Review on davidzou.com

Generic ASM1153E Based M.2 SATA3 to USB3 Bridge

Sat, 27 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This generic SATA to USB bridge adaptor will be the last one I’ll be reviewing for a while, unless I find another more suitable one. I’m already very happy with my JEYI X6 adaptor, but I picked these adaptors up because they were just a tad smaller than then JEYI X6 and I wanted to find out what chipset it used. I picked these up on AliExpress from a seller called SimpleStone, however they no longer sell the item. There are other sellers that sell this item, however, it lacks a model number and thus you must search for it with generic search terms such as “NGFF USB 3.0”. You can pick one of these up for around $8 US.

This adaptor is available in gold, red, blue and black anodised aluminium. I picked up one of each colour except gold because it looks tacky. Perhaps Apple’s products influenced this decision. The enclosure itself measures 60.5mm x 29.7mm x 8.6mm (long x wide x thick) without the USB connector which protrudes by 13.8mm. The tacky white writing on the face (USB3.0 to NGFF(M.2) SSD hard disk box) can be removed easily with acetone.

The aluminium enclosure measures approximately 0.8mm thick. It’s touch enough for a USB drive, but can be squeezed down a bit with strong fingers. The SSD you intend must not be wider than 22.8mm.

The front and end pieces are each held in place by two screws, which screw into countersunk holes. The build quality of the aluminium could be better, but for $8 I’ll let it slide.

Like with all previously reviewed adaptors, the activity indicator is in the form of a small hole next to the USB connector and not easily visible when the device is plugged in.

The top side of the PCB houses the guts. Like the JEYI X6, it’s based on the ASM1153E chipset.

There is what appears to be a 4Mbit SPI flash which is used to store the USB vendor and device ID reported to the host device, as well as any other vendor specific programming. I couldn’t find a match for the exact part “PH25Q40B” but a similar SPI flash by Winbond is the 4Mbit “W25Q40B”. A 512KBit flash would be enough for the purpose. The SPI flash has been programmed to identify the device as an ASMedia ASMT1051. Looks like the creators just copied the flash from an older product. You can download a dump of my flash here.

The 3.3V rail is regulated by a chip identified as “8521 2030”. I couldn’t find the correct datasheet for it. I’ll just assume it can supply the required power.

The bottom of the PCB houses the M.2 connector which is B-keyed, meaning PCIe 4-lane SSDs will not fit and PCIe 2-lane SSDs will not work. There are holes cut out to support both 2230 (30mm long) and 2242 (42mm long) sized cards and it comes with spare parts for mounting 2230 sized cards.

The LED activity indicator is also on the bottom side, meaning the LED faces down when plugged into a correctly oriented USB port. That makes modding the indicator just a tad more challenging.

Results

Most of the results here are very similar to the original Sintech adaptor I previously reviewed. Please read that review for explanations. I will just gloss over the details here. You can also expect very similar results to the JEYI X6, since its based on the same chipset. Any differences are just part of the margin of error.

This is the raw performance of the Transcend SSD connected to an M.2 slot through a SATA3 interface in AHCI mode. The sequential read speeds are on the verge of saturating SATA3’s real world throughput.

When connected via regular USB3.0 (BOT: Bulk-Only Transfer) through the ASM1153E in this generic adaptor, we see pretty much the same results as the JEYI X6.

As expected, on an OS with UASP support, in this case Windows 10, we are able to connect in UASP mode.

We, again, see similar results to the JEYI X6 when connected in UASP mode. Real world file copying managed to reach 400MB/s read and 282 MB/s write.

There is also no heating issues with this adaptor and the ASM1153E stayed well under 50 degrees Celsius with an ambient temperature of 20 degrees.

It seems that TRIM is not working for some reason. The adaptor comes with ASMedia firmware version 130926a10000 with UASP enabled, yet TRIM commands don’t seem to be taking effect. Perhaps the issue is outdated firmware. I Googled for a ASM1153E firmware update and managed to find a copy of ASMedia MPTool from Plugable. The update file is an SFX archive and can be extracted with 7zip/WinRAR. The extracted package should contain as_mp_Tool v0.3.ini. This file contains parameters which can be programmed into the serial flash.

