Netac WH61 in detail
If there’s anything remarkable about the Netac W61 besides its lower price, it’s its super-small size. It’s similar in size to more powerful flash drives, which are usually significantly slower. But even with this external SSD enclosure, there’s no absolute certainty of reaching the maximum speed potential. After all, the cooling capabilities are weaker here, but sometimes they can be enough for those 1100 MB/s.
Netac WH61 in detail
The body of the enclosure is predominantly plastic and gives a cheaper impression. When squeezing it, you can even get a little squeak out of it. However, the more delicate design is matched by the low price. Netac’s suggested retail price is 89 RMB (Chinese yuan), which is 11.40 EUR according to the current exchange rate.
Outside China, however, the price will be higher. We don’t list it because we haven’t found a retailer that sells the Netac WH61 outside of the domestic (Chinese) market. However, that doesn’t mean such retailers don’t exist and if you find one, we’d be happy if you share it in the comment section below the article. Anyway, in regards to the WH61 enclosure, even Netac talks about it as a product designed mainly for the Chinese customer. Thus, this enclosure may not be relevant for most of our readers, if they are looking for one – they want to buy one. For “research purposes” it is, of course, attractive to all.
Netac boasts the use of a Realtek RTL9210B controller, which is used for communication between the USB and the SSD. In addition to NVMe models, SATA SSDs are also supported. Unlike many USB-C enclosures, the cable included with this one has a Type-A connector on the side connecting to the end device (usually there’s USB-C on both sides). This can come in handy in cases where you don’t have the option of connecting the external SSD to a USB-C connector, or a USB-C connector is already occupied by another device.
A 10-gigabit USB 3.2 gen. 2 interface is supported, as with the SSD enclosures we’ve already tested – the Axagon EEM2-GTR and Asus TUF Gaming A1.
There is a small aluminum heatsink on the front side to dissipate heat from inside the enclosure. At approximately 1.8 mm thick, it measures 20 × 69 mm. However, because of the four longitudinal fins, its surface area is larger. Nevertheless, it is important to state that the available cooling performance will certainly be lower than most all-metal solutions. Compared to them, however, the Netac WH61 enclosure will be significantly lighter (30 grams) and, most importantly, smaller, which some users may consider an advantage.
At 110mm long, 12.5mm thick and 33mm wide, it is one of the smallest SSD enclosures that are also designed for NVMe SSDs. Only flash drives are noticeably smaller. However, these are significantly slower. The Kingston DataTraveler Max as a representative of flash drives with USB 3.2 gen. 2 support is not so much smaller (than the Netac WH61) and although the parameters indicate speeds of up to 1 GB/s, the question is under what conditions they are achieved (and whether it is not only the peak speeds for short-term load). We won’t find out what it’s like for flash drives today, but we’ll look at the WH61’s enclosure capabilities in our tests.
You won’t need any tools to install the SSD. The first step is to remove the cover that hides the M.2 slot. The cover can be easily slid out using your thumb. You then insert the rotating spacer with the latch into position on the PCB and you can proceed to the SSD. These are supported in four physical formats – 30, 42, 60 and 80 mm – both single and double-sided.
Traditionally, a thermal pad is inserted between the SSD and the heatsink. It is noteworthy that it is significantly smaller (59 × 11 mm) than the area of the controller, or its heat spreader, and the SSD memory chips. The latter are mainly wider, even by more than 60%. However, the critical places for cooling are usually around the middle, and the pad reaches those. In addition, the thermal imaging shows that the heat transfer from the SSD to the heatsink is quite intense (we measured over 50 °C on the cooler fins).
The cost cuts include a LED indicating SSD activity or power. The Netac WH61 enclosure does not have one. On the other hand, users sensitive to peripheral sources of lights don’t have to dim anything.
Testing methodology
The foundation for all measurements is CrystalDiskMark with a library size of 1 GB. We test SSD speed in two situations. Before load and then, after a 10-minute load for maximum sequential reads and writes. This will reveal how warming up the external enclosure affects the speed with the Samsung 980 Pro SSD (1 TB). The values of the speed measurements are averaged over three passes for greater accuracy. The enclosures are connected via a USB expansion card (3.2 gen. 2×2) – the Renkforce RF-4538236 with the ASMedia ASM3242 controller. The tests run on an Asus ROG Strix Z790-E Gaming WiFi motherboard with an Intel Core i9-13900K processor (and G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo memory – 2×16 GB, 6000 MHz/CL30) under Microsoft Windows 10 (22H2).
We measure power consumption using a custom-made PCIe power meter, which you’ll also know from graphics card tests. This is plugged in before the PCIe card (with a USB controller), whose consumption is part of the result. We measure the power consumption under load for maximum sequential read and write speeds.
We only observe the temperature on the surface, on the casing. Be careful when evaluating it, a higher temperature doesn’t automatically mean a worse result (think thermal pad tests and heatsink temperatures…), but it doesn’t mean a better one either. The guiding factor here from a cooling perspective would be SSD temperature, but we have no control over that. The test SSD does have its sensors, but once it (the SSD) is plugged into the enclosure, the motherboard can no longer reach them. So we only do IR thermal mapping (with a Fluke Ti125 thermal imager), which can at least show how the heat is spreading through the enclosure and whether it will burn you. Thermal imaging is for the finned side of an enclosure or the side in contact with the SSD controller (if the enclosure does not have fins).
During testing, the SSD enclosures are always placed in the same position – longitudinally, in an open space, where they stand on the pad with the bottom side facing down. The airflow in the test room is always comparable, with the temperature at the control point varying between 21,0 and 21,3 °C.
