Seagate Fast SSD
Premium speed, premium price.
When you put ‘Fast’ in your product name, you’d better hope it lives up to that promise. Thankfully, there are no worries here – this is one of the zippiest SSDs we’ve ever reviewed.
Over USB-C (on a Mac that supports USB 3.1 Gen 2), the drive delivered mean average transfer rates of 447.2MB/sec when reading and 411.7MB/sec when writing. That puts it on par with the fastest single-drive portable SSD we’ve tested – CalDigit’s Tuff – with the bonus of being notably smaller. We also observed maximum read and write speeds of 537.4MB/sec and 502.6MB/ sec, which are in line with Seagate’s claims.
If your Mac or PC doesn’t have USB-C, fear not. Transfer rates over USB-A (limited to USB 3.1 Gen 1’s 5Gbps bandwidth) matched our expectations, based on other drives we’ve tested.
The drive looks lovely, with a Mac-like grey and silver colourway. Larger than some rivals, handling it brought back memories of floppy disks. It’s light enough to slip in a pocket, but the Verbatim Store ‘n’ Go drive from beats it on both weight and volume – though in terms of bulk there’s really little in it and the Seagate Fast SSD is extremely portable, and in my opinion is a particularly good looking device, too.
Yes, it’s still fairly expensive for an SSD, but you get USB 3.1 Gen 2 speeds here, if your Mac can handle that. If you want speedy storage in a stylish and svelte form, the Fast SSD delivers in spades.