Angelbird SSD2go Pocket USB 3.0 External Solid State Drive Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

We’ve just seen the Angelbird SSD2go Pocket perform incredible well for a portable drive, so the question is whether we want this drive but also what the costs are. The good news here is that it won’t cost as much as you might expect. The SSD2go Pocket has an MSPR of £113.42 for the 128GB capacity, £160.16 for the 256GB and £266.97 for the largest 512GB model, VAT not included.

The 512GB model that we’ve just had on the test bench can be had for £319.95 at Megamac in the UK at the time of writing. Our American readers can get it for $449.99 at B&H Photo Video or Westlake Pro. If you’re quick, you can also take advantage of a limited time offer and save $100 on the drive at NCIX. If you order directly at Angelbird’s own website, the SSD2go Pocket will set you back €399,90 and includes an engraving for that extra personal touch.

The SSD2go Pocket places itself firmly in the middle of the price chart. Looking at internal SSD prices, adding that this is a portable drive as well as the unique features and durability coupled with the fact that this is a true SSD and not an ordinary flash drive, make this drive a great deal.

Overview

The Angelbird SSD2go Pocket is one of the most beautiful portable drives you can get, there is no way around that. The external finish is just perfect and at the same time it’s highly portable due to it’s tiny size and rounded shape.

It isn’t just a beautiful drive, it’s also highly durable. While it might be going too far to say that it is indestructible, it comes as close as possible. As you saw in the video on the first page of this review, the SSD2go Pocket can take a heavy beating and still work as advertised. The robust enclosure coupled with the clever connector design make sure that your drive works every time and everywhere.

The SSD2go Pocket performed just as good on the test-bench as it is beautiful. It easily took the crown among the external drives we have tested up until now. The SSD2go Pocket hits the top speeds that are achievable on the USB 3.0 port. Taking full advantage of the UASP serial protocol, Angelbird are able to achieve these impressive results we’ve just seen. The portable SSD showed us speeds of up to 400MB/S when writing and up to 460MB/s when reading. Truly impressive results on a USB connection.

I’ve actually had this drive for a while, but the testing procedure wasn’t without a hitch. There are less than a handful Z87 motherboards that don’t support UASP and mine was, unfortunately, one of them. Not to worry I though, as I had access to other systems that do have UASP support. However in an attempt to benchmark the SSD2go Pocket on these AMD APU systems, I noticed that the speeds I was getting were about 100MB/s to slow. I tried everything, tested and retested, changed settings and drive formats, and even added manual registry entries to try and beat this limitation. I also brought other drives into the rotation that showed the same problem, so this isn’t related to the Angelbird drive but rather with the APU platform. This problem was reproduced with three different APUs on three different motherboards, that all gave the same result. A maximum transfer speed of 360MB/s when reading and 300MB/s when writing.

While these AMD speeds are slower than what we’ve just seen on my Intel based system, they’re still great and far exceed the speeds of other portable drives. It should still be noted that you might not get the full UASP speed on APU based systems though. Sadly I didn’t have an FX-based AMD system to test this on, but I assume it works just as good as my Intel platform did.

Pros:

• Speeds that reach the maximum USB3 can handle
• UASP, TRIM (also for Mac), ECC, EMS, SMART and overload protection
• Extreme durability and Clever connector design
• On-the-go and Car HiFi supported
• Good Price
• Five year warranty

Cons:

• none

“I can not praise this drive too much, it IS amazing. With speeds that exceed anything we’ve seen on portable devices and a build quality that makes the drive almost indestructible, it’s safe to say that this is a great buy.”

Thanks to Angelbird for providing this review sample.