ASUS TUF Gaming A1 M.2 SSD Enclosure
Want to find a M.2 SSD external box that is clean, durable, waterproof and dustproof? ASUS TUF Gaming A1 M.2 SSD external box may be the best choice. The entire external box is made of aluminum metal. The metal casing improves the heat dissipation performance, and it has passed the MIL-STD-810H 516.8 Procedure IV military regulation for drop protection, which requires that electronic devices must still be able to function normally when dropped from 1.22 meters on a hard ground. With IP68 certification, it can be immersed in 1.5 meters for half an hour without any problems. It is really not easy to clean the canal.
TUF Gaming A1 is extruded from aluminum alloy. The thick shell provides protection and heat dissipation for the M.2 SSD. The titanium gray surface is anodized and sprayed. There is a three-dimensional TUF logo on the front, and horizontal pit texture is added to enhance the The heat dissipation area and enhanced anti-skid, the TUF GAMING logo is printed on the back, and there are button holes on the top to match with keychains and carabiners. The appearance design is very military-like.
In terms of specifications, the size is 125.28mm x 54.27mm x 13.3mm, and the weight is about 142g. There is a white LED indicator on the front, and a set of USB 3.2 Gen2 Type C ports at the bottom, providing data transmission and reading speeds up to 10Gbps.
Including the TUF GAMING A1 SSD external board in the box, a USB Type-C to Type-C transmission cable, a hexagonal tool key, and an installation manual are also attached.
Realtek RTL9210B SSD Bridge chip
▲ Disassemble the internal structure of TUF Gaming A1
After disassembling the case, you can see that TUF Gaming A1 has a set of M.2 SSD interfaces inside, supporting M.Key 2230/2242/2260/2280 size PCIe / SATA M.2 SSD products, in order to provide better heat dissipation As a result, the high-efficiency heat conduction pad is pre-attached so that the heat of the SSD components can be directly conducted to the aluminum metal casing.
▲ Realtek RTL9210B-CG SSD Bridge chip ▲ Support M.Key 2230/2242/2260/2280 size
The main controller adopts REALTEK RTL9210B-CG SSD Bridge chip, supports USB 3.2 Gen 2 to PCIe Gen3 x2 / SATA bridging function, supports up to 10Gbps transmission speed, excellent performance, good compatibility, supports UASP (USB Attached SCSI Protocol) transmission The architecture allows USB3.0 to transmit data in the same manner as the SCSI transfer protocol, without waiting for the completion of the previous data transfer before transferring data, and improves the CPU usage, data delay and waiting time.
Pass IP68 waterproof and dustproof certification
▲ Both the interior and the USB terminal are equipped with silicone rubber waterproof rings
One of the selling points of TUF Gaming A1 is that it has passed the International Protection Marking (IEC 60529) standard IP68 certification. IP6X refers to the solid protection ability, which means that it is completely sealed and can completely block any dust intrusion into the device. IPX8 refers to the liquid protection ability , which represents the waterproof ability that can be soaked in still 1.5 meters deep water for 30 minutes.
This time we found a shallow pool for testing. The water depth was about 50cm. After soaking for about 5 minutes, the TUF Gaming A1 M.2 SSD still worked normally. However, I would like to remind everyone that IP68 is based on still water with a pressure of 1.5 meters. These shallow pools are actually filled with chlorine gas and disinfectant water will actually damage the metal port of the USB-C. Long-term soaking will cause the port to oxidize. Don’t use it to wash it with water jets or shower heads. IP68 is underwater protection, not anti-spray.
MIL-STD-810H military drop protection
Another selling point of TUF Gaming A1 is that it passes MIL-STD-810H 516.8 Procedure IV military regulations to prevent drops. Many people think of tanks as strong when they hear military regulations. In fact, MIL-STD-810H has many different standards and details. This time, 516.8 Procedure IV is a military drop prevention for electronic products. It is a simulated soldier who accidentally drops an electronic product on a hard surface when he hangs it on his waist. At a height of 1.22 meters, both sides, 4 sides, 8 corners and 12 sides, complete 26 drop tests in not more than 5 samples, the electronic equipment must still be in normal use.
