Transcend ESD350C External SSD Review: Now Twice as Fast

Transcend, which has long been well known in the world as a manufacturer of flash memory-based data storage devices,

has released a new model of external SSD - ESD350C. EditorialggI received a version with a storage capacity of 480 GB for testing (there are also modifications with 240 and 960 GB).

What is it?

This is an external hard drive on NAND 3D TLC flash memory chips, packaged in a lightweight and durable aluminum case, protected by a removable silicone case.

What does it look like?

A device the size of a credit card (by thicknessthis comparison does not apply). It houses a USB Type-C connector and a tiny LED indicator. There is nothing else on the body – no buttons, no display, just a protruding nameplate on one side. The cover is put on tightly and is difficult to remove, however, the user has absolutely no need to remove it, except perhaps out of curiosity. In addition to the shockproof function, the case hides 4 screws that hold the case halves together. The case is protected from unauthorized disassembly by holographic sticker seals on both sides, damage to which will result in the loss of the three-year warranty. Weighs “naked” SSD is a little more than 70 grams, in a case – almost 90.

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What is included?

In addition to the drive itself in the case, there are two more cables in the box: USB A – USB C and USB C – USB C, both half a meter long.

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How comfortable is it?

The dimensions and weight of the drive are comfortable, its convenienthold in hand, it easily fits in your pocket or purse, but does not make you look for yourself for a long time. The indicator is quite bright, but when looking at an angle it becomes almost invisible due to the fact that the LED is located deep in the case.

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How fast is he?

Manufacturer declared maximum speedread speed 1050 MB/s, write speed – 950 MB/s. This is double the performance of the previous ESD230C/240C/250C models. Naturally, these are values for ideal conditions; the actual speed may vary greatly depending on what device the drive is connected to and what speed the ports and storage media of this device have. Here are the speed measurements on an editorial computer with USB 3.1 and SSD:

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On my old home PC with USB 2.0, the results are an order of magnitude lower:

In conjunction with a smartphone (Oukitel U23) subjectshowed good results for linear read / write and very weak for random. The test was carried out by the A1 SD Bench application, between the write and read tests, the smartphone was rebooted to exclude the effect of caching.

What is compatibility?

By default (from the factory), the drive is formatted inexFAT, however, this copy arrived for testing with the FAT32 file system and, accordingly, was read without problems by all devices to which I connected it, including a TV and DVD player. But in this file system, the maximum file size is limited to four gigabytes, so, for example, a full-length film in high resolution and with a decent bitrate cannot be recorded on this medium. If there is such a need – This means you need to change the file system to exFAT or NTFS, but then it’s not a fact that you can successfully connect it to something other than a Windows PC. Some smartphones work with exFAT, but not all. My Oukitel U23 on the MTK chipset refused to read SSD with exFAT.

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Theoretically, the problem can be solved by specializedsoftware that allows you to mount and read media with exFAT and NTFS (I managed to do this using a utility from Paragon Software), but in reality, working with files through such a “spacer” Not all applications can. In general, this is a topic for a separate discussion.

Windows does not allow you to format the disk back to FAT32, or rather – does not offer such an option in the standard utility.

To do this, you will have to use one of the third-party applications, for example, FAT23 Format:

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Are there any additional features?

Transcend Elite Firmware Offers Featuresbackup of randomly selected files and folders from a computer to an SSD (manually or according to a schedule, with or without encryption), restoration from backups and data synchronization. It can sync with Dropbox and Google Drive cloud storage. Unfortunately, this ghost application does not appear in the mirror in the screenshots, so the gallery below is copied from the official Transcend website. I checked the application’s performance, all functions work fine.

How is he at work?

With computers running Windows 7 andThe Windows 10 drive worked without any comments, it was detected and connected quickly, it was not very hot. In addition to tests, I used it to store RAW photos and work with them on home and office computers. Despite the lack of USB 3 support in both computers, the pictures were uploaded and traced quickly, it was comfortable to work.

Bundle “smartphone + SSD” easilycoped with watching video in Full HD resolution with a bitrate of 27 Mb/s and a frame rate of 50 per minute. The only caveat – After connecting the disk, each time you need to wait 2-3 minutes until the system checks it, and only after that you can work with files on the SSD.

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In the dry residue

Transcend ESD350C – fast, convenient andnice external SSD. Its price in Ukrainian retail – from 2300 UAH for 240 GB, from 3200 UAH for 480 GB and about 5000 UAH for 960 GB. This is about one and a half times more expensive than the previous ESD230C/240C models (with half the read and write speed), which seems quite justified.