Using NVME Optane drive in usb enclosure

cereberus · Mar 11, 2023

For various reasons, I replaced the 1 TB NVME Optane drive in my laptop with a normal 1 TB NVME (no optane drive) and laptop works great.

I put the optane nvme in a usb enclosure and it is seen ok, but when I copy to it (large or small files), I was getting write speeds of only around 80-100 MB/s on a usb 3.1 port, and often dropping as low as 20 MB/s.

The nvme drive now in laptop was in same usb enclosure and used to blitz along at writing of 500-600 MB/s.
I have just bought a new 1TB nvme (non optane drive) and put that in the enclosure - BOOM - write speeds back up to 500-600 MB/s!

My laptop does not have AHCI mode (no SATA slots). The internal NVMEs need IRST drivers.

When the optane drive was internal, it operated at typical nvme speeds - put it in a caddy and it is worse than a hard drive!

So my optane drive usb drive is only going to be used as for data backup syncing key folders where speed is not important (although it will take ages to do initial data transfer to it).

What I did notice is the optane drive runs very hot >75C when transferring data to it compared with <60 C for normal nvme drives.

I am not really looking for advice as I have replaced the drive, but I would be interested in other user experiences with optane nvme drives in a usb caddy?

Fiveish · Mar 11, 2023

What USB version connector does the enclosure use? Is this an M.2 enclosure or one that uses a PCie slot? What is the exact model of the two drives you are comparing?

Fiveish · Mar 11, 2023

Actually just looking at this, it's probably a bandwidth issue. What are the specs on the enclosure as well?

badrobot · Mar 11, 2023

This is why I try to avoid (as much as I can) components with proprietary technology. They usually just work at their best with compatible hardware.

Fiveish · Mar 11, 2023

badrobot said:
This is why I try to avoid (as much as I can) components with proprietary technology. They usually just work at their best with compatible hardware.

Yeah. I have limited knowledge of Optane as a brand, but the fact that 2 Lanes are used for actual NVME storage and 2 are used for the 32 GB of memory is probably "confusing" the enclosure driver. Intel would probably have to add support for the enclosure through an update to its drivers, but that's just my guess.

PerpetualCycle · Mar 11, 2023

Which Optane is it? The H20 is a hybrid that uses a small 32GB Optane cache in front of 900+some GB of QLC NAND. I believe for the cache to function, it requires Intel RST drivers. With a USB enclosure, for which RST is not available, it may only see the QLC NAND, which is slow as a hard drive.

glasskuter · Mar 11, 2023

I agree with geneo. From what I've read about it, without it being able to use IRST, speed would be slow as molasses. I know just enough to stay away from it. Scares the bejesus out of me. Must have scared a lot of other people too since Intel abandoned it and took a loss of half billion dollars. It's a shame there's not some kind of firmware update that one could use to turn it into a plain ol' nvme drive, but with such advanced technology I guess that thinking is pretty simplistic.

Hazel123 · Mar 11, 2023

I have two redundant optane drives now after replacing them. Was wondering what to do with them but sounds like using them for back up isn't good then. I was wondering if I could install them in a real slow low powered computer to speed it up?

cereberus · Mar 11, 2023

Fiveish said:
What USB version connector does the enclosure use? Is this an M.2 enclosure or one that uses a PCie slot? What is the exact model of the two drives you are comparing?

Both are nvme as shown here, one has optane module (Intel), other does not (Kingston nvme).

Caddy only accepts this type.

By the way, I have two caddys - same effect Kingston fast, Intel slow.

cereberus · Mar 11, 2023

Fiveish said:
Yeah. I have limited knowledge of Optane as a brand, but the fact that 2 Lanes are used for actual NVME storage and 2 are used for the 32 GB of memory is probably "confusing" the enclosure driver. Intel would probably have to add support for the enclosure through an update to its drivers, but that's just my guess.

Yeah - I think this is probably it.

My PC came with optane nvme.

