Portable SSDs
Lexar has a long history of serving the flash-based consumer storage market in the form of SSDs, memory cards, and USB flash drives. After having started out as a Micron brand, the company was acquired by Longsys which has diversified its product lineup with regular introduction of new products. Recently, the company announced a number of portable SSDs targeting different market segments. The Lexar ARMOR 700 Portable SSD makes its entry as the new flagship in the 20 Gbps PSSD segment. Despite its flagship positioning and rugged nature, the ARMOR 700 is reasonably priced thanks to the use of a native USB flash controller - the Silicon Motion SM2320. Similar to the SL500, the product uses YMTC 3D TLC NAND (compared to the usual Micron...
Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield Review: Flagship PSSD Gets IP65 Avatar
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...
11 by Ganesh T S on 7/20/2022Kingston DataTraveler Max UFD Series Review: New Type-A Thumb Drive Retains NVMe Performance
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 7/11/2022Samsung MUF-256DA USB-C Flash Drive Review: Thumb-Sized Performance Consistency
Portable SSDs have seen great demand over the last few years. Advancements in flash technology and controllers has resulted in compact drives delivering blistering speeds. These advancements have also...
20 by Ganesh T S on 7/6/2022Kingston XS2000 Portable SSDs Review: USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Goes Mainstream
Flash-based portable drives have become popular fast storage options for both content creators and backups-seeking consumers. The advent of high-speed interfaces such as USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps...
19 by Ganesh T S on 11/10/2021OWC 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 10/29/2021SanDisk Professional G-DRIVE SSD and ArmorLock SSD Review
Western Digital introduced the SanDisk Professional branding in May 2021 for its G-Technology products targeting the content-capture market. The company has taken the opportunity to update some of the...
6 by Ganesh T S on 10/12/2021Kingston 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 9/30/2021SanDisk Extreme PRO and Crucial X6 4TB Portable SSDs Review: Contrasting High-Capacity Storage Options
The portable SSD market has been steadily expanding thanks to the increasing digital footprint of consumers. Technological advancements such as 3D NAND with high layer counts and the emergence...
20 by Ganesh T S on 8/18/2021Silverstone MS12 and Yottamaster HC2-C3 USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 20Gbps Enclosures Reviewed
Late last year, we took stock of the the state of the USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 ecosystem. It was not a rosy outlook at that time. But since then...
21 by Ganesh T S on 8/12/2021