PNY Pro Elite 1TB USB 3.1 Gen2

External SSD for quick storage on the go

The aluminium styling of this external SSD invites comparison with Samsung’s popular T5 (see our review, Issue 516), which it currently undercuts in online deals. It is worth shopping around, because we found prices ranging from £114 to £157.

On paper, PNY’S drive is faster, claiming read and write speeds of up to 880-890 megabytes per second (MB/S) compared with the T5’s 540MB/S. Samsung also now has the T7 ( www. snipca.com/33944), but it costs around £200 for 1TB.

That’s partly because it includes a fingerprint sensor to secure your data,

SPECIFICATIONS

1TB external SSD • USB 3.1 Gen2 port • USB-C and USB-A cables included • Compatible with Windows XP and later, macos X • 11x64x57mm (HXWXD) • 45g • Three-year warranty www.snipca.com/33945 but also justified by speeds topping 1GB/S.

That’s pushing the limits of USB 3.1 Gen2, the interface used by both the T7 – which we haven’t yet tested – and this PNY drive. You can connect it to any USB, but a USB-A or USB-C port rated for Gen2 (10Gbps) gets you the full speed. We couldn’t reach PNY’S claimed performance, but did see up to 741MB/S reading and 692MB/S writing, comfortably beating the T5’s maximum.

Unfortunately, tougher benchmark tests, involving the handling of lots of small files, slowed it to a tenth of those speeds, overtaken even by budget SSDS. In more realistic tasks, the Pro Elite and T5 played musical chairs for top ranking.

Overall, then, this looks like beating the T5 on value, helped along by a year’s licence for Acronis’ True Image backup software.