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With the price of SSDs these days, people are looking elsewhere for storage solutions. Many are also realizing that they have upgraded SSDs at some point… and they may have an SSD lying around that could now be of use. This is no different with the consumer or the media professional, except for the fact that the media professional is looking for higher data transfer speeds. Gen 4 speeds are a must for content creators and the Orico X50 Pro 80Gbps Thunderbolt 5 SSD Enclosure answers the call.
Cut from a single piece of very well crafted CNC machined aluminum, the X50 Pro is meant to tackle just about every obstacle. It is bus powered with only a single 80Gbps 20″ Thunderbolt 5 cable included, contains a smooth black top screen with a new Hydrogel cooling film which makes fans a thing of the past, and contains the Intel JHL 9480 Thunderbolt 5 chip within which provides for data transfer up to 6000MB/s read and 6000 MB/s write.
This component combination ensures that the X50 Pro is silent, fanless and provides for active heat dissipation. Taking this even a step further, Orico has included a thermal pad for your SSD, and the bottom of the aluminum chassis is ribbed for maximum air flow.
The Orico X50 Pro 80Gbps Thunderbolt 5 SSD Enclosure is a truly effective solution for 4K/8K video editing, 3D model rendering and VR/AR content development. Although this ‘X50 Pro’ enclosure is fully backward compatible to Thunderbolt 3/4 and USB, the only way you are reaching those 6GB/s speeds is with a newer, fully compliant Thunderbolt 5 equipped PM/Mac system.
The X50 Pro is fully Windows/Mac/Linux compatible, accepts both M/B key and M key form factor 2232/2240/2260/2280 M.2 SSDs (excluding SATA), and is equipped with a Type-C USB connector for high speed connections. This device does not include a Type-A USB connector or adapter and our attempts with this could not get the X50 Pro up and running. Similarly, Thunderbolt 3 devices may default to 1GB/s rather than their standard speeds simply because of the mechanics of USB4/Thunderbolt 4/5.
The X50 Pro opens with a single screw that allows for removal of the ribbed base, and comes with screws for that base and SSD installation, an included screwdriver, thermal pad, cable and operating instructions. This unit is very simple plug and play, keeping in mind of course that you may have to set your system BIOS to the correct Thunderbolt 5 settings.
For our testing today, we are installing the latest Micron 4600 Gen 5 2TB SSD that we reviewed here. Pricing for the X50 Pro is a bit on the heavy side right now at $189.99 with coupon applied… but there is a reason.
There is a price difference between the X50 version and that of the X50 Pro as the X50 Pro includes the Realtek RTL9210 USB 3.2 Gen2 to M.2 NVMe/SATA bridge controller which allows for Thunderbolt 3 compatibility at 10Gbps as well as USB 3/4. We are also seeing that the X50 Pro model works with Gen 5 SSDs and can accommodate SSDs up to 8TB, whereas the X50 version ‘may’ not. What we can confirm from this report is that the X50 Pro os 100% Gen 5 compatible.
Let’s check out the speed!