Hyperdrive USB4 SSD Enclosure review: specs, performance, cost

Hyperdrive Next USB4 SSD Enclosure review

The Next is an easy-to-use, protective, and efficient enclosure that will bring out the best in your external SSD.

Through NVMe SSDs, external storage is more portable and cost-effective than ever. Being able to have backups and important files with you and share them securely across devices is essential if you don’t want to rely on the cloud.

Hyper’s Next SSD enclosure uses USB4 for fast read/write speeds and has a convenient, toolless installation. Based in California, Hyper has been making Apple accessories and connectivity products since 2005.

Hyperdrive Next USB4 SSD Enclosure – Design

Out of the box, the Next comes with the enclosure, rubber case, USB4 wire, user guide, thermal pads, and grips for the SSD. It’s a toolless enclosure, so all you have to do is open it up, apply the thermal pad, snap in the SSD, and put in the rubber grip to keep it in place.

The Next is made of 100% recycled aluminum, which is good for both durability and if you value environmentally conscious tech. It still feels light in your hand or your pocket, though.

If you take off the case, you can see ridges on the top and bottom, which I assume act as a kind of passive heatsink.

Hyperdrive Next USB4 SSD Enclosure review: Without the rubber casing, in hand.

USB4 has a transfer speed of 40Gbps, and is quite similar to Thunderbolt 3 in speed, albeit with some minor differences.

Since the enclosure closes pretty snuggly with magnets, it has an ingress protection rating of IP55, meaning it can withstand a good amount of dust and water jet pressure of 4.4 psi from around 10 feet away. I’m not sure if this rating was established with or without the rubber casing, but it’s a good rating for an open-install enclosure, regardless.

Hyperdrive Next USB4 SSD Enclosure – Specs

Hyperdrive Next USB4 SSD Enclosure – Use

This was the first toolless enclosure I’ve used, and it felt pretty intuitive to use. Swapping SSDs was very easy, with the most time-intensive part being cutting the thermal pad to match the size of the SSD.

Hyperdrive Next USB4 SSD Enclosure review: The internals of the Next, showing the different SSD sizes it can hold.

As for portability, the Next can fit in the back pocket of some jeans and suffered no problems when taken on a trip using public transportation. Light water testing showed no damage, especially with the rubber casing on.

All read and write testing was done using a fresh 1TB Samsung 990 Evo Plus, and the drive was initialized as an APFS volume with a GUID Partition Map.

Hyperdrive Next USB4 SSD Enclosure review: Read/Write result under 5GB of load.

Using Black Magic Disk Speed Test, the enclosure and SSD had a read speed of 2906.4 MB/s and a write speed of 3067.2 MB/s under 5GB of load. It also had a read speed of 2871.1 and a write speed of 3059.3 under 1GB of load.

I also timed how long it would take to back up my mostly full 256GB M2 MacBook Pro on Time Machine for a more realistic test. It came out to around an hour and a half, which is within the expected range for SSDs.

It got pretty hot while doing this, making a warm spot on the table I was at even after I moved the enclosure. Still, this didn’t seem to interfere with speed, and didn’t make it uncomfortable to hold.

Hyperdrive Next USB4 SSD Enclosure – An aluminum vault for any NVMe SSD

External SSDs serve as a good intermediate point between quick on-device storage and slower, more permanent HDD storage for archiving your old stuff. The Next isn’t cheap, with the only more expensive enclosures I know having multiple bays, fan cooling, or both.

This is a wise choice for anyone who wants a nice enclosure that focuses on convenience, speed, and durability. Having up to 4TB in your pocket is great for photographers and creatives who work with a lot of content or people who may need to swap out SSDs frequently in their workflow.

The Next is reliable overall, but a good enclosure acts as an investment for an equally good or greater SSD, so plan your purchases accordingly.

Hyperdrive Next USB4 SSD Enclosure review: The inside featuring the SSD I used to test.

Hyperdrive Next USB4 SSD Enclosure Pros

• Protective materials and IP55 rating
• Maintains SSD read/write quality
• Various SSD size and capacity accomodations

Hyperdrive Next USB4 SSD Enclosure Cons

• Can get a little hot under stress
• Pricey for having a few features

Rating: 4 out of 5

Where to buy the Hyperdrive Next USB4 SSD Enclosure

The Hyperdrive Next USB4 SSD Enclosure is available on the Hyper store and Amazon for $119.99.