I don't know about the others but I'm not a fan of having the benchmarks hidden inside a drop down box unless selected. I also feel that for some of the benchmark 1 or 2 charts containing all the data ,e.g. ATTO and CrystalDiskMark, would be better instead of the screenshots.
Agreed. Did I miss something, or are there no actual direct comparisons between the drives (aside from the feature table at the end)?
This reads like 6 separate reviews, where I have to keep messing with drop downs to follow each one. It’s all but impossible to follow in a mobile browser. On desktop, I could at least open the screenshots side by side.
Who reads news on desktop anymore? Unless working on PC and want to have a peek at what’s on, nobody would give up the comfort of reading while lying down on the sofa or in bed with a mobile device. Therefore, drop down comparison is useless to most readers.
This forum is increasingly populated by people with zero concept that other people may think or do things differently to them. Guess it's a microcosm of the wider no-platforming world. My advice? Spend a morning learning keyboard shortcuts and you'll understand why we oldies still prefer to browse on desktop rather than mobile when doing anything other than *really* casual browsing.
Yeah, reading this on mobile platform sucks. Desktop is way more comfortable. Then again, my workstation is fairly ergonomic (and badass!). Get off the couch if you want to live to old age.
I find mobile devices to be extremely annoying for web browsing. Small screen, slow CPU, extremely limited browser plugins, frustrating data entry, more difficult copy/paste. I have a tablet and smart phone, but my web browsing on them tends to be light and often only directs me on what to read later on my "real" device.
That was my first thought on this review as well. Plus, the scales of the charts hidden behind the dropdown menu are all different for no good reason. This almost looks like every effort was made to prevent readers from comparing the drives. Just let the throughput scale on all charts go to 1000MB/s and the temperature scale to 70°. This fits the data from all drives nicely and readers can see the differences in a glimpse.
Would it help you if I were to keep the 'Expand All' option as the default and allow readers to use the drop down to 'compress' it down to 1 graph / make the analysis text visible along with?
As for the ATTO / CDM 'graphs' instead of 'screenshots' - the aspect I need to trade off with is the number of data points. For example, CDM has 12 sets per drive (or 24 if you include the IOPS version also). ATTO has more than 20 sets * 2 (R/W). That would be 64 graphs. It doesn't make sense to have that many graphs for two synthetic benchmarks.
For the ATTO you can probably create 2 line charts, for bytes and IO, with the read having solid lines and writes using dashed lines and lighter colors for example.
Anyway this is only my suggestion. If you do decide to keep the current layout may I at least suggest to have the expand all options on all the benchmark (e.g. the ATTO and CDM results doesn't have this option)
I agree that it's not helpful to have all the comparisons separate, hidden under pulldown (can we get consolidated comparison graphs please?), but I'd also be interested to see the T5 in here for comparison as a SATA based USB3.1 gen2 drive.
is it fair to say that if you want ssd file storage that requires sustained sequential writes to 90% of disk capacity then you won't actually lose much performance by going for a sata based solution over the shiny new usb>PCI3.0 4x nvme?
i.e. all that pcie bandwidth tends to be useful only for bursty activity until the SLC/ram cache is exhausted and cannot sustain full bandwidth write speeds.
Most high-end consumer NVMe SSDs can average at least 1GB/s for a whole drive write to their 1TB models. Several average 1.5GB/s or higher, even though they are still using TLC with SLC caching. So it's definitely possible to do far better than SATA-based portable storage, but it may require a higher class of NVMe drive than some portable SSDs use.
thank you. recently bought a 2tb sata drive for storage. think i'll be happy with 540MB/s vs 80MB/s for a 2.5" portable, enough that i won't miss a doubling to 1GB/s too much.
If you need the fastest performance and do not have a Thunderbolt 3 port, I'd recommend buying the newly released USB 3.2 Gen2x2 add in card released by Gigabyte if I remember correctly. It is capable of 20Gbps (so double the speed of these drives) and Western Digital just released their external P50 drive which can saturate the connection with sequential r/w at 2000MB/s. Or if you'd rather make a DIY solution with an enclosure, I believe Asmedia has released a bridge chip for USB 3.2 Gen2x2 so I'd expect enclosures to hit the market soon
mehhh QLC (whatever want to call them) should be that much lower cost to consumer than prices I have seen as of late, likely save the company who makes them a whole whack per die (per drive) vs "regular" such as TLC certainly vs MLC and significant price difference vs the much prefered SLC design, overall has not dropped price as much as I would expect if I am to be completely honest, in other words, the makers want as many of them sold as possible to reap the RnD by making them in the first place, but at same time do not seem overly "keen" on putting on the shelves around the world at "ok" price point.
That $169 easily becomes in the $240+ range most other places than USA which makes something that "seems" pretty reasonable price run into the area of "why bother when spinning rust is much much lower cost, even if slower"
mehh is all I can personally say, though thank you for the review overall ^.^
The crucial looked like the winner untill I saw the Performance Consistency results. Horrible. Otherwise most the benchmark results, outside of this, seem very close for all the drives to me.
Exactly! And, dare I say, for most casual users, the Crucial drive actual works out well. It is only power users and tech-savvy folks who expect to 'torture' their external drives that need to watch out :) Unlike other review sites [ and I don't want to name any ;) ], our aim is to give the complete picture so that readers can make an informed purchase decision.
To be honest, if I were to purchase a portable SSD for occasional periodic backups (say, 10 - 20 GB of data at a time), the X8 is actually a good candidate because of the pricing alone.
It is winter here in CA and the room temperature in my lab is around 63F (as I rarely turn on the air-conditioning in the lab for winters - the benchmarking testbeds are operated remotely / headless).
The same problem exists with SD cards. After classes 2, 4 ,6, 10 there should be classes 30, 60, 90. Instead of that, there are 3 different names for the class 10 and 2 different names for the classes 6 and 30. https://www.sdcard.org/developers/overview/speed_c...
By the drive speeds I guess it's USB 3.2 gen 2x1 and not gen 2x2 (thanks for the simple naming scheme USB-IF) also makes wonder why there is around 15-20% overhead of the maximum connection speed ( I know it exits in other connections like SATA for example but I wonder why it is so high)
Interested in the topic, decided to read, found the first site: https://www.bestadvisor.com/external-solid-state-d... And here they write: However, the WD My Passport SSD is uniquely compatible with pretty much all generations of computers. Since it uses the USB 3.1 Gen-2 interface It's like the media is truth mixed with fiction, I think it was invented only in order to attract attention and money
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zebrax2 - Thursday, January 23, 2020 - link
I don't know about the others but I'm not a fan of having the benchmarks hidden inside a drop down box unless selected. I also feel that for some of the benchmark 1 or 2 charts containing all the data ,e.g. ATTO and CrystalDiskMark, would be better instead of the screenshots.chaos215bar2 - Thursday, January 23, 2020 - link
Agreed. Did I miss something, or are there no actual direct comparisons between the drives (aside from the feature table at the end)?This reads like 6 separate reviews, where I have to keep messing with drop downs to follow each one. It’s all but impossible to follow in a mobile browser. On desktop, I could at least open the screenshots side by side.
sonny73n - Friday, January 24, 2020 - link
Who reads news on desktop anymore? Unless working on PC and want to have a peek at what’s on, nobody would give up the comfort of reading while lying down on the sofa or in bed with a mobile device. Therefore, drop down comparison is useless to most readers.s.yu - Saturday, January 25, 2020 - link
Sorry, I visit Anandtech almost exclusively on my PC.dontlistentome - Sunday, February 2, 2020 - link
This forum is increasingly populated by people with zero concept that other people may think or do things differently to them. Guess it's a microcosm of the wider no-platforming world.My advice? Spend a morning learning keyboard shortcuts and you'll understand why we oldies still prefer to browse on desktop rather than mobile when doing anything other than *really* casual browsing.
bigboxes - Monday, February 3, 2020 - link
Yeah, reading this on mobile platform sucks. Desktop is way more comfortable. Then again, my workstation is fairly ergonomic (and badass!). Get off the couch if you want to live to old age.Sivar - Thursday, February 6, 2020 - link
I find mobile devices to be extremely annoying for web browsing. Small screen, slow CPU, extremely limited browser plugins, frustrating data entry, more difficult copy/paste.I have a tablet and smart phone, but my web browsing on them tends to be light and often only directs me on what to read later on my "real" device.
