INTRODUCTION

    Performance and size/weight versus capacity and price, these have always been the two ratios’ SSDs and HDDs respectively (both internal and external models) have always been proud of and honestly i don't really see that changing anytime soon (especially now that Seagate has finally unveiled their Mach.2 drives for which I've talked about extensively years ago). Still performance is clearly something many consumers and professionals alike place above capacity (and price) and that's clearly why portable SSDs currently enjoy such high popularity levels. HP recently also entered the portable SSD market (via their cooperation with BIWIN) and today with me i have one of their fastest models currently available, the P700 1TB.

    HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ) creates technology that makes life better for everyone, everywhere. Through our product and service portfolio of personal systems, printers and 3D printing solutions, we engineer experiences that amaze. More information about HP Inc. is available at www.hp.com.

    HP currently has their Portable SSD P700 available in just 3 capacities (256GB/512GB/1TB) and 3 colors (red/blue/black) and just like with the CarbonX portable SSD by Mushkin (review here) under the enclosure (top aluminum/bottom plastic) they've placed the SM2263EN quad channel high-performance PCIe Gen3 x4 controller (NVMe v1.3 protocol) by Silicon Motion along with Intel/Micron 64-layer TLC NAND flash and 1GB LPDDR3 RAM by Micron. Responsible for the 10Gbps speed of the Portable SSD P700 is no other than the JMS583 USB 3.1/3.2 Gen 2 to PCIe NVMe Gen3 x2 bridge controller by JMicron. Specifications aside however what makes the Portable SSD P700 stand out from similar models is its "hidden" magnetic compartment inside which you'll find an USB-C to USB-A cable and an USB-A to USB-C adapter. In terms of durability HP reports an MTBF (mean time between failure) of 2.000.000 hours and covers the entire Portable SSD P700 line with a 3-year limited warranty.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

The drive arrived inside a small box which has a clear plastic window at the front from where you can actually see the top of the drive (capacity, brand logo and main features are also present).

Moving to the left side we find the bundle contents, system compatibility and the product specifications.

Disclaimers and warranty information in 14 languages is what we see at the rear.

Inside the box you will find the P700, "hidden" magnetic compartment, USB-C to USB-A cable, USB-A to USB-C adapter and the quick start guide / warranty statement paper.

THE P700 1TB

The P700 enclosure measures 92mm in length, 65mm in width and just 9.2mm in thickness.

As usually to have a better understanding about its size i placed the P700 next to several other drives such as the PC60 by Silicon Power, Z7S by NETAC, SE760 by ADATA and the DiskAshur2 by iStorage.

A USB-C port is located at the front of the drive.

Turning the drive over we see a sticker with its serial and part numbers and barcodes.

Here you can see the magnetic compartment inside which HP has placed the drive cables.

The "neat" thing about this is that you can attach it on the base of the P700 (at which point the thickness of the drive increases to around 21mm).

Opening the drive is not hard and so once you do, you'll see that the PCB looks more like a SATA one instead of a PCIe one (you can also see the 4 metal pieces on the base used to attach to the 4 magnets of the cable compartment).

Taking a closer look, we see the Silicon Motion SM2263EN quad channel high-performance PCIe Gen3 x4 controller (HP branded), two Intel/Micron 64-layer TLC NAND flash modules, 1GB LPDDR3 RAM module again by Micron (1600MHz) and the JMS583 USB 3.1/3.2 Gen 2 to PCIe NVMe Gen3 x2 bridge controller by JMicron (the other side of the PCB is empty).

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 the primary test rig.

TEST RESULTS - AIDA64 / ATTO

TEST RESULTS - HD TACH RW / HD TUNE PRO

TEST RESULTS - SISOFTWARE SANDRA TITANIUM / CRYSTAL DISK MARK

CONCLUSION

   With the P700 1TB HP/BIWIN have created one of the fastest USB 3.2 Gen 2 portable SSDs in the market today. Yes, the P700 may not be the fastest one around but it does come close to that (the P800 might be faster so I may review it too) and on top of that it’s very compact and features a nice magnetic compartment for its bundled USB-C to USB-A cable and USB-A to USB-C adapter. Unfortunately, after testing the drive with three 0.5 meter long USB-C to USB-C cables I found that it was only working with the bundled cable so do keep that in mind (it may not work with long cables).

   The Portable SSD P700 1TB by HP currently retails for USD149.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for around 160Euros inside the EU a price tag which is on par with what we see by other manufacturers for similar USB 3.2 Gen 2 drives. At the end of the day the Portable SSD P700 1TB by HP delivers on everything it should and for that it gets the Golden Award.

PROS

- Build Quality
- Very Good Performance (USB 3.2 Gen 2)
- Vibration & Shock Proof
- 3 Year Limited Warranty
- Magnetic Cable Compartment
- Price (USA)

CONS

- EU Availability
- Compatibility With Long Cables (?)