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KSY MAIWO K1695 USB4 Hard Drive Box 40Gbps M.2 NVMe to TB4 Type C SSD Enclosure Aluminum Case Housing Tools-free Solid State Drive Box
Context:
There are four main companies that manufacture the control chips used in SSD enclosures: ASMedia, Intel, JMicron, & RealTek. Cheaper units are often powered by JM or RTK controllers, connect via USB, and run at USB 3.X speeds; however, if you want something faster you need to start looking at models that use Thunderbolt 3 or USB4 for connectivity, which is where Intel and ASMedia controllers start taking over. This unit in particular uses an ASMedia ASM2464PD chipset.
As Thunderbolt 3 withholds a chunk of it's potential bandwidth for Displayport and other protocols, USB4 enclosures can technically run faster than TB3 ones by devoting their attention to controlling the SSD- but that's only accurate if you have a "true" USB4 host device; and that's a big 'but', because the USB consortium play it fast and loose with what they let be marketed as "USB4 compatible". For example, a "new" model enclosure might be advertised as 'USB4 compatible' when it's built using an older TB3 chip (technically correct, given TB3 is built into the USB4 spec; the same sort of chicanery applies to host devices, but you're probably fine if you have eg. a recent Windows laptop with an AMD processor, because Microsoft stepped-in to enforce some kind of rules about this stuff).
Anyway, max throughput with a true USB4 host and a Gen4 NVMe SSD can reach 3.1~3.8 GB/s and this enclosure with its ASM2464PD chipset is one of the few that can actually promise that level of performance.
While the KSY is the cheapest I've seen, other options in the same ballpark/with the same chipset include:
Orico - https://www.amazon.com//dp/B0CG63FK3R
JEYI - https://www.aliexpress.us/item/1005006068683971.html (might be a rebrand of the KSY)
Hagibis - https://www.aliexpress.us/item/1005006255433150.html (very close in price)
And because these things work via PCIe tunneling the SSD inside functions almost like an internal drive; personally I'm grabbing one so I can (finally) flash the firmware on a Samsung 990 I bought ages ago, as not having a spare M.2 slot I'd have to install an OS on the drive first- which would eat a bunch of TBW; just hope someone else finds the link useful.
Thanks for reading.
Seems expensive for an enclosure or am I missing something