Final Words & Conclusion

Final Words & Conclusion

It is clear that a new trend is reaching the USB flash storage market, M2 based storage tied towards a PCIe to USB controllers operating over the fastest USB ports, and yeah it works well. This unit reached that advertised 1 GB/sec on read performance. Writes are lower but differ per workload, but with these numbers, you cannot complain really. You know, when using external storage, the key factor is write performance, whereas read performance is a little less important (IMHO). So here we are, the year is 2019 and a decade ago we were copying our files at 20 maybe 30 MB/sec over a USB Flash drive. Times gave certainly changed into a 100 MB/sec in the past 5 years, and now with NVMe technology and a 10 Gbps USB connector, we reach that 1 GB/sec marker. I don't know about you, but the speeds offered here are certainly fast enough for anything I demand for external/portable storage. Heck, this unit is even faster than an enthusiast-class SATA3 SSD, over USB. 

Some TLC

The unit uses TLC NAND memory, which now is an accepted NAND storage standard. It doesn't help that ADATA that they are not mentioning any TWB values on the website, however, it does top this unit off with a 3-year warranty, which is really nice. Write performance, depending on the workload you'll sit at 600 MB/sec copying multi-gig files sustained and linear (ISO/ UHD Movies, etc). From there on the trend is upwards closer to that 1 GB sec range.  We expect the 1 TGB model to be a nitch faster in this regard.

By the way, temperatures are not an issue. The internal SSD is running below its actual capacity, and the housing is one huge heatsink. After copying 110GB we reach 70 Degrees C. However that is internal temperature, the SE800 remains lukewarm at its highest. The performance metrics remain constant during load. Remember, this is a portable unit, we've not been testing a 'classic SSD or M2 unit' if you need to transfer HUGE files on a constant basis, hey man look for the money this looks to be great. 

Concluding

The new ADATA SE800 (512GB) is a very handy product, light-weight, water-proof and easy to carry around. And with the right client on USB 3.2, you can achieve numbers that are as fast or double of a regular SATA3 SSD. That makes this fast portable external storage unit reaching 1 GB/s over USB 3.1 Gen2 (Type C). But it's not just fast, it is water-proof as well. This external USB SSD carries a retail price of $180 for the 1TB model while the 512GB model costs $100. That is still a little steep though, especially what Crucial offers with the X8 is faster and cheaper. But albeit pricing could be a notch better, we have to admit that we very much like the unit. It is one of the best performing 'USB sticks' your money can get you. Mandatory is obviously a 10 Gbps USB connector aka USB 3.1 Gen2. With a Gen1 connector, you'll halve the bandwidth, and get restricted at 625 MB/sec minus stuff like error-correction and latency from that USB interface. But even then, that's super fast for anything on  USB. Most if not all motherboards from the year 2019 have a 10 Gbps USB jack though. Stability and compatibility wise we had no problems whatsoever with it and it is just the coolest looking easy to carry around a portable storage unit. internally after huge workloads, it does run a bit hot, but the casing remains lukewarm so it is not really an issue. Definitely recommended.

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