2.5" SATA Drive Enclosure Recommendation

TidBITS Talk
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I’ve finally decided it is time to retire my 13" mid-2012 MacBook Pro from running Sequoia via OCLP. It’s been fun keeping it going, but it’s gotten to the point where the fans are running too loud and too often, so I’ll be moving it to Linux.

In its new life, it won’t be needing its current 4 TB Samsung SATA SSD, so I’d like to repurpose that drive as an external unit for my M1 MacBook Air.

I’m wondering if the TidBITS readership has any particular recommendations for a good quality USB 3.1 external drive enclosure compatible with a 2.5" SATA drive. (I realize that USB 3.1 has a higher nominal throughput than SATA III.)

It seems like a funny thing to ask, since SATA III 6 Gbps is considered “slow” these days and compatible enclosures are inexpensive, but for commodity enclosures, I don’t quite trust today’s no-name best deal on Amazon.

FWIW, I am seeing a bus-powered UGREEN model for $20.98 that might be interesting.

By the way, I bought several 4 TB Samsung SSDs back in 2022 for around $300 each. I see that the same model is going for just under $1,000 today. Yikes!

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I bought that exact enclosure quite a while back for some old 2.5" HDDs before throwing them out. No complaints. That enclosure worked perfectly fine for me. Just like several other UGreen models (this or this) I’ve used over the years. I’d still be using those if I hadn’t taken the firm decision that I shall never run a HDD again in my lifetime. :wink:

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