External housings for physical storage have long been a popular way to expand your computer’s capacity or simply transfer large amounts of data. Looking at the average Stream library, gamers need over 100GB of fast data storage to either store and play games from, or have it as a backup when moving PCs. I use an external drive to house my video files and backups for doing the annual format and reinstall… you guys still do that, right?
The problem with my rugged external USB 3.0 drives is that they are incredibly slow compared to the NVME drives in my machine. For video work, I often run into bottlenecks when editing video directly from those drives. So I rely on my secondary NVME M.2 drive I installed in my MSI Raider GE76 for all the latest video file storage.
As we produce more video here at NAG we often need to go back to the archives to pull old footage or effects, so our need for faster external storage has become an immediate need. While I was searching for an external storage solution to invest in, Len magically dropped the Cooler Master Oracle Air on my desk. Great timing!
This Cooler Master Oracle Air is a rugged and portable external housing for a full-size NVME drive. As we see prices drop in this market category, we often pick up 2TB drives for around R2,000 and under on special. This makes something like the Cooler Master Oracle Air a great solution for really fast external storage to boost whatever you may already have inside your machine.
Looking at performance, the Oracle Air will perform as fast as the NVME drive you have installed and the speed that your computer Bus will allow. The only requirement is a USB-C port on your computer, the bottlenecks will hurt you if you use anything slower.
The Cooler Master Oracle Air NVME M.2 Enclosure is not just functional but it’s also a beautiful piece of engineering that feels solid in hand. There are two main parts, the NVME drive enclosure and a sheath into which the enclosure slides. There are no screws to secure it, just a clip that you press to slide out the enclosure to swap out a drive. The Oracle Air can accommodate any size NVME drive and it comes with a rubber retention pin to keep your drive in place.
If you work with video files and need reliable and very fast external storage, this is one of the best solutions I’ve come across. Working with an external NVME drive via USB-C has vastly improved my workflow. Now the only bottleneck I have is the speed of my 2-year-old NVME drive.