[signoff icon=”dollar”]
Price / Where to Buy:
US – Approx. US$119 –ย Apacer AS720 [Newegg]
PH – TBA
[/signoff] [section label=”Introduction”]
We’ve taken a look at a couple of portable SSDs here at the labs and all of those have been USB3. Now the question I pose to most of these makers of external SSDs is that if the speed is sufficient, you can boot up a system via USB3. Then again you’d be stuck a USB3 drive and that defeats the purpose of having a super-fast boot drive if you’re always on your main system and not moving around. That being said, there are times when you might want to switch machines and all your data are in one place. These are typically the scenarios where’d you’d want the versatility of a portable drive and Apacer has exactly with the Apacer AS720 dual-interface SSD. With both a USB3.1 and SATAIII interface, this device offers fast storage and versatility in one package.
Specifications
| Model | AS720 Dual Interface SSD |
| Interface | USB3.1 & SATAIII 6Gb/s |
| NAND Flash Type | MLC |
| Capacity | 120GB/ 240GB |
| Sustained Read Performance(MB/sec) | USB3.1 interface: Up to 540MB/ SATAIII 6GB/s interface: Up to 540MB |
| Sustained Write Performance(MB/sec) | USB3.1 interface: Up to 450MB/ SATAIII 6GB/s interface: Up to 450MB |
| IOPs (4K Random Write) | Up to 70,000 |
| Standard Operating Temperature | 0 โ ~ 70 โ |
| Storage Temperature | -40โ ~ 85โ |
| ECC Support | Up to 55 bit/1KB |
| Shock | 3000G |
| Vibration | 30G |
| Humidity | 5%~95% |
| Low Power Consumption | 750mA(SATA 240GB)/ 1.15A(USB3.1) |
| Dimension (mm) | 100(L) x 69.9(W) x 7 (H) mm |
| Warranty | 3 Years |
PERFORMANCE TESTING
Test Setup
Processor: Intel Core i7ย 6700K
Motherboard: ย ASUS MAXIMUS VIII FORMULA
Memory: Kingston HyperX Savage DDR4-3000
Storage: Transcend MTS800 512GB
PSU:ย Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1000w
All results are from SATAIII testing. Tests done after saturation write/erase cycle test.
Potential Performance
ATTO Disk Benchmark benchmarks a drive’s read and write speeds with increasing file sizes and graphs them.
Potential Write Performance
For potential write testing, HD Tune was used to measure the drive’s write performance. Again, we focus on the average results for real-world relevance.
Crystal DiskMark
Crystal Disk Mark is storage benchmarking software was developed by “hiyohiyo”ย of Japan, and is available for free. Crystal Disk Mark measures sequential, and random read/write speeds of storage devices.
Real-world Test: File Transfer
We’ve taken our compression test files, a collection of images, documents and other files ranging from 1KB to 50MB amounting to 3,343 files for 3GB and a single, large 12GB file. We’re posting the raw transfer results for your reference. Test data is copied off a PCI-express SSD.
Conclusion
So having tested the drive, out of the box we got around 540MB read and 450MB write on both interfaces, sometimes USB3.1 edges out SATA on write speed on average but that depends on your work load. In our testing, it did shy below 500MB/s reads and lower on the write speeds but that was after a good workout. ย Overall speeds are satisfactory though via USB3 but in SATA it could’ve been better.
With a price tag of $116 for 240GB this hovers outside the range of value-oriented drives. It does make up for it with its convenience of being a dual-interface product. Apacer did a good job creating a product for people looking for a convenient way to use both interfaces. While thereโs a perfect scenario for this, thereโs not a lot of folks that would need but for those who do this is a perfect product.
Apacer backs the AS720 dual-interface SSD with a 3-year warranty.
Peace!
[signoff icon=”dollar”]
Price / Where to Buy:
US – Approx. US$119 –ย Apacer AS720 [Newegg]
PH – TBA
[/signoff]
Apacer backs the AS720ย with a 3-year warranty. We give it our B2G Recommended Award.