[usb_func]
format_enable=0
format_drive_type=1
drive_label_name=NEW DISK
wr_test_enable=0
wr_test_binary_name=rwtest.bin
wr_test_count=1
auto_mp=0
preload_enable=0
preload_folder_path=C:\test

[usb_fw]
fw_enable=1
fw_binary_name=140509_A1_82_80.bin
fw_reload=1

[usb_config]
config_enable=1
config_format=1
vendor_id=174C
product_id=55AA
device_revision=0100
manufacturer_string=Generic
product_string=ASM1153E
serial_number=123456789012
serial_number_increase=0
standby_timer=0
hdd_standby=0
customized_string=0
eup_enable=0
two_leds=0
U1U2=0
low_power_mode=0
2TB=0
image0=1
image1=0
crc32=0
slow_enumeration=0
Win8WTG=1
HDDPC=0

[usb_mode]
cd_rom_mode=0

You can customise manufacturer_string and product_string to anything of your choosing. The product_string is what is shown in the “Safely Remove Hardware” menu. You could set it to something like “Property of Jane Citizen” to deter theft, since most people will not know how to change that string. If you prefer to use the MPTool GUI to adjust settings, you can unlock the program by clicking on on the padlock icon and unlocking with the password asmedia.

To program the chip, simply run MPTool.exe, plug in the AMS1153E based adaptor and wait for the program to detect it and then click the blue play button. Unfortunately, firmware version 140509a18280 does not fix the TRIM issue.

Conclusion

This generic adaptor uses a very fast chipset and offers very fast speeds. The TRIM issue is not much of a problem for me and my Transcend SSD as its controller doesn’t suffer too badly. The enclosure isn’t as premium as the JEYI X6 and can do with some improvements, however, it is the smallest enclosure I could find that works without issues. This would certainly be the best choice if size was the most important issue.

LED Activity Indicator Mod

Like with all these adaptors, the LED activity indicator is next to the USB connector and obstructed from view. To make things a bit worse, the LED is on the bottom side of the circuit board with respect to the orientation of the USB connector. My solution is to solder a through-hole LED on the bottom side and bend the leads around the edge of the circuit board to the top side.

I drilled a 2.5mm diameter hole on the top side of the enclosure and placed half a desiccant bead into the hole. I stuck a piece of Scotch Magic tape on the inside to hold the half desiccant bead and also diffuse the light for a more even light. Here is the result:

Sintech ST-M2U3-A Review (SATA3 to USB3 Bridge)

Sun, 14 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The Sintech ST-M2U3-A is the third SATA to USB bridge I’ll be reviewing. I got this model mainly for comparing the chipsets available and not for the device itself, as it is pretty chunky and doesn’t look very nice. This item is available from Sintech’s official website and eBay store.

The Sintech ST-M2U3-U is made out of aluminium and measures 62.5mm x 34.0mm x 12.5mm (long x wide x thick) not including the USB connector. The connector protrudes by 14.5mm. The front side of the enclosure has “SSD USB 3.0 M.2(NGFF) Case” printed on it, but can be scratched off or cleaned off with some acetone.

The aluminium enclosure is approximately 1.3mm thick and feels super solid. Your SSD will be very safe in here.

The front and end pieces are each held in place by two screws, which screw into countersunk holes. The countersinking goes past the edge of the device and the screw is visible from the side.

The cutout for the USB connector is about 0.5mm too large in both axes, allowing the connector to wobble just a bit. To the side of the connector is a hole for the blue activity LED. For some reason the PCB designers always place the LED next to the connector, making it extremely difficult to see from any normal use case.

The top side of the PCB houses the M.2 connector which is B-keyed, meaning PCIe 4-lane SSDs will not fit and PCIe 2-lane SSDs will not work. There is only one hole cut out to support 2242 (42mm long) sized cards, though a 2230 card can be inserted and held in with tape etc.

The bottom side of the PCB contains all the circuitry. The Sintech ST-M2U3-A is powered by the JMicron JMS567 SATA3 to USB3.0 bridge.

There is a 512Kbit SPI flash which is used to store the USB vendor and device ID reported to the host device, as well as any other vendor specific programming. You can download a dump of my flash here.

The 3.3V rail required by the SATA SSD is provided by a TD1484, a monolithic synchronous buck regulator, more than capable of providing the full 4.5W that USB3.0 can provide.

Results

Most of the results here are very similar to the original Sintech adaptor I previously reviewed. Please read that review for explanations. I will just gloss over the details here.

When connected via regular USB3.0 (BOT: Bulk-Only Transfer) through the JMS567 in the Sintech ST-M2U3-A, we see pretty much the exact same results as the JMS578 in the ST-M2U3-U.

On an OS with UASP support, in this case Windows 10, we are able to connect in UASP mode.

