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Does anyone know how well one of these adapters performs? I want to connect a SATA SSD through a USB3 port but I'm afraid that an adapter will reduce the performance significantly...

Also is there a difference between cheaper and costlier adapters? For example $2 and $20?

Jack
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  • What SSD make and model, exactly? They vary greatly in speed. – Daniel B Mar 31 '16 at 05:28
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    It also matters if you have a USB3 to SATA convertor which supports [USB attached SCSI protol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_Attached_SCSI). – Hennes Mar 31 '16 at 05:48
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    I haven't chosen one yet, but I'm looking for something at around 400mb/s at least. It will be a model of 240-520GB, I don't care about any features as long as it's reliable and performs well. Also cheap. – Jack Apr 02 '16 at 03:32

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Not sure if it's the right place for your question (or for my answer) but I'll share what I've got.

I have two from IOCrest:

USB 3.1 Gen 2 (ASMedia ASM1351): http://www.amazon.com/IOCrest-Type-C-Controller-Adapter-SI-ADA20175/dp/B010U57FP2

USB 3.0 (JMicron JMS567): http://www.amazon.com/IO-Crest-Adapter-Drives-SI-ADA20155/dp/B00LPUV06C

I use both of them on a USB 3.0 port (Intel H87). UASP is supported by the host and the adapters. SSD is a Silicon Power S70 240GB (exactly the same one for both, I switch back and forth).

ASMedia ASM1351:

enter image description here

JMicron JMS567:

enter image description here

As you can see, the sequetial R/W wouldn't be much of a problem. But the random R/W performance can vary quite a lot. Apparently it is (partly?) because of the maximum number of streams/queues supported by the chip (queue_depth seen in Linux under UAS mode are '30' and '14' respectively).

Make sure you at least enable the write cache on the disk, like this:

enter image description here

Otherwise the performance will be something like this:

enter image description here

This is the same case with SATA as well.

In case this looks too much like an advertisement for IOCrest. I'll tell a bit about the ones from StarTech as well.

I got one USB 3.0 from StarTech. Not quite certain about the its chip. StarTech told that it's a ASMedia ASM1051E, but from what I can see in the system it could actually be an ASM1153 or ASM1153E: http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-SATA-Drive-Adapter-Cable/dp/B00HJZJI84/

I use it on an ancient (but sacredly decent) Intel X25-M 80GB 50nm:

enter image description here

As you can see, even when it's an older chip from ASMedia, but it still beats JMicron in the random performance. (It's slightly more expensive though, but that's generally true for the ones from StarTech.)

StarTech also provides USB 3.1 Gen 2 ones (Type-A and Type-C). They use the same chip (ASM1351) as the one from IOCrest. Although IOCrest provides its USB 3.1 Gen 2 one with an additional USB 3.0 Type-B to Type-C cable, but I don't think you can get the power supply that can be provided by a native Type-C cable from that. Instead, the ones from StarTech has non-detachable cables. Though I do not own one myself and hence never tested it on a 3.5" HDD or some power hungry SSDs, so I am not certain whether its Type-C one really performs better in terms of power supply.

Speaking of this, do NOT expect that all the SSDs would work with an adapter that is powered by a single USB 3.0 Type-A port.