JanW1 - Monday, January 27, 2020 - link
That was my first thought on this review as well. Plus, the scales of the charts hidden behind the dropdown menu are all different for no good reason. This almost looks like every effort was made to prevent readers from comparing the drives. Just let the throughput scale on all charts go to 1000MB/s and the temperature scale to 70°. This fits the data from all drives nicely and readers can see the differences in a glimpse.alphasquadron - Thursday, January 23, 2020 - link
Yeah I agree as well. Don't it was like this previously or maybe it was a different reviewer.ganeshts - Thursday, January 23, 2020 - link
Would it help you if I were to keep the 'Expand All' option as the default and allow readers to use the drop down to 'compress' it down to 1 graph / make the analysis text visible along with?As for the ATTO / CDM 'graphs' instead of 'screenshots' - the aspect I need to trade off with is the number of data points. For example, CDM has 12 sets per drive (or 24 if you include the IOPS version also). ATTO has more than 20 sets * 2 (R/W). That would be 64 graphs. It doesn't make sense to have that many graphs for two synthetic benchmarks.
zebrax2 - Thursday, January 23, 2020 - link
For the ATTO you can probably create 2 line charts, for bytes and IO, with the read having solid lines and writes using dashed lines and lighter colors for example.As for CDM something similar to the charts here
https://www.anandtech.com/show/15207/the-snapdrago...
Anyway this is only my suggestion. If you do decide to keep the current layout may I at least suggest to have the expand all options on all the benchmark (e.g. the ATTO and CDM results doesn't have this option)
mm0zct - Thursday, January 23, 2020 - link
I agree that it's not helpful to have all the comparisons separate, hidden under pulldown (can we get consolidated comparison graphs please?), but I'd also be interested to see the T5 in here for comparison as a SATA based USB3.1 gen2 drive.MScrip - Thursday, January 23, 2020 - link
Exactly. It would be nice to include a comparison to Samsung's previous highly-regarded SSD... the venerable Samsung T5 drive.Whenever there is a new version of a device... it's customary to compare it to the previous generation.
It appears that Anandtech is strictly comparing MVNe drives here. But it would still be helpful for T5 owners.
R3MF - Thursday, January 23, 2020 - link
is it fair to say that if you want ssd file storage that requires sustained sequential writes to 90% of disk capacity then you won't actually lose much performance by going for a sata based solution over the shiny new usb>PCI3.0 4x nvme?i.e. all that pcie bandwidth tends to be useful only for bursty activity until the SLC/ram cache is exhausted and cannot sustain full bandwidth write speeds.
Billy Tallis - Thursday, January 23, 2020 - link
Most high-end consumer NVMe SSDs can average at least 1GB/s for a whole drive write to their 1TB models. Several average 1.5GB/s or higher, even though they are still using TLC with SLC caching. So it's definitely possible to do far better than SATA-based portable storage, but it may require a higher class of NVMe drive than some portable SSDs use.R3MF - Friday, January 24, 2020 - link
thank you.recently bought a 2tb sata drive for storage.
think i'll be happy with 540MB/s vs 80MB/s for a 2.5" portable, enough that i won't miss a doubling to 1GB/s too much.
AnarchoPrimitiv - Sunday, January 26, 2020 - link
If you need the fastest performance and do not have a Thunderbolt 3 port, I'd recommend buying the newly released USB 3.2 Gen2x2 add in card released by Gigabyte if I remember correctly. It is capable of 20Gbps (so double the speed of these drives) and Western Digital just released their external P50 drive which can saturate the connection with sequential r/w at 2000MB/s. Or if you'd rather make a DIY solution with an enclosure, I believe Asmedia has released a bridge chip for USB 3.2 Gen2x2 so I'd expect enclosures to hit the market soonHStewart - Thursday, January 23, 2020 - link
One thing good about forthcoming USB4 is that Thunderbolt 3 will be full stream and prices of TB3 drives will be coming down.Korguz - Thursday, January 23, 2020 - link
maybe . but will intel still have to certify it ?? if so... that is a major hurdle for any TB device to be adopted and used....Dragonstongue - Thursday, January 23, 2020 - link
mehhh QLC (whatever want to call them) should be that much lower cost to consumer than prices I have seen as of late, likely save the company who makes them a whole whack per die (per drive) vs "regular" such as TLC certainly vs MLC and significant price difference vs the much prefered SLC design, overall has not dropped price as much as I would expect if I am to be completely honest, in other words, the makers want as many of them sold as possible to reap the RnD by making them in the first place, but at same time do not seem overly "keen" on putting on the shelves around the world at "ok" price point.That $169 easily becomes in the $240+ range most other places than USA which makes something that "seems" pretty reasonable price run into the area of "why bother when spinning rust is much much lower cost, even if slower"
mehh is all I can personally say, though thank you for the review overall ^.^
lilkwarrior - Thursday, January 23, 2020 - link
Seems pointless to not be Thunderbolt 3 or USB4.avbohemen - Thursday, January 23, 2020 - link
I wonder what the limit is in the atto/as-ssd iops test. All drives hit a limit of 23-25k 4kB iops (atto) or 32k 4kB iops (as-ssd).Throughput is not saturated with 4kB iops and the drives are different enough in other benchmarks.