Still it is still useful for backup usb storage - even though slow it is as fast as my older hdd backup drives.

cereberus · Mar 11, 2023

Hazel123 said:
I have two redundant optane drives now after replacing them. Was wondering what to do with them but sounds like using them for back up isn't good then. I was wondering if I could install them in a real slow low powered computer to speed it up?

Sure, why not if pc supports it.

Most older pcs do not support nvme and require tradition SATA SSDs.

There are converters but all the ones for laptops I have seen do not support nvme with m connection (nvme/irst).

edit: have found a couple at £15.

There are desktop converters e.g.

kurty · Dec 23, 2023

cereberus said:
For various reasons, I replaced the 1 TB NVME Optane drive in my laptop with a normal 1 TB NVME (no optane drive) and laptop works great.

I put the optane nvme in a usb enclosure and it is seen ok, but when I copy to it (large or small files), I was getting write speeds of only around 80-100 MB/s on a usb 3.1 port, and often dropping as low as 20 MB/s.

The nvme drive now in laptop was in same usb enclosure and used to blitz along at writing of 500-600 MB/s.
I have just bought a new 1TB nvme (non optane drive) and put that in the enclosure - BOOM - write speeds back up to 500-600 MB/s!

My laptop does not have AHCI mode (no SATA slots). The internal NVMEs need IRST drivers.

When the optane drive was internal, it operated at typical nvme speeds - put it in a caddy and it is worse than a hard drive!

So my optane drive usb drive is only going to be used as for data backup syncing key folders where speed is not important (although it will take ages to do initial data transfer to it).

What I did notice is the optane drive runs very hot >75C when transferring data to it compared with <60 C for normal nvme drives.

I am not really looking for advice as I have replaced the drive, but I would be interested in other user experiences with optane nvme drives in a usb caddy?

kurty · Dec 24, 2023

I can 100% confirm that this external enclosure https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08DNR22Q7?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details works with my 1Tb Intel Optane H10 SSD from my old HP Spectre x360. Recovered all my files and formatted it to use as external storage, so far so good.

mieleven · Apr 20, 2025

kurty said:
I can 100% confirm that this external enclosure https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08DNR22Q7?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details works with my 1Tb Intel Optane H10 SSD from my old HP Spectre x360. Recovered all my files and formatted it to use as external storage, so far so good.

Hello Kurty,

I have a situation with a 2019 HP Envy x360. One day it just would not boot, it shows a 3F0 error, no boot device found. So I understand now that this is an Intel H10 Optane drive. It passes the BIOS drive tests but the BIOS ISRT Optane section also shows this drive is disabled, everything had been working fine just one day it would not boot. I followed HP instructions to make a bootable USB drive with the Intel SRT driver (F6) folder but trying to load the Intel driver just spins and it never loads. But in any case I am not trying to re-install Windows yet, I want to recover the data.

I am trying to at least get the data from the drive, I know after much research however that without Intel drivers in Windows working it is not possible to read the data on the drive. If I could get into Windows I know I would be able to turn off the Optane cache and then in the BIOS too to have it act a regular NVME drive but in my case I cannot boot into Windows.

So when I saw this thread and your post Kurty, I went ahead and ordered the UGreen enclosure and I was able to remove the drive from the laptop and into the drive but looking at the drive from another Windows computer just says Data Inaccessible. So I am curious what steps you followed Kurty to have the data be readable? The only avenue I could find requires using the Windows Intel SRT application to disable the cache which writes whatever data it contained back to the main drive, then can use it as a regular NVME drive.

As mentioned I have another Windows computer but the Intel ISRT software refuses to install just keeps crashing only saying it couldn’t complete. But even if it did I don’t think that will help because having the drive in the USB enclosure means it is not viewed as an Intel Optane drive anyway…HP indicates the laptop is too old to support and Intel says talk to HP. Very frustrating.

