Common misunderstandings when using Box SSD
Portable hard drive box, a storage device that everyone should need, and should have, but not everyone knows how to use it correctly:
More and more digital products, from images, videos, music, documents are created every day, from basic office users to even groups of media users (shooting, photography, filmmaking). Portable hard drives help users easily carry data from one computer to another with large capacity and high speed. **The article only mentions Box SSD. There will be people who listen to and watch ads somewhere, or skim through them and then buy them, plug in and use them, and the rest don't care. This article will cover common misunderstandings related to Box SSD to help you take advantage of Box's effectiveness. Plug it in and use it, different from using it at its correct speed.
Mistake 1: Buying an SSD Box only requires capacity
This will be the biggest mistake when you choose and buy yourself an SSD Box, because besides its capacity, there are many other parameters that you must know, know so you don't waste money, and know to exploit its full performance. At this time, your experience will be better and better.
Advice:
Mistake 2: Not understanding the USB - Thunderbolt standard and transmission speed:
USB Compatibility:
The image above is the USB types, and today we mostly only see a few types:
USB-C port, also commonly known as C port, Type-C port, repeat again: PORT C IS JUST THE SHAPE OF THE PORT, WHAT IS ITS FUNCTION YOU NEED TO LEARN
Normally, PC and laptop companies in the Windows world show it very clearly through the appearance near that C port, they want to explain to you what port it is and what function it has. Specifically: Top row and bottom row: The only difference is whether they charge or not, the rest are the same. (From left)
Next in the "Thunderbolt" world, companies are now starting to use it a lot and have the lightning mark symbol, which means it is Thunderbolt standard AND IT HAS ALL THE FUNCTIONS OF PORT C LISTED ABOVE. If the numbers 3, 4, 5 are included, it means it is Thunderbolt 3, 4 or 5
Thunderbolt currently has:
Advice:
Mistake 3: Speed parameters:
Sometimes MB/s, sometimes GB/s, sometimes Mbps, MBps Gbps,... Roughly like this:
Gigabits and Megabits: units for measuring data transmission speed:
Gigabyte and Megabyte: units of measurement for data storage capacity:
General formula:
Example illustrating how to reason, read, and know which port to plug into on the computer:
Tinhte Company has just bought you an SSD Box with speed parameters of Read 5000MB/s Write 4000MB/s, in the shape of a USB-C port. We infer: Convert to Gbps:
Port C shape, with speed in the range of 32Gbps - 40Gbps (take the highest number), it is highly likely to be Thunderbolt 3 / 4 or USB4 because they all have the same speed of 40Gbps. Look more on the SSD box, box cover, etc. If there is a lightning mark, it is Thunderbolt, otherwise it is USB.
Advice:
Mistake 4: Plug-in devices and plug-in wires are not of the same speed standard:
Example of plugging into the wrong port:
The box is USB4 which means 40Gbps, but you plug in the USB3 10Gbps port so what happens? Explain:
=> At this time, the Box only runs at the speed of a 10Gbps USB3 port, meaning you are wasting a theoretical 30Gbps. So there will be cases where you buy a Box knowing it's high speed, just plug it in when you see hole C, but it only runs 10Gbps, then get angry and criticize the product as bad.
Example of using the wrong plug:
The box is USB4 which means 40Gbps, but you use a USB2 C-head cable, plug in a USB3 10Gbps port, so what happens? Explain:
=> At this time, the Box only runs at the speed of the USB2 port, meaning you are wasting the entire Box
Bottlenecks and backward compatibility:
Illustrative example when using the wrong wire:
Illustrative example when plugging in the wrong port or using the wrong cable:
Advice:
Mistake 5: Buying a self-build Box, making mistake 4:
All of us have bought a box from a manufacturer many times, meaning the box we bought is okay to use. And the second type is to buy a separate Box, buy a separate SSD, and combine them together to create a custom Box. This is similar to mistake 4: "Devices are not at the same speed standard". Below is the data transmission speed parameter table of PCIe (PCI Express). SSDs on the market, you all notice they have the phrases PCI Gen 3x4, PCI Gen 4x4, PCI Gen 5x4, or even PCI Gen 5x2, so what do they mean:
To understand more about SSDs, how they are similar and how they differ in speed, please read more here: https://tinhte.vn/thread/dang-sau-chenh-lech-gia-cua-ssd.4069927/#menuid3
There is this lookup table, for example with the following SSD:
Example 1 of buying an SSD and Box that are not compatible:
The box I bought is USB3 which means 10Gbps, but I bought a PCIe Gen 3x4 SSD so what happens? Explanation based on lookup table:
=> At this time, the Box only runs at the speed of the USB3 10Gbps port, meaning that your SSD when attached to this Box will depend on the Box's output parameters of 10Gbps, meaning that you have 22Gbps remaining on the SSD that cannot be exploited due to the physical limit of the Box. To be more optimal, buy a 40Gbps Box that will exploit all 32Gbps on the SSD. So there will be a case where you buy a Sandisk SN8100 SSD with PCIe Gen 5x4 standard, converted to 15,000MB/s read and write around that range, then buy a 10Gbps Box and measure it with 1,250MB/s, then you will curse the Sandisk SSD product or the Box for not doing anything. => The parameters on the SSD Box cover are the parameters WHEN PLUG DIRECTLY INTO THE COMPUTER and not through the Box or adapter. In short, reading an SSD is very easy, just look at what Gen PCIe it is, what x and look at the lookup table to see what its speed is. For example:
Image description:
Additional examples:
Video describing how to calculate SSD, Box:
https://youtube.com/shorts/3E-L3SMAraM?si=GDSfzFOY_Ork12qA
Advice:
Conclude:
Hopefully this dry information will help you optimize the experience of using storage memory for daily work and note the following three things: