Recently, the prices of memory and solid-state drives have dropped significantly, so I bought a Western Digital SN570 solid-state drive and a Hikvision M.2 mobile hard drive enclosure on JD.com to use as a portable hard drive.

• Purchase link for Western Digital SN570 solid-state drive: https://u.jd.com/zql4VNP
• Purchase link for Hikvision M.2 mobile hard drive enclosure: https://u.jd.com/zulmFG8

This article provides a simple unboxing and speed test of the Hikvision M.2 mobile hard drive enclosure for reference.

Unboxing the Hikvision M.2 mobile hard drive enclosure

The image below shows the packaging box, which indicates a speed of 10Gbps.

It comes with two data cables, Type-C and USB interfaces.

The complete accessories include:

• Main body of the hard drive enclosure
• Heat sink
• Warranty card and manual
• Screwdriver and lanyard
• Two data cables (Type-C and USB)

The box is slightly wider and longer than a USB flash drive, made of alloy material, which feels of good quality and has a nice appearance.

The interface of the box is Type-C, which can be converted to USB through the connecting cable.

Speed test

I installed the Western Digital SN570 into the hard drive enclosure. The SN570 claims a speed of 3500MB/s, so the hard drive should not be a bottleneck.

Before starting the test, I specifically checked the USB interfaces on my motherboard (to avoid any bottleneck). The motherboard model used by xiaoz is MSI B450M MORTAR MAX. According to the official specifications of MSI, it has 2 3.2 Gen2 (10Gbps) interfaces and 6 3.2 Gen1 (5Gbps) interfaces.

I first connected it to the 3.2 Gen1 (5Gbps) interface for testing. The theoretical speed should reach 625MB/s, but the actual continuous read and write speed only reached slightly over 400MB/s, which did not meet the standard.

Next, I changed to the 3.2 Gen2 (10Gbps) interface for testing. The theoretical speed should reach 1250MB/s, but the actual continuous read and write speed only reached slightly over 900MB/s, still not meeting the standard.

I roughly calculated that the read and write speed of the 5Gbps interface deviated by about 30% from the standard, and the read and write speed of the 10Gbps interface deviated by about 28% from the standard. Considering the interface loss, assuming a loss of 10% (which is already a high interface loss), it still did not meet the standard.

Confirmation with customer service

I checked the speed test on the product's details page and it still did not meet the standard. It seems that it is not my problem.

I confirmed with customer service about the 3.2 Gen2 interface, and the speed is approximately between 500m-850m. Does this indirectly admit that the speed does not meet the standard?

Could this be an industry practice? So I decided to further explore. This time, I went to another store and consulted X联. They also have a 10Gbps speed enclosure (which is more expensive than the Hikvision one) and can only promise a maximum speed of around 1000MB/s. Is this how everyone plays?

So I'm confused now and can't tell if this is a technical problem or an industry practice. You need to judge for yourself, haha.

Conclusion

The Hikvision M.2 mobile hard drive enclosure has a good appearance and workmanship, using alloy material and comes with a heat sink. It is priced at less than 100 yuan, and the cost performance is good. However, in terms of actual speed testing, this product did not meet the standard, and similar situations were found when consulting similar products in the industry. I don't know if this is an industry practice.