Back when we talked about why modular power supply is the way to go, we talked about M.2 SSDs. It can minimize cable clutter by just seeping power off the motherboard. You don’t need another SATA power cable or another SATA data cable! Just one M.2 SSD, and it performs the same. Consider the PenDrive M.2 SATA III SSD that we have here.

Take a look at this review and consider if the PenDrive M.2 SATA III SSD is suitable for your next build.

Specifications

Read SpeedUp to 560MB/s
Write Speed465MB/s
Form FactorM.2 2280
Operating Temperature0°C ~ 70°C
Storage Temperature40°C ~ 85°C
Dimension80mm (L) x 22m (W) x 2.3mm (H)
Warranty3-years

Unboxing

The entire box of the PenDrive M.2 SATA III SSD is actually very simple. It’s wrapped in a hard shell plastic, covered by cardboard. Adequate enough for transportation, but still have to be careful though. The plastic is not that hard and it can snap the PCB in half if you’re not careful enough.

Pendrive M.2 SATA III SSD

Behind the packaging is the pretty basic – just the specs and highlighting the 3-year warranty. Nothing else.

Pendrive M.2 SATA III SSD

Once the packaging is ripped open, there’s no way to turn back and repackage it properly. Better prepare some sort of sandwich bag to repack the PenDrive M.2 SATA III SSD if you plan to sell it.

The SSD itself is nothing out of the ordinary either. It has a blue PCB and a sticker covering the front of all the components. Don’t pull out the sticker, else your warranty will be voided.

Pendrive M.2 SATA III SSD

There are chips on the underside of the PCB as well. But not to worry as the PenDrive M.2 SATA III SSD will not overheat since it’s using the SATA III interface. NVMe SSDs, however, will definitely overheat – but that’s a story for another time.

Pendrive M.2 SATA III SSD

Like what we’ve stated before, installing the M.2 SSD is simple. Just slot it into the M.2 slot, screw it in, and boot. Zero cables. That’s why modular power supply is the way to go.

Synthetic Benchmarks

AS SSD Benchmark

Widely used SSD benchmarking utility that uses incompressible data to simulate the worst possible scenario for an SSD and thus giving a much lower sequential read and write speed result than what has been stated by the manufacturer as result of the heavy workload.

Pendrive M.2 SATA III SSD AS SSD Benchmark

CrystalDiskMark

Developed by a Japanese coder that goes by the nickname Hiyohiyo, CrystalDiskMark is one of the most frequent used SSD Benchmark utility to measure SSD’s read and write performance.

ATTO Disk Benchmark

The most frequently used benchmarking utility by many manufacturers for performance specification. As ATTO Disk Benchmark uses compressible data rather than incompressible data, it results in higher benchmark scores.

Pendrive M.2 SATA III SSD ATTO Benchmark

Real World Performance

We’ve run several tests using several SSD with at least 40% capacity occupied with various commonly played games to simulate some of the real world scenarios.

From our first test, we copied files to and fro a hard disk – the WD Black 6TB to be exact. While copying to the hard disk, we can see that once the speed reaches about 300MB/s and stabilizes at about 220MB/s when the buffer is full. Essentially, the speed of the PenDrive M.2 SATA III SSD is bottlenecked by the hard disk.

Second round of test is where we copy files to and fro of another SATA III SSD, and it shows that the PenDrive M.2 SATA III SSD has about 100MB/s less than the theoretical maximum that is written on the packaging. That is fine, considering that no real world application is in sequential read/write all the time, and the important factor when it comes to SSD performance is the random 4K speeds.

Final thoughts

Considering the price of this PenDrive M.2 SATA III SSD at just RM499 (which you can get for only RM336 on Lazada now), it’s a compelling option. M.2 2280 is getting more commonly found in laptops. To create a clean PC build M.2 SSD is the way to go. The price to performance ratio for the PenDrive M.2 SATA III SSD is actually decent too. Nothing to wow about, though.

Pros

  • Good price
  • Decent performance

Cons

  • No screw included

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