ROG Strix Arion M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure review – Colourfully Effective Storage Solution

At first glance, the ROG Strix Arion SSD enclosure could be easily dismissed as a gaudy toy or some bizarre art deco inspired light stick fresh from Coachella but it’s gaudy looks belies its capabilities. Here’s our ROG Strix Arion review where we put their finest SSD enclosure to the test.

ASUS ROG Strix Arion M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure review – Build and Design

The humble SSD enclosure is perhaps the quintessence of basic product design with the whole affair being essentially a housing that enables you to bung in a solid state drive as an external storage solution while protecting the SSD from potential mishaps. While you’ve likely seen a plethora of them running around from smaller brands that involve bizarre combinations of vowels, they’re all also not much different from each other and are primarily boxy, simplistic affairs

The ROG Strix Arion M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD enclosure is as different to them as a cheap subcompact is from a sports car as it features a completely different level of build quality, a more practical design and, seeing as it’s a ROG device, Aura Sync RGB lighting which arguably makes it one, if not the only SSD currently available locally with that kind of bling. 

ASUS ROG Strix Arion SSD Enclosure Review – This housing is one of the few exceptional ones to feature Aura-Sync RGB lighting

Unfortunately, it’s also thrice as expensive as more conventional drives, running in at the RM215 mark, more so for the fact  that you’re only getting the housing itself without any SSDs within but you do get what you pay for with vastly superior build quality and an innovative design.

The  ROG Strix Arion SSD enclosure is designed to support M.2 PCIe NVMe solid state drives ranging from the long 2280 form factor all the way to the short and stubby 2240 SSD form factors.

The housing itself is hewn from machined aluminium and has an all-around rubber bumper that offers shock proofing to the overall design. In one corner of the angular housing is a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2×1 port that is rated for 10 Gbps data transfer speeds. The housing also ships with a USB-C to USB-C cable as well as a USB-C to USB-A cable to cater to almost all potential scenarios.

One end of the housing features the characteristic ROG eye logo along with a similarly RGB backlit cutout that can be viewed on both sides of the enclosure. It has a standard colour pattern that softly glows and cycles through all the colours of the spectrum though you need to connect it to a PC for this effect to work. Just above it is connected to an R-type carabiner for easy attachment to a belt or backpack.

To gain access to the enclosure, you have to slip off the rubber bumper and then pop the casing open with a pin. This in itself a major improvement as most competing designs typically require you to open a case with a screwdriver.

Once you’ve popped the case open, it’s simply a matter of slotting in the SSD and then using a thumbscrew to secure it to the circuit board. On the inside, ROG has lavished an impressive amount of attention to its design not just for its effectiveness but its practicality too.

The use of a thumb screw makes swapping out SSDs easy and the underside also features a heat pad to shunt heat away from the SSD and out through the metal enclosure to offer effective sustained operational temperatures. 

The thoughtfulness and practical aspects of the design are impressive, especially compared to the utilitarian, boxy nature of other enclosures in the market and its distinctive, angular looking and RGB-lit Aura Sync design does add a certain prestige if you happen to wander in gamer-centric circles.

ASUS ROG Strix Arion M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure review – Performance

For the purposes of the review, I added in the latest Samsung 980 Pro SSD into the enclosure itself and then subjected it to several popular SSD benchmarks while hooking it up to a Thunderbolt 4 port on a ROG Zephyrus M16 gaming laptop.

On paper, the ASUS ROG Strix Arion M.2 NVMe SSD enclosure is able to support 10GBps bandwidth over a USB-C 3.2 Gen2 connection though this is also contingent on if you have the right port.

In Crystal Disk Mark, the ROG Strix Arion housing performs well with 815.27MB/s in sequential read speeds and 767.53MB/s in write speeds. In the Anvil Storage Utilities benchmark, it achieved a respectable score of 4,047 with fast response times all around while the AS SSD Benchmark also achieved excellent speeds for an enclosure with 926.23MB/s in sequential read speeds and 890.60MB/s in write speeds.

As a test under practical field conditions, I transferred 66.6GB of test data from a PC to the ROG Arion enclosure itself from a USB-C 3.2 Gen2 port off a Zephyrus M16 gaming laptop and averaged 545MB/s transfer speeds, maxing out at 565MB/s with the whole operation complete in 2 minutes and 11 seconds. Temperatures were balmy, maxing out at 43°C which makes it uncomfortable to hold for extended periods of time.

Here’s how it stacks up officially on paper:

Specifications
Price RM215
Interface USB 3.2 Gen 2×1
Speed 10GBps
SSD compatibility M2 PCI Express 2230, 2242, 2260, 2280
Size/Weight 124.5 x 47.7 x 10.9mm / 98g
ROG Strix Arion SSD Enclosure Specifications

Should you buy the ROG Strix Arion SSD Enclosure?

The ROG Strix Arion SSD enclosure certainly costs a pretty penny with a substantial premium over more generic models but you get an effective if somewhat gaudy looking design that keeps your SSD safe while allowing it to achieve its full potential.

If you’re looking for an SSD enclosure and have a bit extra to spare, this is a very worthy and effective investment.

ROG Strix Arion review sample courtesy of Republic of Gamers. For more details visit https://rog.asus.com/my/storage/rog-strix-arion-model/ and to purchase visit https://s.lazada.com.my/s.V4AXY