Internals and Roundup Contenders
Internals
Outside things are nice and sturdy, though a bit on the larger side for what is only holding an M.2 form factor part plus an adapter PCB and Intel TB3 controller.
Lots going on inside. There are several thermal pads and a relatively large aluminum heatsink (right). Since the housing is plastic, the chunk of aluminum acts more as a simple thermal mass, which levels out the impact of short bursty loads placed on the X5.
The M.2 PCB layout and components are identical to the 970 EVO. Green PCB though.
Contenders
We grabbed a suitable round of competing products, including the Samsung T5 (USB 3.1 Gen1), TEKQ Rapide (TB3), MyDigitalSSD's Boost (USB 3.1 Gen2), and a generic JMS583 equipped NVMe to USB 3.1 (Gen2) adapter, fresh off the slow boat from China.
Ken already popped open the TEKQ Rapide in his review, so I opened only the parts that we needed to know the comparison SSDs for this article. It seemed fitting to go with a 970 EVO 1TB to match the X5, and the Boost is equipped with a pair of 250GB SATA 850 EVOs in RIAD-0.
I don’t understand why they
I don’t understand why they make these so big. Look at all that empty board space and empty space in the enclosure.
Did I read it correctly that
Did I read it correctly that it only works with PC’s/Macs that have thunderbolt, as such not compatible with any AMD or Intel systems without THundebolt?
That should be really emphasized/underlined/bolded/etc to show that it has limited compatibility.
Interesting spects, but not useful to many
No-one seems to have a USB to
No-one seems to have a USB to NVMe adaptor out yet, so even with USB 3.1 the best you can do is SATA speeds.
The issue based on what i
The issue based on what i read is that current Thunderbolt interface does not fall back to USB interface (the current hardware, not the protocol design) as such even USB is uesless. You need Thunderbolt 3 to use this device, as such the volume of users is limited, very limited. 🙁
Strangely Intel’s newer TB3
Strangely Intel’s newer TB3 controller does support USB 3.1 Gen 2. So Alpine Ridge does not support USB while the newer Titan Ridge does support USB.
“Intel’s JHL7x40 family of Thunderbolt 3 controllers supports two main features of the TB3 technology, including PCIe 3.0 with 40 Gbps data transfer rate as well as USB 3.1 Gen 2 with 10 Gbps data transfer rate. The big difference is that Titan Ridge adds support for allowing two DisplayPort 1.4 streams to be encapsulated into the TB3 connection, versus two DisplayPort 1.2 streams in case of the previous-gen TB3 controllers. What isn’t changing here is the actual TB3 signaling standard or the cabling, so the total amount bandwidth offered by the previous-gen Alpine Ridge controllers and the new-gen Titan Ridge chips is the same.” (1)
(1)
“Intel Releases “Titan Ridge” Thunderbolt 3 Controllers: Adds DisplayPort 1.4 Support & USB-C Host Compatibility
by Anton Shilov on January 8, 2018 12:00 PM EST”
https://www.anandtech.com/show/12228/intel-titan-ridge-thunderbolt-3
Titan Ridge will support it,
Titan Ridge will support it, but the question is does it also have the additional logic necessary to translate from USB to NVMe…
Probably not much could be
Probably not much could be done for this drive but at least any USB 3.1 Gen 2/Gen 1 Type-C external HD/SSD device would work if the laptop or PC had that Titan Ridge controller and that PC/Laptop would also work with this TB3 only capable drive over its required TB3 connection.
So hopefully there are some laptop OEMs making use of the Titan Ridge IP and that would be the best solution. Hopefully Apple is updating their new MacBook refresh with at least that Titan Ridge TB3 IP. Even USB 3.2(20Gbs) is still not going to be able to support full PCIe x4 connectivity.
There are some USB 3.1 Gen 2 to NVMe enclosure products but that’s only PCIe x2 based and that’s going to be performance constrained anyways. TB3 appears to be the only solution to get at the full PCIe 3.0 x4 bandwidth.
The USB 3.2 standard makes use of a doubled up USB 3.1 gen 2(2, USB 3.1 Gen 2 channels Link Bonded) arrangement over the already existing Type-C cable’s USB 3.1 gen 2 channel and the Type-C Extra alt wiring for the other channel’s USB 3.1 gen 2 signaling, if I’m understanding it correctly. I just wonder if Intel will be doing something like that for any future higher speeds beyond TB3’s 40Gbs data rate.
How soon before TB3 is available for that stated open standard usage and others can begin making TB3 controllers and will AMD/others be able to add that to their chipsets sometime in the future. Thunderbolt Going Royalty-Free was announced in 2017, will it be later than 2018? Could TB3 be useful for GPU outputs also?
That JMS583 adapter (second
That JMS583 adapter (second from the right in the contenders pic) does NVMe to USB 3.1 Gen2 directly, but no TB3.
Awesome, thanks Allyn!
Awesome, thanks Allyn! Serves me right for skipping ahead to the conclusion. 🙂
Got a link or name for that
Got a link or name for that device you mentioned on Podcast #511? The M.2 to USB 3.1/3.2 Type C.
Edit: It appears to be called JMS583.
They say it’s not backwards
They say it’s not backwards compatible, but I think they mean specifically Thunderbolt 3 to USB Type C. I would bet this adapter works for back compat to Thunderbolt 2 (or even 1): https://www.amazon.com/Apple-MMEL2AM-Thunderbolt-USB-C-Adapter/dp/B01MQ26QIY/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1536103475&sr=8-5&keywords=usb+type+c+to+thunderbolt+2