ORICO NVMe M.2 Hard Drive Enclosure review: Big value in a small package

If there's one thing that you can never have enough of, it's storage space for your computer. In a day and age where file sizes are constantly getting bigger, being able to convert a hard drive you aren't using into something that can be plugged into your PC to add on to it's total storage space is incredibly useful. ORICO's NVMe M.2 Hard Drive Enclosure allows you to do just that with NVMe M.2 SSD hard drives, and while it has some flaws, it's overall still an awesome little tool.

What you'll love about the ORICO NVMe M.2 Hard Drive Enclosure

The ORICO NVMe M.2 Hard Drive Enclosure gives you the ability to place an NVMe M.2 SSD in its chassis, and once it's locked in place, you can then connect it to your PC with a USB 3.1 Type-C cable (included in the box) for instant access to more storage space that you can use. The enclosure supports drives sized up to 2TB, which is awesome, as these SSDs don't come in any larger varieties than that.

The best thing about the enclosure is that it both reads and writes data at incredible speeds. During my testing, the drive was reading 976 MB/s and writing 996 MB/s on average, which is blazing fast for an enclosure. This speed is consistent, too; there was never a time where the speed deviated from these numbers by more than 10 MB over the course of a transfer. Something else that I really love about this enclosure is that it comes with a heat sink that helps to keep the drive inside cool as you use it. This heat sink, for the most part, works very well, though it, unfortunately, doesn't completely prevent heat build-up from occurring during intensive transfers (more on that later).

In terms of the physical design, the ORICO NVMe M.2 Hard Drive Enclosure strikes a very nice balance between compactness and durability. The enclosure is incredibly small — nearly as small as the SSD that you put in it — which means that it's easy to travel with, making it perfect for people on-the-go. However, it can also take a decent beating, too, as its transparent outer shell is quite hard. It probably won't stand up to extreme damage well, but no hard drive enclosure really will, especially ones of this size.

What you'll love less about the ORICO NVMe M.2 Hard Drive Enclosure

The only issue with using this enclosure is that your NVMe drive can get quite hot if you transfer a lot of large files in succession. This is a problem that's not really the enclosure's fault, though, as any NVMe will get hot. The heat sink helps to mitigate the issue, but even that has its limits.

You'll also need to make sure you have a free USB 3.1 Gen 2 port on your PC to take advantage of the fastest speeds, else you'll be limited in bandwidth.

So should you buy the ORICO NVMe M.2 Hard Drive Enclosure?

While the heat issue present during several large file transfers in succession is a bit annoying, it's hardly something that should make you look the other way on this hard drive enclosure, especially since that's not really its fault. Between the awesome transfer speeds, compact, yet decently durable design, the heat sink, and a max capacity of 2TB, this is one of the best NVMe M.2 SSD hard drive enclosures on the market.

If you're looking to put some NVMe M.2 SSD hard drives to good use with your PC, you should absolutely buy the ORICO NVMe M.2 Hard Drive Enclosure. Due to the price of NVMe drives, though, I recommend only buying this if you have one laying around that you want to use, as it's not worth it to buy a 1 or 2TB NVMe SSD and this enclosure just for the extra storage when there are less expensive portable drives out there that serve the same purpose.