Kogan S5 Ultra Fast Portable SSD

IS KOGAN’S FLASH STORAGE FAST ENOUGH TO FAWN OVER?

WHILE WE’VE NOW seen the first portable NVMe SSDs emerge, USB 3.1 SSDs still look like the best option for ultra fast external storage moving forward. One of the main reasons for this is the price, which after a few years on the market are finally starting to come down to mass market levels. Kogan’s S5 Ultra Fast Portable SSD in a 500GB capacity goes for just $209, making it one of the most affordable portable SSDs we’ve seen. It’s pretty clear that the S5 Ultra Fast Portable SSD is taking cues from Samsung’s T5 series, wrapping the S5 in a powdery black-metal case that takes a similarly elliptical shape. It’s actually even more compact than Samsung’s T3 and T5 drives when you line them up and the USB 3.1 Type-C to A interface is convenient yet maintains the option to use a Type-C to C cable for any ultra-modern notebooks.

Sadly the device’s read speeds were a little slower than anticipated at 314.4MB per second in the CrystalDiskMark 6 benchmark (around 28% off what Samsung’s T5 drives). Fortunately it seems to be much faster when it comes to writing information, lining up with the CristalDiskMark 6 Q32T1 sequential write speeds for Samsung’s T3 drive at 411.4MB/s.

If you shop around it’s not difficult to find the same sized Samsung Portable SSD T5s for the same, or even less, than Kogan’s offering (Officeworks and Bing Lee both had 500GB T5s for $199). Since the T5 is faster and comes with all the warranties for technology sold in Australia, Samsung keeps its storage crown, but Kogan’s S5 Ultra Fast Portable SSD isn’t as far behind as you might think.