Hazel123 · Apr 20, 2025

mieleven said:
Hello Kurty,

I have a situation with a 2019 HP Envy x360. One day it just would not boot, it shows a 3F0 error, no boot device found. So I understand now that this is an Intel H10 Optane drive. It passes the BIOS drive tests but the BIOS ISRT Optane section also shows this drive is disabled, everything had been working fine just one day it would not boot. I followed HP instructions to make a bootable USB drive with the Intel SRT driver (F6) folder but trying to load the Intel driver just spins and it never loads. But in any case I am not trying to re-install Windows yet, I want to recover the data.

I am trying to at least get the data from the drive, I know after much research however that without Intel drivers in Windows working it is not possible to read the data on the drive. If I could get into Windows I know I would be able to turn off the Optane cache and then in the BIOS too to have it act a regular NVME drive but in my case I cannot boot into Windows.

So when I saw this thread and your post Kurty, I went ahead and ordered the UGreen enclosure and I was able to remove the drive from the laptop and into the drive but looking at the drive from another Windows computer just says Data Inaccessible. So I am curious what steps you followed Kurty to have the data be readable? The only avenue I could find requires using the Windows Intel SRT application to disable the cache which writes whatever data it contained back to the main drive, then can use it as a regular NVME drive.

As mentioned I have another Windows computer but the Intel ISRT software refuses to install just keeps crashing only saying it couldn’t complete. But even if it did I don’t think that will help because having the drive in the USB enclosure means it is not viewed as an Intel Optane drive anyway…HP indicates the laptop is too old to support and Intel says talk to HP. Very frustrating.

It might be the enclosure. I know when I had issues I just swapped the drive for a non optane one, reinstalled windows and programs and copied all my files back on. I vaguely remember though, having to try a couple of external NVME enclosures on it .......... Have you tried reading the drive in the enclosure in Linux?

I did have an issue with the Ugreen enclosure but can't remember what it was (maybe related to something else). So then got this one, which I use now.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08RVC6F9Y?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1&th=1

Do you have file backups on external hard drive maybe? As a last resort.

Edit: Some info here. Apparently you can only read an Optane drive if it's installed in a computer. Which isn't much help if it won't boot in any computer. Do you have another computer you could try the drive in?

"You cannot use a USB adapter (or docking station) to recover data from an Optane SSD unless the cache has been cleared. If the machine failed suddenly, this cache will NOT be clear. In this case, you need to install the drive in another PC/Laptop that both supports Optane SSDs and has Optane support enabled.

Just so you understand, the issue is that the USB adapter can only expose the SSD portion of the drive and cannot use the Optane cache data (the cache itself will appear as a raw SSD itself). If the cache has not been cleared, a portion of the SSD's file system and data files will be current in the cache and accessing the SSD portion without the cache being active (and this data available) will appear corrupted (and could easily be permanently corrupted further)"

Access to Files on NVME Optane Hard Drive

I recently had a laptop die on me (HP Spectre). It suddenly stopped booting. I'm hoping that the data on the hard drive is still available. I've removed the NVME Optane drive and I've been trying to use a docking station to access the files without success. I'm on my 4th docking station. The...

community.intel.com

Hazel123 · Apr 20, 2025

Or you could contact Ease US re data recovery ....

mieleven · Apr 20, 2025

Hazel123 said:
It might be the enclosure. I know when I had issues I just swapped the drive for a non optane one, reinstalled windows and programs and copied all my files back on. I vaguely remember though, having to try a couple of external NVME enclosures on it .......... Have you tried reading the drive in the enclosure in Linux?

I did have an issue with the Ugreen enclosure but can't remember what it was (maybe related to something else). So then got this one, which I use now.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08RVC6F9Y?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1&th=1

Do you have file backups on external hard drive maybe? As a last resort.

Edit: Some info here. Apparently you can only read an Optane drive if it's installed in a computer. Which isn't much help if it won't boot in any computer. Do you have another computer you could try the drive in?