Is it a limitation of the usb/uasp protocol or the bridge chip, or something else?
avbohemen - Thursday, January 23, 2020 - link
Sorry, I mean crystaldiskmark instead of as-ssd.Soulkeeper - Thursday, January 23, 2020 - link
The crucial looked like the winner untill I saw the Performance Consistency results. Horrible.Otherwise most the benchmark results, outside of this, seem very close for all the drives to me.
ganeshts - Friday, January 24, 2020 - link
Exactly! And, dare I say, for most casual users, the Crucial drive actual works out well. It is only power users and tech-savvy folks who expect to 'torture' their external drives that need to watch out :) Unlike other review sites [ and I don't want to name any ;) ], our aim is to give the complete picture so that readers can make an informed purchase decision.To be honest, if I were to purchase a portable SSD for occasional periodic backups (say, 10 - 20 GB of data at a time), the X8 is actually a good candidate because of the pricing alone.
dcroteau - Thursday, January 23, 2020 - link
What kind of fake data is that?An NVMe drive at 19 degree Celsius? Less than room temperature?
They run notoriously hot and wouldn't be below 30C in any circumstances. They can go as high as 70C without a proper heat sink.
Even with proper cooling, they will never be below room temp. 19C is very frisky for a room temperature.
ganeshts - Friday, January 24, 2020 - link
It is winter here in CA and the room temperature in my lab is around 63F (as I rarely turn on the air-conditioning in the lab for winters - the benchmarking testbeds are operated remotely / headless).Meteor2 - Saturday, January 25, 2020 - link
My heating never goes above 19C. Put a jumper on and save the planet.regsEx - Thursday, January 23, 2020 - link
USB 3.2 Gen 2 is just rebranded USB 3.1. Actual USB 3.2 is Gen 2x2.Tomatotech - Friday, January 24, 2020 - link
I hope you understood that as I didn’t at all.13Gigatons - Wednesday, January 29, 2020 - link
I can't believe how stupid their marketing department is...who's naming this stuff?How about: USB 5 and USB 10 and USB 20 and USB 40
regsEx - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
There shouldn't be any Gen 1, Gen 1x1, Gen 2, Gen 2x1, SS, SS10, SS20. There should have been only USB 3.0, USB 3.1 and USB 3.2.USB Group does it on purpose. To fool people into new shiny numbers.
regsEx - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
There shouldn't be any Gen 1, Gen 1x1, Gen 2, Gen 2x1, Gen 2x2, SS, SS10, SS20*Chrestos SV1GAP - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
The same problem exists with SD cards. After classes 2, 4 ,6, 10 there should be classes 30, 60, 90. Instead of that, there are 3 different names for the class 10 and 2 different names for the classes 6 and 30. https://www.sdcard.org/developers/overview/speed_c...Eliadbu - Tuesday, January 28, 2020 - link
By the drive speeds I guess it's USB 3.2 gen 2x1 and not gen 2x2 (thanks for the simple naming scheme USB-IF) also makes wonder why there is around 15-20% overhead of the maximum connection speed ( I know it exits in other connections like SATA for example but I wonder why it is so high)amnesia0287 - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
They all seemed to use the same usb chip, so probably that is it’s max speed.Leo222 - Wednesday, March 4, 2020 - link
Interested in the topic, decided to read, found the first site: https://www.bestadvisor.com/external-solid-state-d...And here they write: However, the WD My Passport SSD is uniquely compatible with pretty much all generations of computers. Since it uses the USB 3.1 Gen-2 interface
It's like the media is truth mixed with fiction, I think it was invented only in order to attract attention and money
Chrestos SV1GAP - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
@ Author, Ganesh T SPage 6: "USB 2.0 ports are guaranteed to deliver only 4.5W (900mA @ 5V)".
You mean "USB 3.0".