Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsBest External SSD with sleek design, high speeds
Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2019
Had been using the SSD for about 3 weeks, and experience was superb. To start of with, the design, the hard disk looks really sleek (sleekness achieved due to SSD type being NVMe which is much smaller than regular 2.5MM disk, attached an image of NVMe SSD on top of iPhone X for size) which is good as it can easily fit in pocket if needed. The color with the Black and Red looks really nice and well designed and found few F1 cars that partly resemble the X5 model(minus all the branding)
Now getting back to usage, on the first run, the Speedtest shows write Speeds of 1891Mbps and Read Speeds of 2243Mbps, which is amazing but guess if the processor is newer, higher speeds can possibly be achieved as well.
When the SSD was connected to Mac, there was an option to install Software which in turn can be used to set Password Protection with AES 256bit encryption, but even after multiple tries, application doesnt detect the hard disk as connected even when connected, which is disappointing, but it may depend on the older Mac I use, so others may be able to install it, and it should possibly install on Windows(but sadly dont have Win PC with TBT3)
Getting to the actual usage, copied files totaling 24gb, and copy took less than 2 minutes(1:47 precise), which is over 8 times faster compared to other HDs that I had used previously. Also had few video clips added to the X5 and then used iMovie to join all clips and export back to X5 which took about 5 minutes and 32 seconds to complete. When I ran the same clips from internal SSD and export back to Mac, it took over 15 minutes to finish the export. So for any photographers, this is going to be great addition, as long as the processor can handle the work.
Also, even at such high read/write speeds during the export, the SSD stayed cool, never heated up.
Tested copying of a file that is about 10GB and it took under a minute to copy, which is amazing. Also tested copying songs about 11GB size, and it was done under a minute, and when the same files were copied to a Type C USB, it took about 5 minutes, and copying the same to a regular USB 3 took over 15 minutes. So its easy to understand that nothing can beat the speed.
Also, didn't realize that the Surface Book 2 only has Type C port, not TBT3. But most new Windows laptops now include TBT3 port so may have to upgrade laptop soon.
Pros:
1. Great transfer speeds
2. Sturdy
3. Doesnt heat up
4. Great design/look
Cons:
1. Limited PCs with TBT3 port
2. Short cable
