Plugable Thunderbolt 3 NVMe External SSD Review (2TB) – Price, Performance and Capacity

TxBENCH

TxBench is one of our newly discovered benchmarks that we works much the same as Crystal Diskmark, but with several other features.  Advanced load benchmarking can be configured, as well as full drive information and data erasing via secure erase, enhanced secure erase, TRIM and overwriting.  Simply click on the title for a free copy.

REAL WORLD FILE TRANSFER COMPARISON

For our Real World File Transfer Comparison, we have included the G-Technology G-Drive, Samsung X5 , Netstor NA611TB3,  and TEKq Rapide 512GB TB3,   in our testing with the Plugable TB3 2TB Portable SSD.  This test is conducted through the transfer of data from one spot on the test drive to another to give us the truest of transfer speed results for that device.

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REPORT SUMMARY AND FINAL THOUGHTS

The Plugable Thunderbolt 3 2TB NVMe Portable SSD is now available and, quite frankly, it hits a low price mark for Thunderbolt 3 external SSDs that are capable of reaching that 2.8GB/s high performance mark of Tbt. It has 3 year warranty and performance is solid and well above listed specifications.  The build of this drive is solid with a single block of aluminum protecting the interior components. It is bus powered which means that no external power source is needed to reach the performance shown in this report.blank

Something that I didn’t think I would get used to on this device initially was the fact that the cable is permanently affixed and might be very vulnerable to damage if it hits something.  Conversely, having the cable permanently affixed solves the problem of potential loss. 

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I have had it in my hands for a few weeks now and this drive has seen constant use. It even got lost in NOrthern Ontario, Canada, snow at one point. I have to say that it is very handy having a 2TB external SSD on hand for my external media events.  Kudos to Plugable for introducing this product!

Check Amazon Pricing on the plugable TbT3 NVMe External SSD today.

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Plugable Thunderbolt 3 NVMe 2TB External SSD Review

Product Build
Performance
3-Year Warranty
Pricing and Availability

Price, Performance and Capacity

The Plugable TbT3 External SSD is the perfect solution for todays media professional, looking for a storage solution on-the-go. It has 2.8GB/s speeds, up to 2GB/s capacity, a 3-year warranty and a great price point.

Check Amazon
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4 comments

  1. blank

    I’m starting to wonder how hard it would be to drop in a Titan Ridge vs. an Alpine Ridge controller. It seems any additional cost would easily be passed to the consumer, as the new device is TB3 with USB3 fallback.

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    Can you include testing these external TB3 devices after cold boot and hot plug?
    Are the speeds identical or different in any way?
    I get substantial differences between these two scenarios with the Samsung X5.

    • blank

      It is a given that the test speed would be different, the result of other background activity in the system, especially after a cold boot. We test during ideal conditions and I would be the first to write about it if the tests weren’t always consistent during these conditions. Yopu are also speaking on the X5 in a Plugable report? Are you finding same with this device?

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        Hi Les, I have performance variations of 3x between cold boot and hot plug with the Samsung 512GB X5 on Windows 10.
        I understood this was because TB3 vendors have trouble with the re-negotiation of the Thunderbolt connection after hot plug.

        The computer I used is a brand new HP Zbook Studio G5 with Samsung NVMe SSD boot drive running Windows 10 Pro update 1909.

        Samsung 512GB X5 Magician benchmarks:
        Benchmark #1: 2803/588/263427/25390 after disconnect/re-connect no G2 hub
        Benchmark #2: 2806/1877/263427/251220 after cold boot, no G2 hub
        Benchmark #3: 2818/589/261474/251220 after disconnect/re-connect with G2 hub
        Benchmark #4: 2753/1386/259277/252192 after cold boot with G2 hub

        Samsung Tech support confirmed that their tech support center has heard from customers experiencing the same issue.
        I also found a lot of variation using TB3 add-in cards from ASUS (ThunderboltEX3), and Gigabyte (Alpine Ridge, Titan Ridge), which is why I wondered if you have tested or found differences in performance with hot plug, in which case it might be a useful test to add. I am definitely disappointed to need a cold boot to get best performance.

        Now that you have switched to the ASRock X570 Creator as your test bed, I would like to know if the ASRock X570 motherboard TB3 implementations (Creator onboard TB3 and Taichi+PCI TB3 card) have reliably solved this issue.
        Thanks for any help.

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