Tom Yan
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  • So there is a big difference between cheaper ones and not it seems. I'm considering just buying an external SSD instead, because I would spend a lot on the adapter as well. Cheapest I found was $41 (with shipping), which would be half the price of the SSD. – Jack Apr 02 '16 at 03:41
  • It depends to be honest. Maybe some of the cheaper ones available in your local market use the same chips. It's just you probably won't be able to tell until you've got one. – Tom Yan Apr 02 '16 at 09:43
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    Just make sure both *your host* and the adapter/external SSD you are going to buy support UASP, otherwise their *random 4K QD32* performances are probably gonna be the same as its *random 4K* ones, which will be low as you can see. – Tom Yan Apr 02 '16 at 09:52
  • I wouldn't need an internal SSD if I couldn't get my hands on a low-priced connector in the first place. So i'll just buy an external SSD instead, as otherwise I might be stuck with the SSD and nothing to do with it. Thanks for the insight though. – Jack Apr 03 '16 at 14:04
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    The ASM1351 controller supports TRIM / UNMAP with the latest firmware update. – Monstieur Aug 22 '16 at 07:08
  • @Locutus You are referring to the update from StarTech, right? LBPME bit is statically 0 though, which means it (sort of) won't work under Linux, while Windows does not check the bit. – Tom Yan Aug 22 '16 at 13:50
  • There's a newer update for the ASM1351 on Station Drivers. I don't know about the LBPME bit. – Monstieur Aug 23 '16 at 02:42
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    @Locutus the update on Station Driver is the same one as / from [SIIG](http://www.siig.com/download/search/?keyword=JU-SA0Q12-S1), which does not have UNMAP->TRIM translation implemented. Why would you even think it does? – Tom Yan Aug 24 '16 at 04:50
  • @TomYan But the update from StarTech does have UNMAP? The Station Drivers one looks like a newer version number. – Monstieur Aug 24 '16 at 09:20
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    @Locutus Yes. It appears to me that ASMedia (and JMicron) would release different "branches" of firmwares to the adapter vendors, and firmware with UNMAP->TRIM support (or some other feature) is only provided if the vendor specifically request for it. – Tom Yan Aug 24 '16 at 10:07
  • The same firmware 150708_B1_01_03 on StarTech's website for the ASM1351 adapter is listed on Station Drivers for the ASM105x controller. – Monstieur Aug 24 '16 at 10:14
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    @Locutus they are not the same. The actual versions of StarTech's firmware are 150708_B1_0A_01 (original in the adapter without UNMAP support) and 150708_B1_0A_02 (update on StarTech website with UNMAP support). The version can be revealed with the Mass Production Tool available in the SIIG zip archive (as well as the filename of the actual firmware file extracted to user's Temp folder). – Tom Yan Aug 24 '16 at 12:29
  • If possible, it'd be nice to see benchmark results from having one of the SSDs plugged directly into the SATA port instead of using the USB adapter, so we can see how much (if any) the USB adapter slows down the performance. – pacoverflow Sep 07 '16 at 21:47
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    @pacoverflow I did SATA vs USB benchmark of ASM1351 here - https://imgur.com/a/rcbTt – Vlastimil Ovčáčík Sep 25 '17 at 18:27
  • One can get relevant information by googling `ASM1351`, `ASMT-2135` and `ASM105X`. Unfortunately I didn't find official firmware repository, but there is this [Russian page](http://www.usbdev.ru/files/asmedia/asmt2135firmware/) that list some. Its not exhaustive, at least they are missing `151030_b1_1b_01` which I got flashed from factory. – Vlastimil Ovčáčík Sep 25 '17 at 20:16
  • There is nice write up on [ASmedia MPTool](https://davidzou.com/blog/generic-asm1153e-based-m2-usb3-bridge) that can be used to flash new firmware, check the current one and verify UASP support. – Vlastimil Ovčáčík Sep 25 '17 at 20:19
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    @VlastimilOvčáčík I know right. ASMedia doesn't "officially" release firmware builds to users but only to vendors upon their specific request (such as UNMAP/TRIM support, spin-down timer...). The version numbers are unreliable (as in, larger doesn't necessarily means more updated and better quality), the one comes with the MPTool released by SIIG (http://www.siig.com/download/search/?keyword=JU-SA0Q12-S1 probably the source of the pack your found elsewhere) is for ASM1351 and is decent enough (stable hot swap support, for example), but it lacks UNMAP/TRIM implementation. – Tom Yan Sep 26 '17 at 04:50
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    StarTech provides various builds with TRIM support. They are of different quality respectively as well. I found the one for the adapter cables to be the best build (https://sgcdn.startech.com/005329/media/sets/sat3cb_Firmware/Firmware.zip). You can run the updater and it will extract the firmware file usable with MPTool in the user temp AFAIR. – Tom Yan Sep 26 '17 at 04:55
  • @TomYan oh great thanks for the link! Also I've received answer from Plugable regarding the TRIM support - [it's being worked on](https://pastebin.com/bp9cwL65). – Vlastimil Ovčáčík Sep 26 '17 at 07:25
  • @TomYan I have tried the firmware you suggested and it is great! 1) it enabled TRIM/UNMAP support 2) it greatly improved write speed ([benchmark](https://imgur.com/a/PGPQx) available here). – Vlastimil Ovčáčík Sep 27 '17 at 14:54
  • The poor write performance of JMicron chips has been noted before. This applies to sequential writes too. [See this review](https://www.everythingusb.com/drive-adapters.html) on JMS578 for example. Overall I think the conclusion is to stick with ASMedia. Some benchmarks on the JMS580 and VIA VL716 3.1 Gen 2 bridges would also be nice to compare with these. An important test case other than speed is to check stability over long transfers. It has been widely reported that these Gen 2 chips overheat and drop out on sustained full-speed transfers of over ~400GB. – Amit Naidu Mar 25 '18 at 23:12