This time we found a very hard ground. A single sample was about 1.5 meters high and dropped 5 times with a heavy hand. Although the shell was obviously damaged, the SSD could still be used normally.
Thermal Test:
The heat dissipation test uses WD Black SN850 512GB NVMe SSD. SN850 is notoriously hot. Compared with the ASUS TUF Gaming A1 M.2 SSD external box, the temperature difference between normal use and naked running without the heat dissipation cover is used. The temperature difference between the two after 15 minutes of idle time is 6 °C, run the AIDA64 Stress Disk Test for 10 minutes, and you can see that the SSD temperature can vary by 15°C.
ATTO Disk Benchmark test:
ATTO Disk Benchmark is a disk performance testing tool launched by ATTO. This test uses a data size of 256MB, and increases the data size to 64MB in multiples of 0.5K, 1K, and 2K to test the impact of different file sizes on the speed of disk writing. , and the test results are expressed in columnar graphs. It uses sequential writing to test the best read and write capabilities of the disk, which is the theoretical value benchmark test that marks the highest performance of products in the industry.
Cooler Master Oracle AIR adopts the USB 3.2 Gen 2 specification, with a maximum transmission speed of 10Gbps. No matter how fast the M.2 SSD is used, the read and write performance bottleneck falls at the level of 950~1050MB/s, and the ATTO Disk Benchmark test recorded a maximum of 1006.39 MB/S Read, 984.62MB/s Write.
CrystalDiskMark test:
CrystalDiskMark is a set of disk test programs developed by Hiyohiyo, a Japanese. It provides continuous disk read and write speed tests and 4K random multiplex read and write performance tests with different queue depths (Queue Depth).
Tested with CrystalDiskMark version 8.0.4, the sequential read and write speeds of Cooler Master Oracle AIR Q8T1 are 1,038.91 MB/s Read and 1,016.62 MB/s Write; the sequential read and write speeds of Q1T1 are 847.07MB/s Read and 869.42 MB/s Write ; 4K Q32T1 random multitasking read and write speeds are 154.15 MB/s Read, 162.77 MB/s Write; 4K Q1T1 random multitasking read and write speeds are 39.30 MB/s Read, 48.94 MB/s Write.
AS SSD Benchmark test:
AS SSD Benchmark is also one of the main benchmarks for testing SSDs in the current industry. On the premise of not using system memory acceleration, it tests the read and write performance and speed of SSDs in all aspects by measuring the reading and writing of large files of 1GB.
Cooler Master Oracle AIR’s performance benchmark score in AS SSD Benchmark is 725, of which the read performance score is 275, the write performance score is 301, and the 4K random read and write performance with a queue depth of 64 is 151.07 MB/s Read and 164.32 MB/s Write.
Anvil’s Storage Utilities Test:
Anvil’s Storage Benchmark is a set of professional disk performance testing software. It has a built-in IO Threaded test program, which can analyze the IO performance of multitasking read, write, and mixed read and write of a disk with a queue depth of 4K 32.
Mainly limited by the bottleneck of the USB 3.2 Gen2 interface, the continuous read performance is about 950~1000MB/s, and the continuous write performance is between 850MB/s~950MB/s. 4K random read and write is a test of Realtek RTL9210B – With the processing power of GC, the read/write performance of 4KQD16 is about 39,000~42,000 IOPS, which is very qualified for a USB external storage box.
ASUS TUF Gaming A1 M.2 SSD Enclosure
Price: HK$438
Enquiry: ASUS Hong Kong (3582-4770)
Editor’s comment:
The selling point of TUF Gaming A1 M.2 SSD external box is that it is sturdy and three-proof. For users who take it out on the street, the most feared thing is that they accidentally drop it, and then it is broken. No data is exposed. This is only through MIL- STD-810H 516.8 Procedure IV military standard and IP68, Xiaobian also found that there is nothing wrong with it, and the thick aluminum metal heat dissipation performance is first-class, buy it at HK$438 and buy it with peace of mind.