In UASP mode, we see similar speeds to the JMS578 except for 4K random with a large queue depth. This is about a third of what the JMS578 and ASM1153E got. Real world file copying speeds reached 395MB/s read and 290MB/s write.

The JMS567 chip stayed quite cool in comparison to the JMS678 in the Sintech ST-M2U3-U, maxing out in the low 40s with an ambient temperature of 20 degrees Celsius. The Transcend SSD also stayed much cooler.

TRIM Check concluded that TRIM is working in UASP mode. Windows generally TRIMs deleted files just under 10 seconds after deleting them. TRIM Check failed to detect TRIM working in Windows 7 in BOT mode.

Conclusion

Sintech ST-M2U3-A seems to not have much effort put into its design. It doesn’t look very nice and is too chunky to use as a thumb drive. The only thing going for it is that the enclosure is really solid. File copying speeds are similar to other chipsets but IOPS are a bit of a let down in UASP mode. This is not something I’d really recommend as there are much smaller enclosures.

Arlec PIR Motion Activated Light (NL0009) Time Mod

Sat, 13 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The Arlec NL0009 is a mains powered, dual sensor (light and motion detection) LED night light. This product is available at Bunnings for $15.

I have one of these lights plugged in the hallway in motion mode to light up the hallway and stairs at night. It does a great job, but one of the downsides of this light is the really short light on time after being triggered by the PIR sensor. 1 minute is just not enough time to boil the kettle to get a hot cup of something. This would be the perfect product if Arlec had integrated a knob or two to adjust the light on time and maybe even the PIR/LDR sensitivity.

This light has a very sleek and clean looking design compared with similar devices such as the Jackson PT911L. There are two sets of lights in the device, one behind the vertical strip on the front and the other behind the light. The set of lights behind the device shines onto the wall and produces a pleasing diffused gradient of light. The colour temperature of the light is neutral (6400K as measured by my RX100M2).

This light offers two lighting modes, Dusk and Motion, adjustable via a sliding switch on the back. Dusk mode turns the device into a traditional night light whereby the front LED will light up when it’s dark and turn off again when light. Motion mode will turn the device into a motion activated light which only operates when the room is dark. In the motion mode, both the front and rear LEDs will light up for 60 seconds when triggered.

But as with almost all cheap electronics, it is probably easily hackable. Luckily, this device is assembled with four Phillips screws (#1 or J1 if you have one).

The circuit board looks well laid out and constructed, with no obvious safety issues. The device is powered through a capacitor resistor dropper circuit which means minimal wasted energy (no transformer) and is safe because the unit is sealed and the entire device is non-conductive. There is also a fuse wired in series between the mains pins and the circuit board.

The BISS0001 PIR Chipset Configurations

The Arlec NL0009’s PIR motion detection is powered by the BISS0001, a very low power IC. The chip has configurable trigger on/off time as well as the ability to enable and disable re-triggering.

The re-triggering option is enabled, which means the light will stay on as long as there is any movement between the original trigger and before the timer runs out (i.e the timer is restarted as soon as there is movement).

The trigger on/off timer time is configured by adjusting a capacitor and resistor and the datasheet provides the formula. With the component reference designator adjusted for this circuit board, the trigger on time can be calculated with the formula

$$ T_x \approx 24576 \times R_{10} \times C_{7} $$

The Arlec NL0009 is configured with $R_{10} = 200k\Omega$ and $C_{7} = 12\mu F$ (calculated) for a 60 second timer. A more acceptable time would be around 3 to 5 minutes, which would mean $R_{10}$ should be $600k\Omega$ to $1M\Omega$. I certainly don’t have any spare SMD resistors or capacitors lying around, nor do I want to be desoldering SMD components. Luckily, I found an unwanted circuit board with various 1/8 watt resistors. I managed to find a $1M\Omega$ and a $1.2M\Omega$.

So I proceed to remove $R_{10}$ and replace it with the $1M\Omega$, which should provide approximately 5 minutes of light when triggered. I plugged it in, triggered it and timed it. The light stayed on for 4 minutes and 48 seconds. Success! Not quite… For whatever reason, the triggering distance seems to have dropped to about 1.5 metres. As a sanity test, I shorted out $R_{10}$ and the timer was reduced to 1s and the trigger distance back to normal. So I concluded that the high resistance causes the triggering distance issues.

