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Review on StarTech.com Portable 2.5in USB 3.0 External SATA III SSD Hard Drive Enclosure with UASP and Tool-less Installation (S2510BPU33) by Zachary Spaulding

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Maximum speed! 418 MB/s write and 432 MB/s read

Most drive enclosures that list SATA III compatibility are actually SATA I or SATA II interfaces, which accept SATA III drives, but work with them at a much slower speed. Most drives that list USB 3 support (up to 5Gb/s) only support bulk data transfer, and there's benefit in throwing them away. I found this to be the ONLY case that offers true SATA III and USB 3 with UASP. Measured on a Retina Macbook Pro (Late 2013) with OS X 10.9.2 and a Startech hard drive enclosure with a 1TB Samsung 840 Evo SSD: 418 MB/s write speed and 432 MB/s read speed. Measured by Black Magic Disk Speed Test App. The Mac System Report / Software / Extensions entry confirms that the UASP driver is loaded when the drive is connected to the UBP port: IOUSBAttachedSCSI version 1.0.5 is located at /System/Library/Extensions/ IOUSBAttachedSCSI.kext The combined Weight of the case and Samsung SSD is 4.4 ounces (very light - it seems empty). The activation LED is a bit bright in my opinion. The case is attractive but the logo is very prominent. Assembly was easy (took about a minute).

Pros
  • Electronics
Cons
  • Faulty