INTRODUCTION

   USB flash drives have supported both consumers and professionals alike for well over 2 decades now but for higher capacity needs portable hard drives have always led the market. What happens however if you need the read & write data transfer speeds of high-performance USB flash drives and most of the higher capacities offered by portable hard drives? Well this is where portable solid state drives (SSDs) come in and even though they've been around for quite a few years now thanks to the somewhat recent introduction of higher available capacities they've begun to compete with portable hard drives (even though the latter still hold a much higher price/capacity ratio). Silicon Power recently released their PC60 line of portable SSDs and today with me i have the 960GB variant.

   Founded in 2003 by a group of enthusiastic data storage industry experts, Silicon Power is committed to delivering outstanding product and service quality. Headquartered and with our own state-of-the-art production site in Taipei, we have become a leading manufacturer of flash memory cards, USB flash drives, portable hard drives, solid state drives, DRAM modules and industrial-grade products. As an international player with four branch offices around the globe, we continuously strive to offer the perfect data storage solution for all requirements of modern digitalized life. With a strong focus on combining innovative technology and award-winning design, we live up to our brand promise to reliably preserve and protect your most valuable data. Because memory is personal.

   For the PC60 line of portable SSDs (currently available in 240GB/480GB/960GB/1.92TB) Silicon Power decided to squeeze the DRAM-less Silicon Motion SM2259XT quad-channel high-performance SATA 6Gb/s controller and 96-layer 3D TLC NAND flash by Micron inside a small square plastic enclosure with USB 3.2 Gen connectivity. Needless to say, just like all the latest NAND controllers by Silicon Motion the SM2259XT also features their NANDXtend error-correcting code (ECC) with SRAM ECC, end to end data path protection, global wear-levelling, real time AES 256-bit encryption, SHA 256, TRNG and support for TCG Opal and IEEE-1667 (Microsoft's eDrive). Of course, the PC60 can't compete with M.2 NVMe based portable SSDs but it should still be a lot faster compared to portable hard drives so let's check it out.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

The PC60 arrived inside a small box most of which features a clear plastic window at the front from where you can take a quick look.

At the rear of the box we find the specifications, bundle contents, OS compatibility and contact details for Silicon Power.

Along with the PC60 inside the box you will also find a USB-A to USB-C cable and the user manual.

THE PC60 960GB

The enclosure of the PC60 weighs just 46g and measures 80mm on each side.

As always in order to have a better idea about the size of the PC60 i placed it next to the iStorage diskAshur2 SSD, Silicon Power Bolt B75 Pro and the Samsung T3 and T1 models.

Plastic may not be the most durable material but the square and textured enclosure of the PC60 is shock resistant.

Silicon Power has placed a lanyard hole on the drive which you can use to attach to pretty much everything.

The USB-C connector is located at the rear of the enclosure.

On the belly we find the capacity and name of the drive along with several certifications.

Accessing the interior of the drive is easy since the enclosure is secured via clips.

At the top of the PCB we find the SM2259XT controller along with a single NAND flash module by Micron (there’s also room for 3 more NAND modules).

Turning the PCB over we find room for 4 extra modules (8 in total).

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY

   Solid state drives are basically the same as USB flash drives and so we’re using almost the same testing methodology to successfully record achieved read & write performance numbers in our charts*. The benchmark suites used are HD Tach RW (Read Speeds / Long Bench 32mb Zone Testing), HD Tune Pro (Read / Write speeds), Sisoftware Sandra Titanium 2020 (Read / Write speeds), AIDA64 Engineer Edition (Average Linear / Random Read & Write speeds), Crystal Disk Mark 6.0.2 (2GB Read / Write speeds) and finally ATTO 4.00.0F2 (Max Read / Max Write speeds). Every test is repeated a total of 6 times after which the average performance numbers are recorded into our charts (0 = we were unable to complete that test).

   All tests are performed with our main rig running Microsoft Windows 10 Pro installation on a CORSAIR MP510 960GB NVME SSD* with all updates installed up to the day we started tests.

* Since August 2019 for portable SSD tests i started using our primary test rig.

TEST RESULTS - AIDA64 / ATTO

TEST RESULTS - HD TACH RW / HD TUNE PRO

TEST RESULTS - SISOFTWARE SANDRA TITANIUM / CRYSTAL DISK MARK

CONCLUSION

   Although expected its crystal clear from the charts that the PC60 960GB portable SSD by Silicon Power will outperform any portable hard drive out there (and many older portable SSD models of course). Unfortunately, I can’t figure out why Silicon Power would use an USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gb/s) interface with a SATA 6Gb/s drive. It would make far more sense had they used an M.2 NVMe model instead which could boost read & write performance up to almost 1000MB/s. So, I can only hope that Silicon Power is already working on one such drive and that the PC60 is the “lower cost” solution aimed at people who don’t really need something faster.

   Speaking of cost the PC60 960GB portable SSD by Silicon Power currently retails for just USD99.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 134.81Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de) a price which is very balanced, at least on the other side of the Atlantic. Overall, there’s really not much to say about the PC60, it’s very fast (for an 6Gb/s drive) and compact which Is what portable SSDs should be all about. Yes, it may not feature the most durable enclosure out there (something which I hope Silicon Power improves in future models) but that’s also reflected on its price tag. At the end of the day the PC60 960GB portable SSD by Silicon Power performs as advertised which is why it gets our Golden Award.

PROS

- Compact Size & Weight (11 Thick)
- Very Good Performance
- AES 256 Encryption
- Shock Proof
- 3 Year Limited Warranty
- Price (USA)

CONS

- Price (EU)
- Enclosure Durability (Plastic)