The Fledging Shell is a small but solidly engineered enclosure that lets you leverage M.2 NVMe SSDs for increased performance. USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10Gbps) is capable of more speed than SSDs such as Samsung’s T5, Sandisk’s Extreme SSD and others deliver. Internally, those drives still utilize the older SATA protocol, which maxes out at around 450MBps in real world transfers—well below Gen 2’s theoretical limit.
The Shell provides a nice boost over the competition, but alas, also exposes USB 3.1’s limits. It’s hardly slow, but Thunderbolt it ain’t.
[h=Specs and design]2[/h]The Shell is available in the four different capacities: 256GB ($135 on AmazonRemove non-product link), 512GB ($220 on AmazonRemove non-product link), 1TB (as reviewed—$350 on Amazon), and 2TB ($660 on Amazon)Remove non-product link). That’s not outrageously priced by any means considering the prices of top-notch NVMe SSDs. My test unit came with a 1TB WD Black SN750 inside—a very capable SSD (read our review). Fledging normally ships the populated models with its own Phison E12 model, which Macworld says is a very fast SSD, but slows during long transfers.
To read this article in full, please click here


More...