A potential solution is to use a higher capacity capacitor, $C_{7}$, but I didn’t have any spares. I couldn’t find any resistors around $600k\Omega$, so I added that $1.2M\Omega$ resistor in parallel with the $1M\Omega$ to give approx $550k\Omega$. A quick test had the light stay on for 2 minutes 42 seconds. The range of triggering does not seem to be affected. With my patience running out, I settled for that time and reassembled it.

If anyone has plans to increase the time for the Arlec NL0009, I would recommend buying a $1M\Omega$ linear trimpot to put in place of $R_{10}$. That will allow you to tune the time more precisely and find a suitable time which doesn’t impact on the triggering range. One could also replace $C_{7}$ with one of larger capacitance.

JEYI X6 Review (SATA3 to USB3 Bridge)

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The JEYI X6 is the second SATA to USB bridge I’ll be reviewing, since the Sintech one died on me. I picked this one up on AliExpress from the seller JEYI Group for just over $9 US including delivery.

The most important criteria for me would be size, but the JEYI X6 was just too damn sleek looking to not buy. It’s retractable connector is what makes it longer than it needs to be. The enclosure itself measures 74.6mm x 31.8mm x 9.5mm (long x wide x thick) when the connector is retracted and is 11.5mm longer with the USB connector out.

The aluminium enclosure feels quite thick and premium, measuring in at 1.2mm thick. The SSD you intend to install must not be wider than 22.1mm.

The front and end pieces are each held in place by two screws, which screw into countersunk holes. The two pieces themselves are made from aluminium, but have a different finish to the main body. They are not as shiny (reflective) as the rest of the body.

There is a small hole next to the connector which is the activity indicator. Its blue light isn’t that bright and is obstructed when plugged into a USB port. One may wish to drill a hole on the top surface of the drive and remount the LED facing up from the circuit board. The USB Type-A connector cutout is also very tight out of the box, and may require some sanding down with some high grit sandpaper.

The bottom side of the device has a cutout for the USB connector retracting mechanism. One can use their nails to pull the screw down and then slide connector in and out. The mechanism is spring loaded, which locks the connector open or closed.

The top side of the PCB houses the M.2 connector which is B-keyed, meaning PCIe 4-lane SSDs will not fit and PCIe 2-lane SSDs will not work. There are holes cut out to support both 2230 (30mm long) and 2242 (42mm long) sized cards, though I have yet to find a commercially available SATA based 2230 SSD. The top side also houses the activity LED, soldered in perpendicular to the PCB in order to shine out of the hole next to the connector. One could easily replace the LED so it faces up and then drill a small hole on the top surface of the enclosure. My board is labelled “U3AGNGF-ASM JY VER:1.4”.

All the magic happens on the bottom side of the board. The JEYI X6 is powered by the ASMedia ASM1153E SATA3 to USB3.0 bridge.

There is a 512Kbit SPI flash which is used to store the USB vendor and device ID reported to the host device, as well as any other vendor specific programming.

The 3.3V rail required by the SATA SSD is provided by a TD6817, a high efficiency monolithic synchronous buck regulator, more than capable of providing the full 4.5W that USB3.0 can provide.

Assembly

The adaptor arrives in pieces without instructions. Here are the assembly instructions if you’re having trouble.

Insert your SSD into the connector
Place the gold retaining nut (looks like a spool) into the corresponding cutout on the end of the SSD
Push the SSD flat against the PCB and screw in the smallest screw (the flat headed one) from the underside of the PCB into the retaining nut
Attach the plastic retaining clip to the bottom side of the PCB. The square footprint on the plastic fits into the rectangular cutout on the PCB. Ensure the bottom of the O-shaped part is pushed into the long slit cutout. The plastic should hold itself onto the PCB.
Slide the PCB into the enclosure until the hole (metal threaded insert) on the plastic retaining clip lines up with one of the ends of the cutout on the bottom side of the enclosure.
Screw in the screw with the tall head into the metal threaded insert.
Screw in the end pieces of the enclosure with two of the long screws each. Ensure the countersunk holes face the outside of the device.

Results

Most of the results here are very similar to the original Sintech adaptor I previously reviewed. Please read that review for explanations. I will just gloss over the details here.

When connected via regular USB3.0 (BOT: Bulk-Only Transfer) through the ASM1153E in the JEYI X6, we see similar results to the JMS578 in the Sintech adaptor.

On an OS with UASP support, in this case Windows 10, we are able to connect in UASP mode.

In UASP mode, we see quite an improvement over the JMS578. Real world file copying managed to reach 410MB/s read and 285MB/s write. The write speed is somewhat puzzling as it is nowhere near the almost 400MB/s from the benchmark. More investigation is required.

