Silverstone has announced a high-speed external enclosure that supports M.2 form factor SSDs of various lengths as long as they are NVMe types. Sizes supported include 22mm x 42mm, 22mm x 60mm, and 22mm x 80mm.

Typical NVMe SSDs are 80mm long and shaped like a stick of bubblegum, like the Addlink S70 and WD Black SN750, two of the best SSDs for gaming. Shorter drives are typically used in some laptops and small form factor PCs.

Silverstone's new MS12 is compatible with these SSDs, featuring the ASMedia ASM2364 controller and a PCIe Gen3 x4 interface that converts to USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C. USB-C The theoretical maximum speed with the interface is 20 Gbps, equivalent to 2,500 MB/s.

While the loss of USB bandwidth due to overhead is unavoidable, Silverstone's own internal benchmarks show that, depending on the SSD, users can expect sequential read/write performance to be slightly above 2,000MB/s. The Samsung 960 Pro 512GB that Silverstone used in its testing can deliver up to 3,500 MB/sec sequential read and 2,100 MB/sec sequential write performance when installed in a PC. [MS12 is made of aluminum and doubles as a kind of giant heat sink. As such, it also incorporates thermal pads to dissipate heat away from the NAND flash memory module. [The MS12 is designed to effectively cool high-performance M.2 NVMe SSDs, keeping the installed SSDs running at maximum speed and stability even during write sessions as long as four hours or more," Silverstone said.

This is most useful when upgrading primary storage. With next-generation game consoles (PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X) and Microsoft's DirectStorage API for Windows 10, game developers will take advantage of faster SSDs, including PCIe 4.0 models that deliver transfer rates of up to approximately 7,000 MB/sec Motivation is greater than ever.

When upgrading to a faster SSD, an enclosure like the MS12 can effectively convert an older drive into a portable SSD, delivering faster performance than a typical USB flash drive. However, it must be an NVMe SSD and requires a USB-C port on the PC or laptop (or a USB-C to USB-A conversion adapter).

In other words, it has the potential to be a useful item, albeit with a few caveats. Nevertheless, Silverstone has not yet announced pricing or availability.