Storage upgrade has always been an exciting part in PC DIY and some of the enthusiasts would actually reuse the old storage drive as an external storage device instead of just letting it go at a lower price. Whether it's a M.2 SSD, 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch drive or SSD, you can find the enclosure or docking system for it easily from retail shop or online retailers.
The Transcend TS-CM80S we'll be reviewing today is one of the M.2 SSD enclosure kit you can find on the market if you have an old M.2 SSD at your disposal. Special thanks to Transcend for providing us with the TS-CM80S SSD enclosure kit, and let's see what kind of performance we can expect from the 'old' SSD with the TS-CM80S!
Unboxing
The TS-CM80S ships in a simple packaging with Trascend's usual white-red color scheme, where some of the product features highlighted at the front of the box. Other details such as its technical specification and package content can be found at the back of the box.
In the package, you'll get some product catalog, quick start guide, warranty card, screw drivers for installation, a USB type-A to USB type-C data cable, the metal enclosure, PCB to mount the M.2 SSD, screws and cover for the enclosure.
The PCB included is able to fit M.2 SSD of 2240, 2260 and 2280 form factor. In case if you're planning to upgrade your existing M.2 SSD to a better one, you can make use of the old M.2 SSD as a high-speed portable storage device with the TS-CM80S.
Installation
The installation is pretty straight forward here, just get your SSD ready, mount it on the PCB and secure it with the screws and tool provided.
Once you're done mounting the SSD, slide the PCB into the metal enclosure and secure it with the screws and metal cover included.
The final touch is optional though, but the thin cover included gives the TS-CM80S a cleaner appearance if installed. If you're planning to swap the SSD inside in the near future, we would advice you to not install the thin cover.
Synthetic Benchmark
CrystalDiskMark
Developed by a Japanese coder that goes by the nickname Hiyohiyo, CrystalDiskMark is one of the most frequent used SSD Benchmark utility to measure SSD's read and write performance.
ATTO Disk Benchmark
The most frequently used benchmarking utility by many manufacturers for performance specification. As ATTO Disk Benchmark uses compressible data rather than compressible data, it results in higher benchmark scores. We've run the benchmark with transfer size ranged from 0.5KB to 8192KB and a total length of the test to be 256MB.
AS SSD Benchmark
Widely used SSD benchmarking utility that uses incompressible data to simulate the worst possible scenario for an SSD and thus giving a much lower sequential read and write speed result than what has been stated by the manufacturer as a result of the heavy workload.
Anvil's Storage Utilities
By far the most complete SSD Benchmark utility available. The Anvil's Storage Utilities not only comes with the standard SSD Benchmark function, it also includes other functions such as endurance testing and threaded I/O read, write and mixed tests and option to configure the compressibility of the test data.
Real World Performance
For real life performance test, we've conducted a quick and simple file transfer test using compressible and incompressible data to see how will the SSD perform with the enclosure.
Compressible Data
We started the test by copying our Overwatch client folder from the SSD installed on the TS-CM80S to another SSD on our system. The peak read performance achieved in this test appears to be lower than the 300MB/s read performance as shown in the synthetic benchmark, but do note that it involves a 1GB compressible data at the point where this screenshot - so 300MB/s is actually achievable if the data that is being transferred is larger in size.
As for the write performance, there's nothing much to worry about as its performance is pretty much close to the 180MB/s to 200MB/s result as what we have observed in the set of synthetic benchmark.
Incompressible Data
Moving on to the incompressible data test, we copied a Windows 10 64-bit ISO file from the the SSD installed on the TS-CM80S to the same SSD on our system which we've used for the compressible data test. The observed result of the peak read performance achieved shows that it's isn't just as good when incompressible data is involved.
The write performance on the other hand, is showing a minimal drop in performance, 166MB/s peak write performance with incompressible data. So there's nothing much to worry about if the speed copying data to the SSD is more of your concern.
Verdict
Although you won't be getting the full potential out of the SSD with the TS-CM80S, it will still give you the performance that goes pretty close or if not, on par to most of the portable SSD out there which will cost you a few hundred extra.
For those of you who is planning for an upgrade on the M.2 SSD on your system but planning to let go of the old one after the upgrade, the TS-CM80S M.2 SATA To USB 3.1 SSD Enclosure Kit is something that's worth to consider for.
For those of you who is planning for an upgrade on the M.2 SSD on your system but planning to let go of the old one after the upgrade, the TS-CM80S M.2 SATA To USB 3.1 SSD Enclosure Kit is something that's worth to consider for.
Pros
- Compact and easy to carry around
- Allow you to turn your old M.2 SSD into a high-speed portable storage device
- Easy to install, installation tools included
Cons
- SSD will not be performing at its rated peak performance