The ASM1153E chip also stayed well under 50 degrees Celsius with an ambient temperature of 20 degrees. My Transcend SSD also stayed quite a bit cooler too. I have not had any overheating issues so far.

Conclusion

The JEYI X6 is a very stylish and capable adaptor. Its size isn’t as small as I’d like it, but is still acceptable for a USB drive. The width of the adaptor does mean it will interfere with adjacent USB ports, however, most of my devices either don’t have adjacent USB ports or are spaced enough apart to still allow another USB device to be plugged in. Real world sequential write speeds are a bit slower than what the JSM578 can offer, but then again, how often will you get the chance to appreciate write speeds higher than 285MB/s anyway.

Activity LED Mod

Not being able to see the activity indicator LED was really getting to me. I don’t safely eject or unmount drives much and the fear of a dirty filesystem is present every time I go to unplug. So I got out my drill and drilled a 2mm diameter hole directly above the LED on the circuit board while the connector is in its extended state. That is approximately 5mm from the connector’s side’s edge and 6mm from the side edge.

I desoldered the existing blue LED and soldered in a white 1206 sized LED from an LCD backlight strip. 1206 is about the largest SMD LED that will fit into this design. The LED must not extend further than the M.2 connector (toward the side edge), otherwise the circuit board will not slide into the enclosure.

I contemplated what I would fill the hole up with to act as a barrier and light diffuser. Sticky tape would attract dust and wax would be too easy to scratch out. I ended up finding a bead of silica desiccant that made a tight fit into the hole. I stuck a piece of Scotch Magic tape against the bead on the inside to act as a light diffuser, making the light uniform and visible from all angles.

Here is the result:

I stuffed up the countersinking, but that can be fixed later on.

I have noticed that the LED turns off after remaining idle for a few minutes. I never saw the LED in the original unmodified state, so I’m not sure if this happens with the original LED. The good news is that the LED will turn back on when there is activity on the drive.

Sintech ST-M2U3-U Review (SATA3 to USB3 Bridge)

Fri, 22 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The Sintech ST-M2U3-U will be the first SATA to USB bridge I’ll be reviewing, until I find a suitable bridge for my personal preference. Read on to find out why there will be more devices coming up…

The Sintech ST-M2U3-U is made out of black anodised aluminium and measures 58.8mm x 25.5mm x 8.8mm (long x wide x thick) not including the USB connector. The connector protrudes by 13.5mm.

The aluminium enclosure is approx 0.9mm thick and has an internal cross-sectional dimension of 23.7mm x 6.8mm.

The bottom cover of the enclosure is plastic and is glued into place.

The top cover surrounding the USB connector is also made of plastic and is held in by a screw on each side.

Silkscreen on the PCB marks the board ‘NFHK N-30Y V1". I assume NFHK is the OEM and this board is the N-30Y. The soldering on the PCB doesn’t look top notch, but the device works. My PCB had a few strands of fibre caught on the pins of the components.

The Sintech ST-M2U3-U is powered by the JMicron JMS578 SATA to USB3.0 Bridge. The JMicron site does not have a datasheet for this IC, however it does mention that such a chip exists. The closest chip with a datasheet is the JMS567.

There is a 512Kbit SPI flash which is used to store the USB vendor and device ID reported to the host device. You can download a dump of my flash here. Interestingly, the flash mentions a JMS579 instead of JMS5578.

The 3.3V rail required by the SATA SSD is regulated by two ST LD1117 voltage regulators, each capable of up to 800mA for a total of 1.6A. This means it can provide the full 4.5W that USB3.0 can provide, enough for the most power-hungry SSDs. The genuineness of the regulators looks questionable as the serial numbers aren’t even remotely close to one another.

There is an onboard green activity LED, however there is no cutout on the aluminium enclosure for the light to shine through.

The bottom side contains the M.2 connector. Its edges have been shaved off slightly, perhaps to allow it to fit into the enclosure. The connector is B-keyed, meaning PCIe 4-lane SSDs will not fit and PCIe 2-lane SSDs will not work.

With an SSD installed, there is a very slight air gap (less than 0.2mm) between the SSD/VRM and the aluminium chassis. Thus the chassis is essentially a loosely coupled heatsink.

Results

When connected via regular USB3.0 (BOT: Bulk-Only Transfer) through the JMS578 in the Sintech ST-M2U3-U, sequential speeds drop to just over 300MB/s. This is very likely due to the limitations of the BOT as we are still around 100MB/s lower than the max throughput of USB 3.0 after 8b/10b encoding and USB protocol headers. 4K operations takes a massive performance hit, but that’s to be expected when bridging over USB in BOT mode. Even with the drop in performance, 4K is 3 times the performance of the VisionTek drive.

