You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/retroflag-nes-style-hard-drive-enclosure.1786/

A company known mostly for their range of Raspberry Pi cases, we’ve previously covered Retroflag’s latest and greatest NES-themed design. While the case was nice, and you can find Shaun’s thoughts on it here, one part jumped out to me in particular: the drive enclosure. Where 2.5 inch drive support is a great feature in itself, Retroflag went all out to match the theming, which brings us to where we are today, looking at their standalone NES style hard drive enclosure.

If you did take a moment to read our NESPi 4 review or happen to own one yourself, you’ll know Retroflag aren’t exactly reinventing the wheel here. The NES cartridge enclosures were already included with the NESPi 4 after all. What held this back from a more mainstream use case however is the fact the case simply wraps around the cartridge, preserving the usual SATA interface at the bottom. While this could still have appeal if you wanted to mount them in the glass window of a desktop case, you’d realistically only be using this with the Pi 4 case it came with. All of that is different now though, thanks to the similarly well-themed cartridge case.

Every time I look at the enclosure and the “enclosure enclosure”, I can’t help but smile. Retroflag really did an incredible job in matching the look and feel of a NES cartridge, the only real discrepancy being the smaller form factor as to snugly fit a 7mm 2.5 inch drive and little else. The drive is secured to the back of the cartridge with two screws, with the two halves of the cartridge held together by a further two screws. Needing a screwdriver handy to replace the drive can be a pain for some, and does detract slightly from the overall ease of use. If you’re just going to be putting an SSD or HDD in this and never changing it though, I doubt this will be an issue. Putting the cartridge into its enclosure case is as seamless as putting a NES cartridge into a sleeve, which could open a market for selling the cartridge cases separately to the sleeves for those with a good few drives lying around like myself.

Assessing the performance of a drive enclosure is somewhat difficult, since there’s a myriad of external factors to consider that may make my experience different to yours. For the sake of simplicity, I decided to run the same few basic tests with the same Kingston SSD (SA400S37/240G for those wanting the specific model) and cable in both the Retroflag enclosure and the Stockplop I’d been using previously. You can find the results below, with the Stockplop being tested first, and the Retroflag enclosure second.

From the brief tests above, you can see both enclosures have similar offerings in terms of performance. While it is a little disappointing to see a USB 3.0 Micro B port over a USB C on the more modern Retroflag enclosure, I don’t see it quite as sinful as a standard Micro USB on some of the more premium products we’ve reviewed.

Coming in both gold and grey with a black sleeve to wrap it up, Retroflag’s drive enclosure is something special. Capturing the feel and design of these traditional cartridges, it’s a well-built and affordable option at $20. If you’re needing a new external solution or just somewhere to stow a surplus drive, I can’t recommend it enough.