If you are refering to Sata enclosure. I did a review sometime back, there is nothing better than PiBOX atleast in India. They advertise the controller they use upfront and it’s not those cheap jmicron ones used by all the big players and I can bet my bottom dollars adata also has jmicron controller.
PiBox enclosres use Realtek chipset and that too modern ones. Look nowhere else. Their NVME enclosures are awesome too (the best if u ask me). It costs a bit more so Adata is not bad for the price at least better than other chinesium shit.
I have 10 enclosures from PiBoX tore down 3 of them (rest are different colors of same models) all of them are Realtek. PiBOX most certainly DOES NOT use jmicron. I hope I answered your question. Also if you are on Linux, you are just an lsusb away from identifying the device.
Not just sata enclosures, they also advertise the controllers they use for their other products. Nothing comes even close to PiBox in this regard.
jmicron and other sata-usb bridges generally were created for those internal HDDs, Seagate, WD, Toshiba used them a lot. Since they were meant for HDDs they did not support UASP, TRIM, SMART etc etc. It’s a hit or a miss with them.
Sounce and others like it import from some OEM and they are not tech brand per se, they import gadgets from OEMs in china and sell them. So you can get good stuff from them but don’t expect a full write up on a product with all the intricate details.
PiBOX has actually worked on their stuff, finalized the controller, worked out feature set, designed their plastic shell and then ordered it through China (The PCB, the shell and assembly is inhouse if I am not wrong), you don’t see that level of understanding with other brands, then they also give you a carrying case included. They advertise the correct USB versions and speed. All in all A++
Orico is another one which is good in terms of actually putting in some work. But I can only find the docs in their chinese site so why bother when you have PiBOX.
PiBOX and Fourdot are real gems if you haven’t checked Fourdot PC FANs please do, highly recommended.
Can you share the model no, PiBOX used to sell Orico Sata enclosures and still does on their website, the two products have separate pages and the new product line has a text in bold mentioning the new product line, or you have the transparent one that’s also Orico enclosure. All Micro B USB 3 based enclosures are Orico sourced. Please check your product model. Again PiBOX doesn’t use them in PiBox branded ones with clear controller description.
The products that have Realtek controllers have clear product description mentioning the controller details, I don’t understand what are you on about.
Brother yup you are right it doesn’t say which controller it uses, SO don’t expect any specific controller. This is 3.5" enclosure, the context was 2.5" and NVME enclosures. They don’t advertise any controller for this model.
However, the 3.5 Inch powered dock by PiBox has Asmedia controller If you are looking for something better.
Go to pibox.in and check all their offerings.
This is one of their newer product for 3.5" disks,
Ugreen uses the updated Jmicron (China) controller JMS578 (much better than older JM chipsets) still I won’t say it’s better than Realtek (taiwan). But Ugreen has better build and shell and that’s where your money goes.
In terms of tech no it’s not better but Ugreen justifies it’s price in the build quality department.
However, for the price of 1 Ugreen you can get 2-3 Pibox so up to you. Also Pibox has launched some good loking retro sata enclosure (same chipset just different shell), it looks like an old cassette just ordered two of them, sold out on amazon (was 400 on black friday) but still available on pibox website.
Coming to lower cost and better product, PiBox is a great choice (def a lot better than the Adata one listed above)
Been using a couple of PiBox M.2 SATA, M.2 NVME, and SATA enclosures, and all work decently well (yes one failed, which was used with a laptop hdd 7200rpm one, mostly due to excess power needs, and yet unable to get it replaced)
Yeah, pobox warranty services and customer support is bad. Even though for reviewing their product, they gave me 6 months additional warranty but within 15 days the enclosure stopped working like not detecting at all suddenly (the drive was fine) and they did asked so many things to check (which is fine) and then asked me to ship it back to them on my own cost then they will decide. Just for this reply they took two three days.
