ASUS TUF Gaming A1 External Drive Enclosure

The TUF Gaming A1 is the latest SSD enclosure from ASUS supporting M.2 SATA 6Gb/s or NVMe SSDs up to 2TB in capacity using a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2×1 (10Gbps) interface. Built from aluminium, the enclosure certainly lives up to its TUF name, weighing in at 142g and meeting both the military MIL-STD-810H 516.8 and the IP68 standards.

The MIL-STD-810 is a United States Military Standard, (version H is the eighth version of the test standard). It has 28 different test methods, method 516.8 is the shock test and in this instance, it's the ‘Shock Testing Procedure IV – Transit Drop', which is for testing products that could be accidentally dropped when handling. The IP (International Protection Rating) 68 is a rating for protection against dust and water. The first 6 digit means that the device is dust tight while the 8 means that it is protected from long-term immersion over 1 metre up to a specified pressure.

Installing a drive into the TUF Gaming A1 is a doddle (as long as you don't misplace the bundled Allen key). Four Allen bolts hold the pack panel in place. With the back panel removed you are confronted with a PCB that holds the dual SATA/NVMe interface and the simple but cleverly designed Q-Latch system. The latch has three positions; open – just off horizontal, locked – horizontal, and move – vertical. The move option allows the Q-Latch to move to one of the three mounting holes for the three M.2 formats supported: 2242, 2260, and 2280.

As to the TUF Gaming A1's performance it obviously depends on the SSD you stick in it as it's an empty enclosure. For our testing purposes, we used a 2TB Kingston KC3000 Gen4 drive. The best Sequential performance we saw was testing the drive with CrystalDiskMark 8's Peak Performance profile using compressible date with reads of 1,014MB/s and writes of 974MB/s.

We found the ASUS TUF Gaming A1 for £43.03 (inc VAT) on Xcase.co.uk HERE.

Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.

Pros

• Ease of drive installation.
• Build quality.
• Dual SATA/NVMe compatibility.

Cons

• Only supports M.2 drives up to 2TB.

KitGuru says: A well-designed enclosure from ASUS built to survive the rigours of everyday use and then some. Handy in that it supports both SATA or NVMe drives, but It's just a shame that it only supports them up to 2TB in capacity.

Become a Patron!

Be sure to check out our sponsors store EKWB here