Solved Need M.2 SATA Drive Caddy for Add'l Memory

hsehestedt · Oct 19, 2023

starchase said:
Yeah, I saw that one. I went the "economy" route as I won't be using it much, and bought this one which will be at my door tomorrow 10/19. Hopefully this will work as it is strictly an SATA device. "NOT Supoort PCIe NVMe/AHCI" "supoort"!!

Let us know how it works for you. It's always good to some recommendations for things that have worked for people.

starchase · Oct 19, 2023

hsehestedt said:
Let us know how it works for you. It's always good to some recommendations for things that have worked for people.

I had a note all written replying and stating that the drive was recognized now but didn't show up in Windows Explorer. I have screenshots from Disk Management and Mini Tool that do show the drive and instead of like the last enclosure which showed the drive entirely grayed out and needing to be initialized, now showed the partitions on the drive. Disk Management showed it as "offline" and an Information Tool Tip showed a conflict between - well, I can't remember now what conflict was stated. But after closing and reopening DM the Tool Tip now showed something different!

However before I was going to switch to my original ADATA 128GB SSD to see how things looked and determined I could initialize this drive, I decided to reboot the laptop and viola! the data showed up in Win. Explorer as Windows (D:)!!!

I guess since I haven't found any manual concerning how to initially use an SSD enclosure I was ignorant of the procedure. The Orico caddy has minimal of instructions centering on opening the caddy and inserting the drive. And at least the retaining screw hole is properly placed. And this enclosure came with a full stick long "heat sink pad". Do y'all reboot your machines to see the data and use the drive in an enclosure?

Images are attached.

bobkn · Oct 19, 2023

hsehestedt said:
Let us know how it works for you. It's always good to some recommendations for things that have worked for people.

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I suspect that the number of people who wish to use SATA M.2 drives in an external enclosure is limited.

However, I'm all for solid information, even if I'll never use it personally.

hsehestedt · Oct 19, 2023

The only thing needed is to right-click and select "Online".

starchase · Oct 19, 2023

hsehestedt said:
The only thing needed is to right-click and select "Online".

Thanks, that did work. I just plugged in my Adata 128GB drive and got the Tool Tip message, so here is the jpg. It says "the disk is offline because it has a signature collision with another disk that is online". Is there anything I need to do to resolve this whenever plugged in? Disk 1 is the original disk in the laptop and was imaged onto the drive now labeled disk 0. Maybe since the one is a copy of the other some basic disk information is still identical and casusing conflict? I assume reformatting the drive will change the signature (or not) and resolve this?

hsehestedt · Oct 19, 2023

Ahhh yes, a signature collison. Is one of those drives a clone of the other?

What is Disk Signature Collision? How to fix Disk Signature Collision problem on Windows?

Learn how to fix Disk Signature Collision problem after Cloning in Windows. Disk cloning has become quite a common practice for upgrading to a larger hard disk drive.

www.thewindowsclub.com

starchase · Oct 19, 2023

hsehestedt said:
Ahhh yes, a signature collison. Is one of those drives a clone of the other?

What is Disk Signature Collision? How to fix Disk Signature Collision problem on Windows?

Learn how to fix Disk Signature Collision problem after Cloning in Windows. Disk cloning has become quite a common practice for upgrading to a larger hard disk drive.

www.thewindowsclub.com

Excellent. I ran Diskpart and changed the ID on both disks. Many Thanks! :clap:

hsehestedt · Oct 19, 2023

Phew! Glad you got that sorted out.

starchase · Oct 20, 2023

hsehestedt said:
Ahhh yes, a signature collison. Is one of those drives a clone of the other?

What is Disk Signature Collision? How to fix Disk Signature Collision problem on Windows?

Learn how to fix Disk Signature Collision problem after Cloning in Windows. Disk cloning has become quite a common practice for upgrading to a larger hard disk drive.

www.thewindowsclub.com

And yes, all this occurred because I did make, in effect, 2 clones of the ADATA 128GB drive, not taking into account the drive ID issue. Oops! I'll bet if I had reformatted the 2 drives that are now spares before trying them in the caddy I wouldn't have run into these complications. Maybe.

Hopachi · Oct 20, 2023

Nice.
So the caddy was good.
Disk wasn't online because of the signature collision.