In order to bypass some of the limitations of the Bulk-Only Transfer (Mass Storage Device), UASP (USB Attached SCSI) was developed. This allows the SCSI command set to be used to talk to drives and supports pipelining. This has the benefit of higher throughput and lower CPU usage. Windows 7 has no UASP driver support from Microsoft or Intel for the built-in USB3 on the Intel PCH. Some 3rd party chipsets such as the ones from Renesas and ASMedia do have official UASP drivers as they have paid for a licence to implement it. The generic USB drivers provided by Microsoft in Windows 8 onwards do support UASP for Intel’s chipsets (i.e. the ones built in to the PCH). CrystalDiskInfo, in Windows 10 with generic Microsoft drivers, shows the Interface to be UASP.

A quick test shows great improvement in the random 4K reads and writes. This is largely due to the pipelining whereby commands, status, data in and data out travel in separate pipes and thus there is less waiting around. Sequential reads and writes also increase significantly, however, the USB3.0 PHY bottleneck is still present as we are still nowhere near the speeds we obtained when connected through SATA3.

Real world file copying managed to reach around 420MB/s read and 325MB/s write.

Unfortunately, during benchmarking and while copying many gigabytes of sequential files, the controller reports temperatures just under 70 Celsius and the drive stops responding. The enclosure got as hot as 48 Celsius during the benchmark, with an ambient temperature of 22 Celsius. It would probably get hotter if the drive didn’t stop working.

Initially my thoughts were that the Transcend SSD controller is overheating, as it does get too hot to touch (i.e. above 60 Celsius). So I got some silicon thermal transfer pads and sandwiched some between the bottom NAND chip and the adaptor PCB and between the enclosure of the device and the top side of the SSD (SSD controller, Top NAND chip, Cache). This didn’t do anything. I tested the SSD again in an M.2 slot in my XPS and it ran well above 70 Celsius with no cooling.

JMicron’s datasheet for a similar USB3 SATA bridge states its operating temperature to be up to 70 Celsius. The JMicron chip also gets too hot to touch, which means it is entirely likely that it’s the culprit. Unfortunately, before I got a chance to test out cooling the JMicron chip, the adaptor died on me. I left it plugged in to the computer idling for a few hours and now it does not respond when plugged into the computer. The LED shines dimly when plugged in and draws 40mA of current.

I also did not get a chance to test TRIM support through UASP, though some Chinese forums report that the chip does support TRIM through UASP. TRIM Check failed to detect TRIM working in Windows 7 in BOT mode.

Conclusion

Although the JMS578 is a very capable bridge, it is let down by this NFHK/Sintech enclosure. The heat it generates is not being dissipated fast enough by the solder joints or PCB. The heat results in the chip not responding to the host and must be power cycled to restore functionality. Adaptors that use this chip are not recommended unless it is properly heat-sunk or the SSD being used is not capable of transfer speeds much faster than a HDD. I cannot explain why my device died, but heat issues are unlikely as it was idling when it died.

The Hunt for an SSD in a Thumb Drive

Fri, 22 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

My Corsair Voyager GT USB3.0 has been serving me well for the past few years, but some traits of USB flash drives have always been quite annoying to me. Although the drive (and almost all other performance USB3.0 flash drives) have very fast sequential read/write speeds (e.g. copying large files), they suffer when it comes to smaller operations such as 4K byte block read/writes (e.g. copying lots of small files). This is presumably to do with the controller that manages access to the flash memory chip.

As an example, my Corsair Flash Voyager can do around 240MB/s read and 90MB/s write sequential, but can only do a measly 8MB/s and 0.8MB/s for 4K operations.

In early 2015 I saw reviews for a new SSD flash drive by VisionTek which puts an LSI SandForce SSD controller into a thumb drive sized package. Its reviews were very impressive, especially 4K, however its price and sequential incompressible read/write speeds of 210MB/s and 155MB/s were not compelling enough to upgrade from my Flash Voyager GT.

While upgrading the SSD in my XPS 15" (9550), I finally got a chance to appreciate the size of the new M.2 (formerly NGFF) sized successor to the mPCIe/mSATA cards. The M.2 connector contains bus interfaces for both PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA3. M.2 SSDs comes in PCIe and SATA varieties and are available in M.2 form factors as small as 2242 (i.e. 22mm wide by 42mm long).

