Perhaps you’ve come across a nice bargain for a 2230 NVMe SSD as I have and decided it would be nice to make that into a speedy external portable storage solution. While you could chuck it into an ordinary case that would accommodate a 2280 (and it would work just fine), the empty space seems to be a bit of a waste and sometimes you want something a little more compact.
Thankfully, trawling around AliExpress, I seemed to find the perfect solution in the form of the Jeyi ThunderRate enclosure. This is often listed for about US$13-14 normally (and I purchased it at that price), but I have seen it drop to US$7 on special. I guess I’ll have to hand in my OzBargain card now …
Unboxing
The item arrived in a somewhat uninspired, plain brown cardboard box with labels all over. The labels keep the box sealed, preventing its contents from escaping, but they don’t have all that much information about the product itself. I bought it under the listing with a “style” of zebra2230 with an SKU of 739730444130.
While the box felt rather light, I was pleasantly surprised by the inclusions when I opened up the box.
You get both an A-C and a C-C cable, a lot more thermal pads than you should ever need, a lanyard strap, a screw (which doesn’t seem to fit this model), a screwdriver, a quick-start guide in Chinese only and the enclosure itself (packed inside the bubble-envelope for added protection).
The cables themselves felt high-quality and even had customised printing on their metallic plug bodies.
The enclosure was made of metal and felt like a nice and solid piece of material. From the top, there is a light-pipe for an LED indicator and the “zebra” stripe pattern. The end of the drive has a wide slot for threading through a strap or lanyard.
The underside has the metal plate retained by a screw that allows access to the insides. This plate has horizontal grooves in it. Being fully metal, the whole unit serves as a heatsink.
Even the edges get a pair of channels milled into it. This is both a nice style touch but also adds to the surface area which should improve heat dissipation ever-so-slightly.
The short side nearest the LED has the USB-C connector and just looking at the fit, it seems like a job well done.
The orange thermal pad squares seem to have fabric reinforcement in them. There is a screw, but it doesn’t fit this unit – perhaps it’s for other models but the factory decides to use the same accessory set to save on unique packing requirements. The lanyard (or more like a wrist-strap) is somewhat thin for the slot and likes to slide around, but I suppose it’s better than nothing.
Inside the Unit
Removing the lid, we are greeted by a blue PCB covering the full length of the unit. It is apparent that the lid and its screw also serves to secure the SSD into place – no additional retention mechanism required.
Removing the two screws allows the PCB to come out for further examination.
It is nice to see that there is a thermal pad inside already, which helps transfer heat from the chipset into the top casing.
A closer look at the PCB top shows the silkscreen which suggests the use of M-key SSDs only (i.e. NVMe compatible only). The 583 10G is hinting at the use of the Jmicron JMS583 chipset which operates on a 10Gbit/s USB3.x bus.
Looking at the underside, we can see this PCB has a code of U043-V1.2 and is quite well packed. There seems to be a location for a fan connection as well. The amount of solder on the USB-C connector pins is pitiful, but the connections do seem to be made.
To nobody’s surprise, it does use a JMS583 chipset, as alluded to by the top-side and as another cheap Chinese enclosure previously reviewed also uses.
Quick Test
Plugging it in, it was detected with VID 0x152D and PID 0x583 with REV 0x0212. This is a more traditional ID for JMS583-based enclosures.
Read speeds were in-line with expectations with the SN740 fitted inside. The ID appears to be rewritten as “NVME USB3.2” by the firmware.
Just like the other JMS-based enclosure, it seems it is interfering with some of the translation as TRIM appears to be missing from features. Nevertheless, the SN740 does get hot under load, despite having thermal pads cut into shape to cover the full surface and the enclosure sitting at a toasty 59 degrees C (likely even hotter), the drive was measuring 76 degrees C under load. It would seem that the smaller size of the enclosure means less heat dissipation area, so even if it is made of metal, the SN740 still manages to get itself quite hot.
No data integrity errors occurred and the transfer rates are roughly in line with expectations.
Conclusion
I would have to say that the Jeyi ThunderRate 2230 USB3.2 2230 enclosure is quite a neat package. The fully-metal case feels solid and well crafted and its fully equipped bundle of accessories including cables and thermal pads is a great touch especially considering the price. It is just about as compact as it could possibly be, but because of the limited surface area, can still get a bit too hot to the touch when working hard. The use of a JMS583 chipset is not particularly outstanding, but it does the job just fine (although I’m not sure if it truly breaks TRIM). Definitely a good product for those looking to build portable storage that is a little more compact than the average 2280-in-a-box.
I just finished putting together an Orico 30mm adapter, the clear plastic model with a metal heatsink. I found a “2-in-1” short USBC cable – has a USBC to USBA adapter connected to it with a short plastic strap that is convenient. One has to be sure to get a cable with USBC speed, tho – there are a lot of “charging” cables with USB2 speeds.
While browsing around, I did find the Orico model you were talking about, but it was a bit more expensive and I wasn’t too keen on the mixed clear plastic and heatsink construction. I was hoping for the full-metal-body to provide more surface area for heat dissipation as some 2230s get quite hot. But it does look rather cool and is reminiscent of the full-clear cases Orico did for 2.5″ drives (https://goughlui.com/2019/11/16/review-orico-2139u3-2-5-usb3-0-external-sata-hard-drive-enclosure/) which I was quite fond of. I suspect your Orico case might have a Realtek-based chipset like all the other Orico NVMe products I’ve tested to date … which would be a positive (in my books at least).
That being said, I do have some USB-C to USB-A adapters with USB 3.0 SuperSpeed lanes connected, but I still find them less dependable than carrying two cables, as one has a strange tendency only to provide SuperSpeed when connected in one orientation but not the other and sometimes I get strange dropouts on larger file transfers on more marginal USB 3.x ports. I suspect this is a signal integrity issue, but potentially also power could be an issue too as putting more contacts in the way adds a tiny bit of resistance which might matter to such SSDs as they frequently have power ratings which push USB-A ports close to their limit (ordinarily 900mA at 5V for 4.5W total).
– Gough