I had this once when I moved my Macrium Reflect imaged drive in an external enclosure.
In case you would wanna use the external for data and everything is backed up, just clean-format it and the issues will be gone.

jimbo45 · Oct 20, 2023

bobkn said:
Maybe I'm mistaken, but I suspect that the number of people who wish to use SATA M.2 drives in an external enclosure is limited.

However, I'm all for solid information, even if I'll never use it personally.

Not at all

I have 3 originally 2 but got another one recently-- connected via USBC to a small device which isn't much larger than a cuban cigar -- also very fast ondeed -- 2 X 1GB and 1 X 2GB SATA M2 -- far better, faster and smaller than either classical SSD external devices (vis SATA->USB adaptor or classical spinners.
Much cheaper too,

GiGiMundo Dual protocol M2 Sata enclosure

I bought 2 of these from Amazon with 2 Crucial 1 TB M2 storage sticks on a special offer on Amazon Prime for € 70 the lot. Nice and small, work brilliantly if you haven't heard about these devices, and even on USB-C they can outperform a classical 2.5 inch standard SSD with USB>SATA adapter. I...

www.elevenforum.com

cheers
jimbo

retiredat44 · Oct 20, 2023

I have used those, they work fine. There a few types of M.2 Caddy, make sure you get the proper one for sata or usb or?

bobkn · Oct 20, 2023

jimbo45 said:
Not at all

I have 3 originally 2 but got another one recently-- connected via USBC to a small device which isn't much larger than a cuban cigar -- also very fast ondeed -- 2 X 1GB and 1 X 2GB SATA M2 -- far better, faster and smaller than either classical SSD external devices (vis SATA->USB adaptor or classical spinners.
Much cheaper too,

GiGiMundo Dual protocol M2 Sata enclosure

I bought 2 of these from Amazon with 2 Crucial 1 TB M2 storage sticks on a special offer on Amazon Prime for € 70 the lot. Nice and small, work brilliantly if you haven't heard about these devices, and even on USB-C they can outperform a classical 2.5 inch standard SSD with USB>SATA adapter. I...

www.elevenforum.com

cheers
jimbo

Maybe I'm different from most. My first M.2 drive was a PCI-E X2 (not NVME) one. SATA M.2 drives seem like relics.

From a performance viewpoint, I doubt that an NVME drive would be significantly faster than a SATA one in an external enclosure. I'm not suggesting that you throw away your old SATA M.2 drives, if you've got them.

MisterEd · Oct 20, 2023

bobkn said:
Maybe I'm different from most. My first M.2 drive was a PCI-E X2 (not NVME) one. SATA M.2 drives seem like relics.

From a performance viewpoint, I doubt that an NVME drive would be significantly faster than a SATA one in an external enclosure. I'm not suggesting that you throw away your old SATA M.2 drives, if you've got them.

Here are some of the results I got over three years ago. I tested both SATA & NVME SSDs with USB 3.0 (5Gbps) & USB 3.1 (10Gbps). Note that the sequential read/write speeds are faster with USB 3.1 but about the same or marginally faster for random read/write speeds. Since most reads/writes are probably random then your conclusion is right.

jimbo45 · Oct 21, 2023

bobkn said:
Maybe I'm different from most. My first M.2 drive was a PCI-E X2 (not NVME) one. SATA M.2 drives seem like relics.

From a performance viewpoint, I doubt that an NVME drive would be significantly faster than a SATA one in an external enclosure. I'm not suggesting that you throw away your old SATA M.2 drives, if you've got them.

That enclosure supports both protocols - and it's fast. USBC with proper transfer and buffering can provide almost as good as native mobo bus speeds particularly if there are several internal drives (of any variety) - especially as a lot of the I/O processing is done in the hardware chip inside the caddy rather than in contention on the main mobo's I/O bus and also in contention with the CPU for the I/O interrupts.

Streamlined Dual M.2 Protocol - A single bay that supports two protocols not only accommodates NVMe solid state drives with B key or B+M key, but also NGFF SATA with B+M key SSDs.

For price and performance per MB and convenience in being able to attach these without issue to different machines is definitely worth while.

Cheers
jimbo