux boot will have the windows boot manager also in its menu -so long as there's an EFI partition for Linux on the disk you can boot -- you can arrange for a single '/' partition for each Linux with everything under that or split the Linux partitions into ,/, (system / root) /home etc/
No probs at all.

Disk geometry I'm using == EFI (windows), Partition 1 win1.vhdx, win2,vhdx,win3.vhdx,some spare for paging etc), efi (linux) linux1a fedora root ('/' XFS), linix 1b fedora '/home' XFS, Linux 2A debian '/' xfs linux 2b linux debian /home xfs linux 3a archlinux '/ xfs linux 3b /home xfs. Swap is done via ZRAM so no need for disk storage space.

Boot -- Linux shows all 3 linuxes and windows boot mgr on dev/sdx
Windows - standard boot manager with windows systems -- if you "use a device" option then you get the Linux options.

"Seemples"

Cheers
jimbo

SlicEnDicE · Sep 8, 2025

This did not answer my question @jimbo45

I know you can multiboot but the point is the VHD. Don't respond here but rather create a new thread if there exist a simple solution.

spapakons · Sep 8, 2025

A much simpler method is to create a virtual machine and then convert the disk to VHD. Then use a USB flash drive with Ventoy. It can boot any ISO or VHD (and other disk formats) copied to the drive.

Ventoy

Ventoy is an open source tool to create bootable USB drive for ISO files. With ventoy, you don't need to format the disk again and again, you just need to copy the iso file to the USB drive and boot it.

www.ventoy.net

jimbo45 · Sep 8, 2025

SlicEnDicE said:
This did not answer my question @jimbo45

I know you can multiboot but the point is the VHD. Don't respond here but rather create a new thread if there exist a simple solution.

The big problem here is that Linux doesn't recognize natively a Windows vhdx file. @spapakons solution is that you have to create a VM which isn't the object of the exercise although it will of course work - boot Windows from a vhdx and then use Windows to launch a VM. You could use something like Esxi but that's another whole different ballgame.

I've tried various mechanisms for creating a Windows vhdx file and then copying a Linux distro and its boot mechanism to it -- with varying measures of success -- not given up yet on it !!!.

The good thing here is that if you create an EFI file for Linux boot within a Windows VHDX (physical file) Windows has already loaded the vhdx stuff as a "physical disk) so boot from linux in theory should work especially as the Linux boot is a standard FAT32 file. Using Windows boot -->choose device usually works so this IMHO looks a good way to persue this stuff further.

PLEASE NOTE TO ALL AND SUNDRY -- WE AERN'T AREN'T TALKING ABOUT VM'S HERE.

Thanks again for giving me something interesting to do this week -- keeps me away from HORRIBLE SUPERMARKETS and shopping !!!.

Thanks @SlicEnDicE for getting me re-started on an interesting project for this week while I'm at home.

Cheers
jimbo

spapakons · Sep 8, 2025

No, you got me wrong. Ventoy adds a boot loader on the USB flash drive that scans the space for ISO and other disk files. Then presents you a list to choose which one to boot. It can also boot virtual disks in VHD or VHDX format. That's why I suggested to install Linux in a virtual machine and then convert the virtual disk to VHD. Copy the file in the Ventoy disk and boot it locally like if it was a physical disk connected to your computer. Much easier than creating multiple partitions or @jimbo45 method.

hdmi · Sep 8, 2025

With Ventoy you don't necessarily have to copy the file to the same disk that has the Ventoy on it. If you don't need plugins, you can press F2 when it presents the list. Or if you need plugins, then you can't use F2 but you can still use vlnk links. Ventoy

spapakons · Sep 8, 2025

I'm not that familiar with Ventoy, I have just created a single USB flash drive with some ISOs to choose. Good to know, thanks.

Solved Looking for good external enclosures for the following SSDs

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