I'd like to point out there is a V1 and V2 of this drive. V1 is what you have in video. V2 shell was slightly redesigned to be even harder to open without damage, probably because people kept shucking the drive and returning them empty, where an average retail store can't tell it's been opened or tampered with. V2 also uses NVME with M key rather than SATA with B key, those drives will not work in most SATA adapters. My V2 reached around 2,500mb/sec when I shucked them and put in my computer's built in PCIE M.2 slot which is far faster than USB 3.0 or SATA is capable of. PS please don't rip Sandisk or your retailed by shucking drives and returning empty shells. Otherwise future drives would be released with integrated USB port and not M.2 port and be un-shuckable like Western Digital portable hard drives are.
I bought a 2TB M.2 nvme drive off Amazon back in 2017 when they were over $2000 and someone had replaced it we a Sandisk SATA M.2 drive. Just took the sticker off, placed it on the Sandisk drive and returned it. People are going to do this no matter what.
I just stripped mine after seeing how easy this was to do. Currently installing Windows on a server PC due to this! Thank you for the video, PS: anyone wanting to try this... there are only two strong adhesive pads on the back of the SSD stopping you from removing it. Gently remove those with a PLASTIC pick or some sort of plastic pry tool and you should be fine.
It may be that 99% alcohol will loosen that adhesive. It looks to be double-sided foam tape, and if so, 99% alcohol is your friend. Soak it well with a couple of cotton swabs full of the stuff, then wait about 10 seconds. Then start peeling! The alcohol will not hurt the drive or other elecronics.
perfect, I'm sold. it was between this and the Samsung T7 external ssd and I'd much rather have my data backed up on this sandisk m.2 drive than on the proprietary junk inside that samsung casing. thanks for the video!
Thank you for this video! I have a 250 GB disk just like this and the connector was failing, like it only connected when plugged and twisted in a certain way. So I wanted to unmount it and see what was going on even though I have no idea of soldering anything! But I didn't know where to start until I found your video. I found out the connector was strongly attached to the board, it had to be a different thing. May the connector be a little loose inside? Well, I used some pliers to make it a bit tighter to hold the connector properly and now it works again! It's stays connected no matter what. Thanks!
I made my own 'extreme' case for an old internal SSD I had. I used an empty milk bottle for the casing, some bits of old rubbery pleather material for the cover, and a 1/16" foam lining to absorb shocks.
Grateful you "destroyed" yours so we could see what was inside🙏I'm actually watching this on a MacBook with an attached 1TB/2000mpbs version of this drive that I boot into a Mojave system from/with. It's running Mojave flawlessly.
So apparently it's a WD Blue SN560E, which is a bit odd as WD only seem to sell 550's and 570's at retail. The only reference I can find to an SN560 is an upcoming m.2 2230 drive. So although it looks like a "standard" 2280 m.2, it seems like this is a specific m.2 that's designed for external SSD use? Maybe low power draw or something?
I think the E stands for encryption. The the 550 and 570 do not have encryption, aka SED (self encrypting drive). The Sandisk extreme claims 256-bit AES hardware encryption.
would be awesome to customise it and make whatever SSD we want in. at this rate would be fun to 3D print it and buy the NVME SSD to USB controller alone.
I think you might be able to remove the adhesive tape with floss. ;) I would love to see the performance inside a desktop b/c USB is limited to roughly 500 MB/s (USB 3.1 gen1) or 1000 MB/s (USB 3.1. gen2).
When I shucked mine from a V2 (harder to open, uses M key rather than B key), I was able to get close to 2500/sec. The older V1 topped out at 550mb/sec regardless of what connector I used (USB, SATA, etc) V2 is a lot harder to open without damaging the shell or even the internal. I think V2 came around when Western Digital bought out Sandisk.
Thanks for the video. I wanted to know if one can replace the M.2 NVSE SSD with a faster one. Will the newer M.2 SSD from some other brand work with this "Enclosure"?
