Hi, I was about to upgrade the firmware of my device to the current one (v1.20.12.021220) and I noticed something in the configuration file that didn’t fully comprehend. Well, I didn’t comprehend many of the parameters listed there, I wish there were an explanation as to what they do as it may be of use for someone to tweak them a bit.
For example, PCIE_PWRCUT_THRES, is self explanatory but CFEXPRESS, EN_UPS or CUSTOMIZED_LED, no idea.
Anyway, the purpose of this thread is regarding ASPMDIS. It seems to be disabled and while I couldn’t find many info regarding it, it seems to be related to the power management of the link itself. Shouldn’t it be turned on?
Thanks for reaching out to us, I am happy to help!
We do not recommend or support modifying the firmware update settings or binary firmware files for this enclosure, changing these settings could create compatibility or stability problems, and may potentially cause damage to the enclosure or installed NVMe SSD.
The firmware update is provided directly from Realtek and some of the settings details are protected, from my understanding the ASPMDIS setting refers to “Active State Power Management” a mechanism in PCIe for saving power at the expense of response time when the PCIe link is resumed. This is commonly used in low power laptops and UltraBook computers but it is not recommended for higher performance devices, especially storage devices as it can cause delays in reading and writing to the storage device after periods of inactivity. ASPM would be useful for devices that do not need to be always on when in low power states, like WiFi controllers. I would recommend against using Active State Power Management with any storage devices.
Settings with a semi-colon ‘;’ are commented out are not relevant to our implementation of this chipset. For example CUSTOMIZED_LED is likely for setting the color of an RGB LED or different modes for a single-color LED. Some settings with 0x0 are simply stating this is a disable option, like CFEXPRESS appears to be a potential compatibility setting for Compact Flash Express standard, which is not supported in this enclosures.
Please let me know if you have any additional questions regarding the firmware update or if there is anything else I can help with.
Wow! Thank you for the quick and detailed reply Pat!
In the end I left the configuration file as it was, I have no problem with the enclosure and I don’t want to begin having any
I use it for a 2-lane NVMe drive, not as fast as a 4-lane, but it came with my new laptop and I decided to upgrade the laptop to a better drive and get an enclosure for the one that came with. I couldn’t be more happy! It does heat up a bit when in use, but I think it is to be expected.
Again, thank you for clarifying, kind regards,
James.
Thanks for the update, I am glad the firmware upgrade went through without any issues!
NVMe SSDs are high performance devices and do get quite warm while active. Even at idle the drives are still using power and generating heat but most of the time they will stay between cool and warm to the touch depending on activity. Under heavy load they can get quite hot with most drives having operating temperatures up to 70°c with some as high as 80°c.
I will go ahead and mark this ticket as closed, if you have any additional questions, please feel free to send us an email at support@plugable.com, or start up another thread.
