PNY Pro Elite 1TB USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C Portable Solid State Drive – (PSD0CS2060-1TB-RB)

250 GB will store a lot of data. And having data backed up externally is a very good idea. Ideally, you would want two of these. Back up to one week one. In week two, back up to the other. Store them off-site, swapping them each week.

I like the size, speed and the cost.

I bought a few of these to try them out, because I shoot and edit video, and thought if they worked well, theyd be a bargain. These SSDs tend to get very hot, even when the computer is idle, and when they get too hot, transfer speeds slow to a crawl. I currently have two of these sitting on top of a little turbo desk fan in order to keep them cool enough to process quickly. If you dont mind that headache, go for it, but Id also be concerned these will overheat and your data will be gone.

This drive is small and attractive, and comes with both standard USB and USB-C cables. It’s very light, quite cute and smaller than many, around 2x2” and a less than a half-inch thick. I knew it would be small but was surprised anyhow. I use a 2012 i5 mac mini upgraded to 16gb RAM and an internal SSD, and that’s what I’ve tested it on and will be using it with. The drive plugged in and just played instantly on Mac OS. I ran “BlackMagicDesign” speed test which is the one I have on my machine, and got about 370 MB/s write and 425MB/s read after a number of cycles. This is more than twice as fast at writes as another modern external SSD I have, so that may be the “Pro Elite” speed showing its moxie. The read speed is roughly the same as the other SSD. I didn’t expect to get the maximum touted speed of this drive on a 2012 mac mini. The drive warmed up a fair bit during this but I assume that’s standard during intensive reads and writes. The housing is plastic and textured, has a nice feel. Drives have come a long way in my lifetime, this one seems nearly miraculous. I plan to use the Acronis True Image software which is included to clone my SSD startup drive so I can boot from it externally over USB3 on my other machines or in an emergency. Small fast high-capacity drives like this running at USB3 speeds makes that a reasonable option. I like the drive, which so far is a 5-star product!

The first drive I received was having a problem where it kept connecting and disconnecting, Ive tried different cables and the drive only seemed to reliably stay connected via USB 2.0. I thought that I just happened to get one dead on arrival, however I was able to get it replaced and am still having the same issue. Ive tried it on my laptop and two other desktops, all which happen to have AMD processors, so I think its safe to assume that the drive does not cooperate with AMD drivers. However if you are running a computer with an Intel processor, I would recommend it.

So fast. I love this drive so much!

Drops to 25MB/s when transferring large amounts of files.

Extremely fast and I can carry it in my pocket.

What I dislike comes first: 1) The USB C to C cable that came with the drive was faulty. Im using it using the USB A to C cable that came with it as a result, but got it for the C to C capability. 2) The USB cables are short. That could be a plus if youre using this on a laptop, but on a desktop youll either need a new cable or have the drive hanging in the air on the side of your case. 3) The drive gets really hot under normal use. The good: fast enough to use as my boot drive for a second OS install. Works.

Plugged directly into my boxs 3.1 gen 2 port, I get read speeds of 840 MB/s and write speeds of 768 MB/s using CrystalDiskMark. Plugged into a 3.1 gen 2 hub however I get similar read speeds however my write speeds drop to 739 MB/s. Clearly this SSDs best performance happens when you dont use a hub. Its really small and a nice piece of tech and the speeds are pretty close to advertised.