When I realised how narrow the M.2 SSD was, I began to wonder if M.2 to USB adaptors exist in a thumb drive form factor. So I jumped on eBay and Amazon and searched with the keywords “USB3” and “M.2”. The majority of results are made to accommodate 2280 sized cards and require a USB cable to be plugged in. 80mm (plus a bit more for the enclosure) is a bit too long to be considered thumb drive size for me and having to plug in a USB cable was the deal breaker. I see some 2242 to USB3.0 adaptors but the enclosures were much wider than 22mm, which would interfere with adjacent USB connectors on some host devices.

After a few pages of results I find two of what I’m looking for, an M.2 2242 to USB3.0 adaptor which has a built in USB type A connector and has an internal width as close to 22mm as possible. The two adaptors are the:

Sintech ST-M2U3-U - M.2 (NGFF) B-M Key SATA SSD as USB 3.0 Disk [Amazon] | [Official Site]
CY (Chenyang) 42mm NGFF M2 SSD to USB 3.0 [Amazon]

The two adaptors appear to both use the same aluminium enclosure with plastic ends. The Sintech adaptor has UASP listed as a supported feature and that’s about all the useful information I got. I did find some other Sintech products which use the JMS567 chipset, which got over 300MB/s in one review. The Chenyang adaptor has a picture of the PCB and shows it’s using an Initio chipset and has an Amazon review which shows it’s max sequential transfer speed is below 200MB/s. So I put my money on the Sintech adaptor.

The SSD: TS256GMTS400

One of my local IT stores stocked the Adata SP900 and a Transcend MTS400, both SATA based M.2 2242 SSDs. Reviews show the Transcend drive being just a bit faster, so I ordered the 256GB Transcend.

The Transcend TS256GMTS400 is powered by a Transcend branded controller (P4CV05.00), 256MB of Samsung DDR3L Cache (K4B2G1646Q) and two SanDisk 128GB MLC NAND chips (SDYNSGDPM).

This is what the SSD is capable of while connected via SATA3 in AHCI mode with an NTFS filesystem of 4K allocation unit size.

Reviewed Devices

Stay tuned for more USB SATA bridge reviews

Moshi Luna: An Almost Perfect Keyboard

Sat, 02 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been using the A4Tech KV300H Isolation Keyboard for the past four years and for the most part, it’s performed solidly. For around $30 you get a full-sized 104-key low profile chiclet style keyboard.

Recently I’ve acquired the need for a backlit keyboard to work when the room is dimly lit. So I had a look at what a local computer store offered. I’m one of those people that have strict requirements for things I buy, and for keyboards they are:

Wired, because security!
Full size 104-keys (with the three columns by two rows of editing/navigation keys above the arrows
Full sized arrow keys (none of that half sized rubbish that Apple introduced on their Macbook keyboards)
Low profile chiclet style keyboard with bezel around very key

With these requirements, there were only a few possible candidates and they were all gaming keyboards. Some looked fugly and others took too much desk space. The only candidate left was the Razer Deathstalker line of keyboards. It ticks all of my above-mentioned requirements and there are a few backlit variants. They have a green backlit one (Deathstalker Expert) and one with programmable RGB colours (Deathstalker Chroma). I was certainly not forking out an extra $50 for the ability to change the colours of the backlight. Green will do just fine.

So I picked up a Deathstalker Expert keyboard. One of the first things you notice about the keyboard is that it’s not as premium as Razer makes it look in their renderings/photos. I then proceeded to type on the thing and the actuation pressure for the keys was a lot higher than I was used to, especially with the lighter than average actuation pressure of the A4Tech Isolation keyboard. Sliding your fingers across the keys yields a bit of a rattle like an old school keyboard (Razer’s design uses hard plastic to couple the key caps to the keyboard). The keys also feels a bit mushy when pressed, with less than desired amount of tactile feedback. I decided to give the keyboard a try for a while, in the hopes that I’ll get used to it. One of the first things I noticed is that I couldn’t type as fast as I would on other chiclet keyboards and I would get tired much sooner than I would before. This keyboard is really not good for typing. Another really annoying issue that occurs is that they keyboard stops working after switching between console and Remote Desktop sessions a few times. I’ve tried the Razer drivers and Windows generic drivers, and the issue still persisted. This is and will be the first and last time I buy a Razer product.

