How to find right case/enclosure for Corsair MP400 1TB SSD ?

leller4

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Hi. I was given a Corsair MP400 NVMe PCle Gen3x4 M.2 SSD, 1TB. Apparently I should be able to buy a case/enclosure for it, and use it as an external drive. But I have not so far found a case that is for NVMe PCle Gen3x4 M.2 etc. I haven't got a clue really - what specs should I be looking for? Thanks.
 
Here are some examples. You need one suitable for PCIe drives (the other variant is SATA which is not suitable for your drive) and can take the length of yours, which is 80mm (2280, 22mm is the width, 80mm is the length).

 
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Thanks. Does the Gen make a difference? Mine is Gen3 x4, but the examples are Gen2.
 
Thanks. Does the Gen make a difference? Mine is Gen3 x4, but the examples are Gen2.

The "Gen2" refers to the USB connection protocol, not the NVMe drive. USB is backwards compatible so even if your PC does not support Gen2, it will still work.
 
The "Gen2" refers to the USB connection protocol, not the NVMe drive. USB is backwards compatible so even if your PC does not support Gen2, it will still work.

If it's x4 then it refers to the PCI Express version. PCI-Express is forwards compatible too though, so a drive using a newer version will work in an enclosure supporting an older version.

I'm not sure whether x4 drives are compatible with x2 slots though.
 
The “gen 2“ the op is asking about refers to the USB 3.0 bus speed i.e gen1 (5 GBPs), gen2, (10 Gbps)
 
I have found a review that says "
Infused with a high-performance Gen3 controller and cheap QLC flash, Corsair’s Force MP400 is a low-cost performer with up to 8TB of capacity.


Not sure if this is suitable for using as an external drive to back up my new laptop.
 
The “gen 2“ the op is asking about refers to the USB 3.0 bus speed i.e gen1 (5 GBPs), gen2, (10 Gbps)

I know USB has started to use 2x1 and 2x2 in the specs even if they wish to discourage it for marketing, but as far as I'm aware they've not got up to any #x4 yet so it seems more likely to be PCI Express.

I have found a review that says "
Infused with a high-performance Gen3 controller and cheap QLC flash, Corsair’s Force MP400 is a low-cost performer with up to 8TB of capacity.


Not sure if this is suitable for using as an external drive to back up my new laptop.

Backup is undemanding work, anything and everything is suitable.
 
Most M2 drives fit into custom slots on newer motherboards. If your motherboard doesn't have a M2 slot then you need an adapter to go into a PCI-e slot. The only way to get the latest X4 iteration is if you motherboard supports it and you can use a x16 PCIe slot. If you have a x16 slot it may already be used for a discrete graphics card. M2 drives are lot faster than "normal" SATA SSD's but the extra speed need a modern chipset to support it
 
Be aware, if you have an AMD newish build you need to go for an enclosure with an
ASMedia ASM2362 bridge chip for complete compatibility.
Most have jmicron jms580 rev.AO bridge chips. These can give you many hours of frustration with random disconnects and unmountable drives. It's a known issue and has been resolved with the 'rev A2' chip. However it's a lottery if you receive one.

* Some can also have Realtek RTL9210 chips, I have been unable to test the reliability of these.
 

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