Alas, this is a M2 SATA device. You could upgrade the size by swapping the SSD, however, it has to be a M2 SATA. There is another model available which is named "pro", which supports NVME speeds.
@@Vamspaz I have one of these SanDisk drives, I figured there was an M.2 inside given its size and speeds. I recently got a Beelink SER5, crazy fast and powerful for such a tiny PC, thanks to the M.2 that runs it.
Did you cover the component side with a new piece of electrical tape before placing the internals back in the case? I would have, for safety's sake, just like you replaced that rubber ring.
I ended up throwing the tape away given how badly it was removed. The device does heat up a bit during long transfers. However, I did not observe how it used to be before attempting this.
I'm have to pull mine apart that I am using with the series x and put some heatsinks on it as it is getting hot and slowing way down to under 1Gbps. They definitely did not intend for this drive to be hooked up all the time as mine even when idle will get too dang hot.
Sorry, this is not SSD, this is flash memory, if you connect it to MAC you will see the flash memory format types, not HDD or SSD format types, I am return it to amazon again before.
The enclosure converts an SSD to USB flash memory here. That's why you see it as a flash memory when connected to your Mac. However, you should see increased random read write speeds when compared to a HDD.
@@Vamspaz You never know. Back in the 1980s, when I was an electronics engineer, someone came into my lab and picked up an IC. These were the days when a really thin track width was 250nm - today it’s 5 or 10. After irately telling the guy to leave my lab, I cracked the device apart (it was a ceramic DIL with a glass frit seal, and cracking the seal was an art). I popped the chip half under a light microscope and saw a brown spot that didn’t look right. I put it in the lab’s scanning electron microscope and quickly found the spot. It was a crater in a track that hadn’t totally severed it, but there were molten blobs around, implying static damage. The SEM had a feature called EBIC (electron beam induced current) where you could send current down specific tracks. I tried several tracks with no effect, then turned my attention to the crater. A small amount of current, the walls glowed and melted, and the track was severed. I tested the other tracks, and they were all glowing brighter. Plainly, after the failure of the track, the other tracks were having to take more load. I induced another track to fail, and then it took less load to destroy the next. Static doesn’t necessarily kill a device immediately, but it may start a slow chain reaction that speeds up to end in a premature catastrophic failure. I used to teach the importance of anti-static precautions at the European Space Agency. I would no more pick up a modern PCB without a tested wrist or ankle strap than I would put on a blindfold and earplugs and step on to a busy motorway.
I've handled a LOT of circuit boards with no more "antistatic precaution" than just "touch something metal" and "don't touch the pins" 😂 so far everything worked fine afterwards. I think modern electronics are more resilient than our insecurities from the 80s and 90s would have us believe.
Good work but it is a partial dissassemby. Why you don't use any floss (dental maybe) to divide drive and logic board? Then try to use another drive (sata will be perfectly) in subj and plug original drive via internal m.2 slot of motherboard. What name of internal ssd model?
I tried it this week and it was a pain. It appears to be some sort of a sticky double sided tape. One bad design element in this device is that a screw connects the board to the casing and not the SSD. Unlike how we get to use a screw to fix an SSD onto a motherboard, this relies on glue/sticky tape to the logic board. When replacing the SSD, it basically just hangs off the slot in the board. Not a strong fit at all.
I have an issue where videos from my Sandisk Portable 1TB drive freeze for 5-7 seconds at random intervals. I've tried switching ports, cables, and even formatting the drive, but the issue persists. This never happened with my previous HDD, and my PC has Thunderbolt and 3.2 ports.
If this happens when you transfer large files then it could be because of heat. Another reason could be that the cache gets filled and it takes that time to clear.
Apparently we can. It is stuck with a double sided conductive tape. I couldn't risk seperating it cause I had a lot of data on the drive. I'll soon do a quick video on how to remove that SSD.
I actually am very curious about this. I ordered another SSD to transfer my data before separating the one in the external storage from the circuit board (In case I ruin it). The join borders glue and tape territory TBH.