So the search was on again, and after a Google image search for chiclet backlit keyboards, I stumble across the Moshi Luna. The Apple/OSX keys put me off initially, but it was designed for both PC and Mac and reviews for it were generally positive. And unlike many other products you find online, this was stocked locally at most Mac oriented stores. I picked mine up for $129 at Mac Centre.

Typing on the Moshi Luna is very pleasant. The keys are very quiet compared to the A4Tech Isolation Keyboard and the Razer Deathstalker. Without further ado, here are my good and bad points about this keyboard.

The Good

Full sized low profile chiclet style keys with bezel surrounding all the keys
Good actuation pressure with very pleasant tactile feedback (scissor-switch and membrane)
Most keys are very quiet (with the exception of larger keys with metal bracing that give off a very slight rattle of metal against plastic)
Key caps are removable and swappable
A good number of backlight brightness levels (5 including off)
Has a function lock to switch between the function keys and their alternate functions

The Bad

Backlight escapes out the edges of the caps at shallow angles
Apple/OSX layout and key icons (the Option/Alt and Command/Win keys are swapped compared to a standard keyboard)
Glossy plastic makes greasy smudges and fingerprints more noticeable (especially on the clear plastic when its lit up)
No scroll lock indicator (I use the LED for notifications)
Then function keys default to their alternate functions each time the PC is switched on (the state of the function lock is not remembered)
Due to the fn key and the fn lock, you lose the context menu key and the Pause/Break key.
The palm rest acts as a light pipe and adds ambient light to a dark room

It may look like there are more bad points about this keyboard, but I’m just being nitpicky and some of the problems can be fixed. Here comes the fun of modding.

Blocking the light shone through the clear palmrest

This requires disassembling the keyboard to cover up the LEDs shinning at the palm rest. The keyboard can be disassembled by removing the 10 pieces of rubber covering up the Phillips screws underneath. Use a pin or flat head screwdriver to pry the rubber out and unscrew all the screws. The keys of the keyboard are attached to the front bezel and is connect to the circuit board via flat flex. Disconnect these to avoid damage. There is also an ESD wire screwed into the metal behind the keys.

The Moshi logo on the top left of the keyboard is lit by the light diffuser on the main PCB. If you dislike the logo, it can be covered up.

The palm rest itself can be unscrewed and removed, but you will be left with a gap where the palm rest protrudes from the keyboard.

To block the light coming out of the edges of the palm rest, simply add some opaque tape to the edge between the front bezel and the metal back plate.

Prevent the Backlight Escaping the gaps

When sitting at a comfortable/ergonomic distance from the keyboard, the backlight can be seen through the gaps between the key caps and the keyboard. The bottom of the function and number rows as well as the left side of the number pad are especially noticeable.

The solution is to remove the key caps and the key retaining clip to cover up some of the light diffuser.

All the key caps are removable. The key caps are attached to the keyboard by a scissor-switch retaining clip. The retaining clip is attached to the key cap with a hook and clip structure. On one side the hook it slid in and on the other side the clip snaps into place like a peg.

All the keys the size of and smaller than the Tab key have a single retaining clip. Some of the retaining clips are mounted sideways. Regardless, all these key caps can be peeled off from the top right corner.

Keys larger than the Tab key have two retaining clips and metal bracing. These keys may require you to slide something flat into the gap to detach the retaining clip.

After removing the scissor-switch retaining clip, the edges of the light diffuser can be coloured in to reduce the amount of light bouncing out the gaps. The ink used in Sharpie permanent markers will give off purple light. Artline permanent markers weren’t dark enough and let too much light pass through. In the end, I pulled the tip off a black Uni-ball Eye pen and used its pigment ink.

I covered only the edges of the key that are in line of sight with my eyes. Remember not to cover the entire diffuser as that would defeat the purpose of a backlit keyboard. 108 keys later, there is significantly less light shinning out of the gaps. The following photo was taken with HDR 6EV to match what a human eye sees.

Swapping the Option/Alt and Command/Win keys

A standard keyboard’s modifier keys are in the order Ctrl Win Alt while the Apple/OSX layout results in Ctrl Alt Win. Luckily, the Win and Alt keys are the same size and we can simply swap the keys around.

We also need to remap the keys as the original scancodes are still being sent.

Windows offers a registry value dedicated to remapping scancodes at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout\Scancode Map, but thankfully RandyRants has created a GUI tool called SharpKeys to make life easier. Simply map the keys to each other. I have also mapped the right Ctrl to the Application/Context Menu key.

Linux users can remap with udev(8), setkeycodes(8) or through a window manager such as X using xmodmap(1). Refer to this Arch Wiki.