"You cannot use a USB adapter (or docking station) to recover data from an Optane SSD unless the cache has been cleared. If the machine failed suddenly, this cache will NOT be clear. In this case, you need to install the drive in another PC/Laptop that both supports Optane SSDs and has Optane support enabled.

Just so you understand, the issue is that the USB adapter can only expose the SSD portion of the drive and cannot use the Optane cache data (the cache itself will appear as a raw SSD itself). If the cache has not been cleared, a portion of the SSD's file system and data files will be current in the cache and accessing the SSD portion without the cache being active (and this data available) will appear corrupted (and could easily be permanently corrupted further)"

Access to Files on NVME Optane Hard Drive

I recently had a laptop die on me (HP Spectre). It suddenly stopped booting. I'm hoping that the data on the hard drive is still available. I've removed the NVME Optane drive and I've been trying to use a docking station to access the files without success. I'm on my 4th docking station. The...

community.intel.com

Thanks Hazel123, this is why I am trying to find out how Kurty was able to see the data…in Reddit post I found someone that had a whole Optane motherboard and used that to recover data so that is why I had some hope when I saw Kurty’s post. This is actually my daughter’s laptop and she has some data on OneDrive but not nearly everything apparently and no other backup. I will try to make a Linux CD to boot into but I think the next step now is going to be to try an M.2 PCIe adapter so that both parts of the Optane drive can be read hopefully but that also requires bifurcation support from the motherboard then I still have an issue of not being able to install the Intel Storage and Memory application to try to convert it to a non-Optane drive. Then again there could be an issue with the Optane 32 GB cache so without that working the data on the drive is unusable so this whole exercise may be for naught. Appreciate the replies though.

I will see if that Intel forum you linked had some potential options.

glasskuter · Apr 20, 2025

@mieleven Since so few devices support optane, it will probably be a slim to none chance that you will find one so IMO your chances of recovering the data from the drive are also slim to none. if you go that route. Professional data recovery companies could recover it but they are very, very expensive...like thousands of dollars expensive. I'm not doubting @kurty was able to recover his data, but it has always been my understanding it could not be done as a usb drive. Even internally, only certain slots support optane so no way usb does. Only one nvme slot in my PC does but I would never use an optane drive so it's immaterial.. You can see an official Intel response here. Re:How do I get my Data off my old Intel Optane SSD
Best of luck in your efforts but this is just one of the reasons why we advise anyone to backup their data for emergencies.

Berton · Apr 20, 2025

I have a 256GB NVMe M.2 drive [salvaged from a Notebook] in a Sabrent USB-C case. The model is Intel HBRPEKNX0101AH and label shows 16GB for the Optane. I wiped it using GPARTED on my Linux Mint desktop and ended up with a 238GB partition, no mention of Optane or other partition on it, works fine as a portable drive.

gunrunnerjohn · Apr 20, 2025

Hazel123 said:
It might be the enclosure. I know when I had issues I just swapped the drive for a non optane one, reinstalled windows and programs and copied all my files back on. I vaguely remember though, having to try a couple of external NVME enclosures on it .......... Have you tried reading the drive in the enclosure in Linux?

I did have an issue with the Ugreen enclosure but can't remember what it was (maybe related to something else). So then got this one, which I use now.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08RVC6F9Y?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1&th=1

I have the same enclosure, I have used it with several different brands of NVMe drives, no problems at all. The Optane memory is an odd duck, glad I never bit for that. :)

Using NVME Optane drive in usb enclosure

Well-known member

My Computer

Active member

My Computers

Active member

My Computers

Well-known member

My Computers

Active member

My Computers

Syzygy

My Computers

aka Mama Glass

My Computers

Well-known member

My Computer

Well-known member

Attachments

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computer

New member

My Computer

New member

My Computer

New member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computer

New member

My Computer

aka Mama Glass

My Computers

Ret. ATC

My Computers

Well-known member

My Computers

Similar threads