Crucial P2 1TB NVMe drive in External USB 3.2 enclousure

Megahertz said:

So the 1TB Crucial P2 NVMe it is working at half the default speed on the combo, limited by the USB 3.2

Yes, the USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) interface is the weakest link in this chain. But for about $100, it gives me a hella fast external drive. It's fun to play with, I've got a spare 1TB drive I can pop into a machine if I need to, and I have an external reader for any NVMe that I take out of another machine. All 4 of my desktops have NVMe's. 2 of them have 2 drives each, and 2 of them have 1 drive each with room for 1 more.

Fabler2 said:

I use the same enclosure and the drive is WD Blue SN550 @40% used. Only have USB 3.1. Speed much lower than yours but still happy with the results. Gets a bit warm creating Macrium backups.

Your "USB 3.1" speed seems to correspond also to a 10G link (10 gigabits/s, 3.1 Gen. 2, 3.2 Gen. 2x1). No way you can get that sequential speeds with a USB 5G (5 gigabits/s, USB 3.0, 3.2 Gen. 1x1) link, the maximum in real use is about 450-500 MB/s. USB nomenclature is are very confusing.

You can monitor the temperature with Hard Disk Sentinel.

Yeah, they really confused everybody with the USB 3 stuff with all of the renaming.

USB 1.0 offered a max speed of 12Mbps
USB 2.0 offered a max speed of 480Mbps

USB 3.0 when it came out, offered a transfer rate called SuperSpeed which is 5Gbps (about 10x faster than USB 2)
Then USB 3.1 came out offering SuperSpeed 10Gbps.
Then, they renamed USB 3.0 to USB 3.2 Gen 1...it's the same speed and offers 5Gbps
They then renamed USB 3.1 to USB 3.2 Gen 2... still offering that same 10Gbps over USB-A and USB-C connections

We also have USB 3.2 Gen 2x2, which is available via USB-C only using 2 lanes of IO, so it offers 20Gbps
USB 3.0 was then renamed to USB 3.2 Gen 1

Theoretical max
5Gbps = 625 Megabytes per second
10Gbps = 1250 Megabytes per second
20Gbps = 2500 Megabytes per second

Fabler2 said:

I use the same enclosure and the drive is WD Blue SN550 @40% used. Only have USB 3.1. Speed much lower than yours but still happy with the results. Gets a bit warm creating Macrium backups.

Well, your speeds are 964MB/sec compared to my 1024MB/sec. I wouldn't say that this is much lower, I'd say it's pretty much the same. It's within 10%.

As others have mentioned, you are obviously running on a Gen 2 10Gbps USB port. If you are over 500, you aren't on 5Gbps.

You have to not only know what USB version it is but what generation it is.



USB
USB - Wikipedia

Benchmark of Intel 660p 2TB M.2 NVME on my laptop.
Note on left is USB-C 3.1 and on right is USB-A 3.0.



M.2 SATA SSDs don't gain as much when connected to USB 3.1.

MisterEd said:

M.2 SATA SSDs don't gain as much when connected to USB 3.1.

Because the limiting factor is SATA, no USB.