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The ADATA SE760 Ultra Fast external SSD ($169.99 for 1TB) may not be as rugged as its older sibling, the Editors’ Choice-winning ADATA SE800, but its quick speeds and sleek design make it an alluring choice nonetheless. ADATA is known for its attention to detail, and things are no different in the case of the SE760. Whether you’re on a Mac, a Windows machine, or a Linux box, this shirt-pocket solid-state drive will transfer your files at speeds that match the top of its spec (and look good doing it too). If you want a drive that leans toward the business professional in all of us, then the SE760 should be your next external drive.
Keeping SSDs Looking Slick
In getting my hands on the SE760, I’m reminded of the ADATA SE800, which received our Editors’ Choice in part for its great design. The 0.55-by-4.8-by-1.7-inch brushed-aluminum casing, which is available in either black or metallic gray, feels both polished and sturdy in the hand. Its hefty weight of 3.35 ounces won’t let you forget that you’re carrying a terabyte of data around with you. (The drive also comes in 256GB and 512GB versions.)
However, unlike the SE800, the SE760 isn’t formally rated for any kind of rugged or environmentally defined usage. While it is “vibration-proof” (according to ADATA’s marketing materials), it won’t be able to put up with major crush pressure or sustained contact with moisture or dust. If you’re looking for a rugged drive that feels and looks just as good, go with the SE800 instead.
Dividing its MSRP by its capacity, the SE760 drive’s cost of 17 cents per gigabyte is competitive with rivals like the Crucial X8. Like its rivals’, the ADATA’s cost per gigabyte rises slightly as you go down to the lower capacities, but not on the same curve you might see with other drives in this tier.
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The new drive comes with a three-year warranty, topping several competitors’ two years of coverage. It also features two software packages out of the box: HDDtoGO(Opens in a new window) and OStoGO(Opens in a new window). The first is a backup program that will help you manage larger volumes of files, as well as giving you the option to encrypt them. The second allows you to turn your external SSD into a boot drive for Windows. (It works with Vista and later versions.)
A “New” Interface
Sporting a USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface connected to an internal NVMe M.2 drive, the ADATA SE760 is rated for a maximum sequential read speed of 1,000MBps, and it can connect to your PC via either a USB Type-C-to-C cable or a Type-C-to-A cable. Both kinds are included, which merits a fist-bump to ADATA, for not relegating you to possibly using a clunky dongle.
The 1,000MBps transfer ceiling might look familiar to you, since USB 3.2 Gen 2 is, for all intents and purposes, just USB 3.1 Gen 2 by another name. But did the drive live up to that spec in testing? Let’s move onto the benchmarks…
BlackMagic 3.1 Disk Speed Test
The macOS BlackMagic drive testing utility was created by an Australian producer of video software and hardware, and is often used to help videographers gauge how a drive will perform when working with large video files. In this test, the ADATA turned in slightly slower read speeds than three of our test drives: the CalDigit Tuff Nano, the Crucial X8, and the SanDisk Extreme Pro. Its write speeds, though, were competitive.
PCMag Folder Drag-and-Drop Test
In our classic stopwatch test, we copy a 1.2GB test folder containing several different file types from our testbed PC to the external drive. This test offers a good real-world check on transfer speeds. It’s also done under macOS on our 2016 MacBook Pro testbed.
Technically, yes, the SE760 performed the slowest of all the drives in this test. However, if you’re deciding on a new external drive based on a difference of one second in transfer times, you’re likely dealing with data transfers on a larger scale than the 1TB version of the SE760 we tested.
PCMark 8
The PCMark 8 Storage subtest measures a drive’s performance under typical workloads such as videoconferencing and word processing.
Here, the SE760 scored around the middle of this test set (and the overall spectrum of drives of this interface class), though it’s really difficult to say that any one drive wins or loses in this test when the results are consistently so close between devices that share the same underlying technology.
Crystal DiskMark
Crystal DiskMark’s sequential read/write tests measure the performance of a drive as it reads and writes large, contiguous blocks of data. Here, the ADATA SE760’s read score of 960 was the leader of the pack by a smidge.
The write test wasn’t quite as kind; the SE760 fell behind both the Crucial X8 and the SanDisk Extreme Pro. However, it still beat out its SE800 sibling. In practice, again, these kinds of differences aren’t discernable unless you make constant large-file transfers day-in and day-out and observe them with a stopwatch.
As Good as It Gets
ADATA has been a solid bet for external SSDs and hard drives for quite some time now. The company regularly releases drives that top our list as some of the best available, whether it be for their designs, their aggressive pricing, or their speed results.
Much like with the SE800, it’s hard to go wrong with the ADATA SE760, and that goes doubly so if you’re looking for a drive that’s designed to display an air of professionalism each time you pull it out of your pocket. It’s a solid choice for almost all buyers, except for those in need of truly harsh-environment rugged external storage. (And if that’s what you need, ADATA has a drive for that, too.)
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Source link : https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/adata-se760-ultra-fast