Asus ROG Strix Aiolos assessment: A quick, colourful, easy-install 20Gbps enclosure

Finest Costs Right this moment: Asus ROG Strix Aiolos 20Gbps NVMe enclosure

Asus’s ROG Strix Aiolos 20Gbps USB 3.2×2 enclosure is among the classier such merchandise to have handed by way of PCWorld’s portal. It’s quick, sturdily constructed, opens with out instruments, helps each M.2 SATA and NVMe, and serves up an RGB lighting strip you can management with Asus’s software program. It’s not the least costly 20Gbps field I’ve seen, nevertheless it’s among the finest.

Learn on to be taught extra, then see our roundup of the very best exterior drives for comparability.

What are the Aiolos’s options?

The Asus Aiolos is a 20Gbps USB 3.2×2 SSD enclosure that may settle for a single 2280, 2260, and 2242 (22mm extensive, 80/60/42mm lengthy) kind issue NVMe SSD. The enclosure measures 4.55 x 1.8 x 0.6 inches (approximate) and weighs solely round 1.4 ounces.

“Device-less” set up is a significant Aiolos promoting level. The enclosure opens simply for set up thanks to 2 spring-loaded latches on the aspect of the unit, that are proven within the first two photographs beneath.

I put “tool-less” in quotes as there’s a caveat — the thumb screw that holds down the NVMe SSD took greater than a little bit of drive to take away. Beginning it with a flathead screwdriver (the screw is slotted) would’ve been loads simpler, however I continued so I may affirm that it’s truly “tool-less.” It was not, nevertheless, painless.

Proven beneath are the tag and steel hook for straightforward attachment of the Aiolos to backpack straps and the like. Asus consists of quick, however extensive velcro attachment straps to assist out with straps or strings that may be too skinny to remain securely contained in the hook. Why not a spring clip? Look could be my guess.

As to that RGB lighting, it’s an angled LED strip on the highest of the Aiolos that interfaces with, and is configurable utilizing, Asus’s Aura Sync (now a part of the Asus Armoury Crate utility).

Jon L. Jacobi

Aura Sync features and results embody colour choice, strobing, colour biking, rainbow, and so on. No matter impact you select may be shared/synced amongst all Asus RGB gadgets, making a coordinated, all-encompassing mild present.

The controller/bridge chip contained in the Aiolos is a Realtek RTL9220VC. The SSD can be of your selecting. I did point out that that is an unpopulated enclosure, proper?

Asus presently warranties the Aiolos for 2 years. I say presently as a result of I used to be knowledgeable that current (and troublesome to find) guarantee insurance policies are being debated. They might be shorter, or longer by the point you learn this.

How a lot is the Asus Aiolos?

The Asus Aiolos retails for $70 in the mean time. Contemplating the standard of the development, attractiveness, efficiency, and RGB lighting, that value appears truthful sufficient. However there are definitely cheaper USB 3.2×2 enclosures on the market.

How briskly is the Asus Aiolos?

The Asus Aiolos is the second quickest 20Gbps NVMe SSD enclosure we’ve examined, falling behind solely Asus’s personal TUF Gaming A2 by a slim margin. Yup. Fratricide. Regardless, it bested the whole lot else and I’ve zero complaints in regards to the Aiolos’s efficiency.

CrystalDiskMark 8 rated the Aiolos as an excellent sequential performer. You may learn in regards to the competing GlyphAtom EX20 right here.

However, the TUF Gaming A2 whomped it within the CrystalDiskMark 8 4K exams. The Aiolos isn’t unhealthy, the A2 is simply that good.

In our real-world 48GB transfers, the Aiolos greater than held its personal. Each in Home windows Explorer and with FastCopy.

FastCopy makes far much less of a distinction with very lengthy recordsdata, and in some circumstances can truly be slower as with the Aiolos, which turned in an excellent time beneath Home windows Explorer.

Efficiency isn’t a difficulty with the Asus Aiolos — it’s principally on par with or higher than anything available on the market. Base your shopping for choice on different components.

Do you have to purchase the Asus Aiolos?

If you would like a stable piece of 20Gbps storage package that appears good from any angle and is simple to tote, the Aiolos is worthy of the expenditure. And I dig the lighting.

How we check

Drive exams presently make the most of Home windows 11 24H2, 64-bit operating off of a PCIe 4.0 Samsung 990 Professional in an Asus Z890-Creator WiFi (PCIe 4.0/5.0) motherboard. The CPU is a Core Extremely i5 225 feeding/fed by two Essential 64GB DDR5 5600MHz modules (128GB of reminiscence complete).

10Gbps, 20Gbps USB, and Thunderbolt 5/USB4 are built-in into the motherboard. Intel CPU/GPU graphics are used. Inside PCIe 5.0 SSDs concerned in testing are mounted in an Asus Hyper M.2 x16 Gen5 adapter card sitting in a PCIe 5.0 slot. Exterior enclosures are examined utilizing a Essential T710.

We run the CrystalDiskMark 8.04 (and 9), AS SSD 2, and ATTO 4 artificial benchmarks (to maintain article size down, we report solely the primary) to seek out the storage system’s potential efficiency. Then we run a sequence of 48GB switch and 450GB write exams utilizing Home windows Explorer drag and drop to point out what customers will see throughout routine copy operations, in addition to the far sooner FastCopy run as administrator to point out what’s attainable.

A 25GBps two-SSD RAID 0 array on the aforementioned Asus Hyper M.2 x16 Gen5 is used because the second drive in our switch exams. Previously the 48GB exams had been carried out with a RAM disk serving that objective.

Every check is carried out on a NTFS-formatted and newly TRIM’d drive so the outcomes are optimum. Word that in regular use, as a drive fills up, efficiency might lower resulting from much less NAND for secondary caching, in addition to different components. This subject has abated considerably with the present crop of SSDs using extra mature controllers and much sooner, late-generation NAND.