@@Vamspaz That's awesome! I'm really wondering too, what exactly is in this thing. Could you also check what controller the USB board has? There's lot's of discussion about the stability of different chips like the ASM and RLT in USB NVME enclosures. Hope you can get it out without damage. Maybe use a hairdryer/heatgun to loosen it up.
Sadly, no. You can look for used or non functional drives on ebay amd salvage them. Alternatively, you can go for an external ssd enclosure (Keep in mind the sata vs nvme storage when buying). This will require you to separate the ssd from the board though.
It's not called a power board,it's either a m.2 or pcie to usb c adapter! And there's a good chance they used Thermal Ahesive to help transfer heat plus hold down the ssd to the adapter.. if so you would probably tear the ssd up trying to get it off the board.
I'm looking into a model that has usb 3.2 gen2. I'd buy it and swap with gen4 ssd but specs have lower read/write speeds. Something not matching up. So I don't think I can upgrade the Sandisk body with better m.2 but who knows. Thank you!
Will i get same thing if a use external SSD like this instead of updating my Mac with opening and putting one inside (some of those nvme samsung, or similar). Thanks
Hi! Has someone tried the read write speed by connecting this Ssd directly to nvme internal slot. What is the the result. Its a WD sn730e inside the enclosure.
@@War3NEFans I mean it's good to know there is an actual 'useable ssd' inside that can possibly be removed. I kept mine intact and it still works fine 1+ year later. Got it at clearance for $22 (500GB)
interesting to see that,Thx,....just if you allow me ....too much time on removing the cover, sticker removal,...we got that...you could fast forward that 2 parts,...and the recording was out of focus more than 50%,.....Once again, thanks for the sharing...
@@Vamspaz yeah of course lol. but if you fill it full or near max capacity, then you'll shorten it's life due to wear leveling. you cant use this for archiving large files, or use HDD or don't fill it full.
I just orderd 2 off costco! I wonder what NAND they have reason being is a week ago WD and Kioxia( toshiba) release information about contamination in there their 3D BiCS NAND fabs with 6.5 exabytes possible effected
I use portable external drives for moving files between systems. As a result my externals are repeatedly erased and replaced with new files. I figure that many people use externals in a similar fashion, making the suitability of SSD for travelling temporary storage, with its measurable re-write half-life, less than ideal. I spent last week re-organizing my back-up mechanical external drives - some are as old as 20+ years old (even includes old IDE drives)...they're slow and cumbersome, but none had lost any data, and were ALL still accessible for "full-speed" writes even though I have lost count of how often data has been replaced. Will the same hold true for a repeatedly used transfer SSD after 5 years (let alone 20+) ?? I'll take RW longevity over speed... Am I reading the issue incorrectly?
You are on the right path there. In case you've come across a measure, TBW, it will answer your question. The amount of data you transfer and delete affects how long your SSD survives before becoming read only.
@@Vamspaz OK. Just making sure. I do have external drives that I use for permanent storage, but speed is not an issue with personal documents, which are usually on the small side. So not worth the cost there. As, I said my primary use for externals is offline file transfers to media to other systems where the drive is being repeatedly erased. So not ideal there. In either case, there is no usage case in my life for such a device...but I do have a closet full of 500GB and 1TB mechanical drives that I can pop into a Vantec case (of which I've also built a collection over the years).
Hi! is it possible to buy one of these portable SSD and get the M.2 to make it my primary boot drive because they seem much cheaper than the actual M.2 selling on the market?
Hi. You will need to make sure that the SSD you buy is what you expect before you buy it. If that done then yes. Tools like macrium reflect will help you with the cloning process.
I just got the normal "portable ssd" of this and it's pretty quick. I have no idea which M.2 from SanDisk is inside, but i think it's a WD Green Version. I do get 563mb/s read and 489mb/s write which is pretty much the max for a SATA 3 drive. I'm using a Thunderbolt 3 USB C cable which still works on this drive.