External SSD housing with RGB LED-based lighting from ASUS

The external SSD housing with USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C port also functions as a giant heatsink, so the SSD can operate stably and smoothly.

The ASUS RoG series is already very diverse today, as it includes a large number of product groups, from motherboards to video cards to monitors to power supplies, and of course many peripherals as well. The company's officials seem to have found a niche in the market that might be worth filling with a new product, which is none other than the RoG Strix Arion. This is actually a cool external SSD housing, which follows the modern and cool design typical of the RoG series, and it does not lack RGB LED-based lighting, which also comes with Aura Sync support, so you can coordinate its operation with the other components of the system. The product has a USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C connector, so you can get to work with a data transfer bandwidth of 10 Gbps.

M.2-2280, M.2-2260, M.2-2242, or M2-2230 format SSD cards can be placed on board the new external SSD housing, and the fastening was solved using a tool-free method: we only need to screw a screw into place, which seems like an easy operation to do with bare hands. Of course, it is worth paying attention to the fact that the housing can only accommodate SSD cards that do not have a factory cooling plate - the housing itself also serves as a heatsink. The product made of aluminum alloy with a heat-conducting plate ensures the stable and magical operation of the SSD, so the performance is also predictable.

Thanks to the included USB-C->USB-C and USB-C->USB-A cables, the product is perfectly compatible with several configurations, and data transfer and power supply are solved via the same cable. Unfortunately, there is no official information on exactly which USB 3.2-> PCI Express 3.0 bridge chip the product uses, but it is possible that Realtek's new RTL9210 solution is already on board, as it also has RGB control capabilities. The external SSD housing can achieve a maximum raw data transfer bandwidth of 1.25 GB/s with this controller, which is remarkable in this category.