Rog strix arion turns any m.2 ssd into an external drive

Having expanded its ROG family of products from motherboards and graphics cards to just about everything gamers might be interested in, ASUS continues to find ways to further expand the ROG product range. This week they introduced the curious ROG Strix Arion for M.2 SSDs that includes a USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface along with Aura Sync RGB lighting.

The curious ROG Strix Arion uses the USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface and RGB lighting

The ASUS ROG Strix Arion SSD chassis is compatible with all M.2-2280 (and smaller) drives with PCIe 3.0 interface. The SSD can be installed without the need for a screwdriver, so mounting should be fairly straightforward. The cabinet is made of aluminum and has thermal pads in an attempt to ensure adequate heat dissipation and consistent performance. The unit is bus powered and has a USB Type-C interface, but ASUS ships it with a USB-C to USB-C cable and USB-C to USB-A cable to maximize compatibility.

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ASUS does not reveal which USB 3.2 Gen 2 to PCIe Gen 3 bridge it uses, so we cannot make assumptions regarding the actual performance of a ROG Strix Arion- enabled storage device. You may be using Realtek's new RTL9210 bridge, as Realtek was showing off the capabilities of that bridge's RGB LED drivers recently at the Flash Memory Summit . Anyway, in the best case, we will have a performance of up to 1.25 GB / s.

The device has RGB LEDs and supports ASUS Aura Sync lighting and can therefore synchronize its lighting with other ASUS components. We hope to see more about its price and release date soon.

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