USB 3.2 Gen 2
NAND flash technology has seen rapid advancement in recent years. This has resulted in the capacity limits of SSDs and thumb drives getting pushed up regularly. Companies like Kingston had innovated in the late 2010s to deliver 1TB and 2TB thumb drives. They were overpriced and over-sized for their product class at that time. However, interest in this category has been sparked again by the introduction of high-performance native UFD controllers and the appearance of cost-effective high capacity NAND dies. Silicon Power and Transcend recently released 2TB thumb drives based on the Phison U17 and Silicon Motion SM2320 native UFD controllers respectively. Read on for a comprehensive analysis of the performance profile and value proposition of the Silicon Power MS70 in its 2TB avatar.
PNY Pro Elite V2 and Elite-X PRO Portable SSDs Review: Performance on a Budget
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Transcend recently introduced the ESD310C portable SSD in a thumb drive form-factor. A compact device with both Type-A and Type-C USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) interfaces, the ESD310C...
28 by Ganesh T S on 6/22/2023OWC Envoy Pro Mini Review: SSD in a Thumb Drive Exceeds Expectations
OWC has been a key player in the storage industry over the last few decades, particularly for Apple users. Their lineup of portable flash-based direct-attached storage devices has a...
19 by Ganesh T S on 3/2/2023Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield 4TB Review: IP65 PSSD Gets a Capacity Upgrade
Samsung has been enjoying market success with their lineup of portable SSDs, starting with the T1 back in 2015. The company has been regularly updating their PSSD lineup with...
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Samsung's lineup of portable SSDs has enjoyed tremendous success, starting with the T1 back in 2015. The company has been regularly updating their PSSD lineup with the evolution of...
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Kingston's new products in the portable flash-based external storage space have met with good market reception over the last year or so. Two products in particular - the Kingston...
17 by Ganesh T S on 7/11/2022OWC Envoy Pro Elektron Rugged IP67 Portable SSD Review
The market for portable SSDs has expanded significantly over the past few years. With USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) becoming the de-facto standard for USB ports even in...
2 by Ganesh T S on 10/29/2021Kingston DataTraveler Max UFD Review: NVMe Performance in a USB Thumb Drive
Rapid advancements in flash technology and continued improvements in high-speed interfaces have driven the growth of small, bus-powered portable SSDs. Kingston introduced the DataTraveler Max in August 2021 as...
12 by Ganesh T S on 9/30/2021Akasa M.2 SSD Enclosures Reviewed: Giving Spare Drives a New Lease of Life
The internal storage device market segment has seen rapid evolution over the last decade after the introduction of flash-based disk drives. Beginning with 2.5-inch SSDs in early 2010s, the...
15 by Ganesh T S on 9/22/2021CES 2021: OWC Envoy Pro FX - A Dual Mode (Thunderbolt / USB) IP67 External SSD
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9 by Ganesh T S on 1/13/2021CES 2021: Western Digital's Portable SSDs Get Capacity Upgrades: 4TB of TLC for $680
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11 by Ganesh T S on 10/30/2020SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD v2 and WD My Passport SSD (2020) Review
External bus-powered storage devices have grown both in storage capacity as well as speeds over the last decade. Thanks to rapid advancements in flash technology (including the advent of...
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14 by Ganesh T S on 9/30/2020