Page 2 - A Closer Look; Test System
The physical appearance of the ADATA SE920 1TB is pretty inconspicuous with its fully black color and white lettering on it. The ADATA logo can be found on top of a brushed aluminum bottom. The top is separate and it shows with a change in texture to a matte-like finish. However, the SE920’s primary identifying feature is the fact we have this sliding top-and-bottom, which clicks in place to open and close the area. It serves as a nice fidget toy while holding the SE920, but it also serves a functional purpose, as opening the slider activates an internal fan. In between the sliding portion is a lined metal area that adds a third texture. Overall, its build quality does bring up some concerns, as the sliding mechanism does not feel particularly sturdy. The top cover wiggles about when the drive is open with some squeaking and rattling coming from inside. When it is closed, the cover still moves side-to-side. I also think ADATA should smooth over the edges for a better feel in the hands.
In terms of measurements, the ADATA SE920 1TB is surprisingly heavy at 181g without the cable. This is understandable with its almost fully metal exterior. The only plastic parts on the drive are at the top and bottom. With the specified internal fan, it is likely we also have some sort of heatsink inside, which contributes to the weight. When the SSD is fully extended, it measures 122.6mm in length, 64.2mm in width, and 15.9mm in thickness. When closed, this length shrinks down to 105mm. Hopefully this size will shrink down for future drives, as this one is a bit big and heavy for an external solid state drive.
A single USB Type-C to Type-C cable is included and it is thick and braided. It measures around 25cm long from one connector to the other. The SSD also operates with a 5V 3A input, which means if the drive is not provided enough power, it may not operate at its peak speeds. The SE920 1TB is backwards compatible down to USB 2.0, but I would be weary especially given the minimal power output of the USB 2.0 specifications. Unfortunately, we also do not have a Type-A to Type-C cable, but USB4 is limited to Type-C, so this is just something you will need to accept.
Flipping the drive over, you can get a better look of the other side, which looks very similar to the front. From this photo, you can get a better idea of what the ADATA SE920 1TB looks like when it is closed. The back shows all of the certifications as well as a minimum input of 900mA at 5V. Otherwise, we can also see a "Made in Taiwan" label along with its capacity.
While we did not take apart the ADATA SE920 1TB, there are some internal things to speak about. First of all, the SE920 has an ASMedia ASM2464PD USB4/Thunderbolt to PCIe/NVMe controller. As such, it is no surprise this supports USB4 40Gbps. There is some confusion between USB4 and Thunderbolt 4, as they both use USB Type-C connectors and offer speeds of 40Gbps. However, they are seen to be related, as Thunderbolt 4 is built on the same underlying interface as USB4 with some improvements like a higher power output of 15W and higher minimum bandwidth of 32Gbps. The number of motherboards that support either are only found on more recent motherboards. In our case, the ASUS ProArt Z690-Creator WiFi uses an Intel JHL8540 Thunderbolt 4 controller with speeds up to 40Gbps. On the other hand, ADATA specifies that the maximum write performance is 3700MB/s on USB4 and 3200MB/s over Thunderbolt 4.
Once the ADATA SE920 1TB is plugged in, you can see the blue LED light turn on for the power status. It would have been nice to see it blink based on drive activity, but we do not have such a luxury here. As mentioned from the specifications, this drive is compatible with Windows, Linux, Mac, and Android operating systems, as well as the PS5 and Xbox Series consoles. Otherwise, with the drive open, you can hear the fan spin out and push air out the top of the sliding cover. There are small holes to allow for airflow. The fan is generally pretty quiet, but you will hear the high-pitched whirring if you are listening for it. As for functionality, I have seen other USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 drives get warmer under testing, so it is no different here with our external USB4 SSD. This is likely part of the fact it is the first drive with these capabilities, but I also hope we will see more passive solutions going forward.
One thing that I should point out is that when we first started testing the drive, we plugged it into a Thunderbolt 4 port and ran our read and write tests. However, we noticed some reduced write capabilities over this interface. This is because Windows treats this drive as portable storage, which includes quick removal support. While this does not affect USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 drives as much, we saw a notable performance reduction in writes over USB4. If you go into the Device Manager, you can enable write caching. However, this means you will need to safely remove the hardware to disconnect the SE920 1TB properly. In Mac OS, write caching is enabled by default. In response, all of the tests have been conducted over three interfaces: USB4 via Thunderbolt 4, USB4 via Thunderbolt 4 with write cache enabled, and USB 3.2 Gen 2x2. We will see how this affects the results on the next pages.
Our test configuration is as follows:
CPU: Intel Core i5-12600K
CPU Cooling: be quiet! Dark Rock Elite
Motherboard: ASUS ProArt Z690-Creator WiFi
RAM: Crucial Pro DDR5-5600 2x16GB
Graphics: EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti XC3 ULTRA GAMING
Chassis: Thermaltake Core P6 TG Snow
Storage: XPG Atom 30 1TB
Power: FSP Hydro PTM Pro 1200W
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
Compared Hardware:
- ADATA SE920 1TB
- ADATA Elite SE880 1TB
- Crucial X10 Pro 2TB
- Crucial X9 Pro 2TB
- Crucial X6 2TB
- Crucial X8 1TB
- Crucial X8 2TB
- Kingston XS1000 2TB
- LaCie Mobile SSD 500GB
- LaCie Rugged SSD 1TB
- Lexar SL660 BLAZE 1TB
- Lexar Professional SL100 Pro 500GB
- Western Digital Black P50 Game Drive SSD 1TB
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look, Test System
3. Benchmark: AIDA64 Disk Benchmark
4. Benchmark: ATTO Disk Benchmark
5. Benchmark: Crystal Disk Mark 8.0
6. Benchmark: HD Tune Pro 5.70
7. Conclusion
