TeamGroup PD1000 Rugged Portable SSD Review

With content creation on the rise in and the increasing quality and file sizes with photos/videos, the need for affordable portable storage is greater than ever. Not only do you want your data to be portable but also need a device that will stand the test of time. TeamGroup’s newest storage product just might fit the bill with IP68 waterproof/dustproof/pressure proof certification, can withstand 1,600Kg of weight without deformation, and is available in 512GB & 1TB configurations. With an MSRP of $138.99 for the 1TB and $77.99 for the 512GB, the PD1000 remains quite affordable without sacrificing features. We would like to thank TeamGroup for sending us the PD1000 SSD to review. About TeamGroup Team Group Inc. was founded in 1997 in Taiwan and is one of the leading memory storage manufacturers in the world. They provide a variety of products such as Memory, Solid State Drives, SD Cards, USB drives, and mobile accessories. With their professional research and development teams, it allows them to produce high-quality and innovative products. TeamGroup also well praised by the industry and customers by adhering to the corporate philosophy of “Integrity, Innovation, Professionalism, Efficiency, Discipline, and Simplicity.” Features Technical Specifications: Model PD1000 Interface USB3.2 Gen2 Capacity 512GB / 1TB[5] Performance Read/Write: up to 1000/900 MB/s Material Aluminum alloy Color Navy blue Weight 75g Dimensions 107(L) x 40(W) x 10.9(H)mm Operation Temperature 0°C to 70°C Storage Temperature -40°C ~ 80°C Operating System Desktop or notebook computer with a USB port (A USB 3.2 port is needed for USB 3.2 performance) • Windows 10/8.1/8/7 • Mac OS X v.10.5 or later • Android 5.0 or later Accessories USB3.2 Type-A to Type-C Cable USB3.2 Type-C to Type-C Cable Warranty 3-year limited warranty A Closer Look Taking the Teamgroup's PD1000 out of the packaging we loved the look of the unit with its dark blue with gold accents as well as its relatively small size. The casing on the PD1000 is fully aluminum which feels quite nice and is incredibly durable with it being able to handle 1600Kg of force before deforming. With it being both durable and its small footprint makes the PD1000 perfect to bring around in your pocket. To the side of the PD1000, we find a gold plate covering the interior electronics with a single USB Type-C port in the center. When you are not transferring data to the PD1000 you can use the included rubber insert to protect the port from dust. In addition to the PD1000 also included in the box were 2 USB cables with one being a USB3.2 Type-C to Type-C and the other a USB3.2 Type-C to Type-A. Both USB cables have a braided sleeve which is a nice touch that gives them a premium feel. System Configuration & Testing To test Teamgroup's PD1000 we plugged it on our bench in a USB 3.2 Type-C port. The specification of our system is as follows: CPU: i9 9900K Motherboard: Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Pro RAM: 2 x 8GB Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB @ 3200MHz GPU: XFX RX 5600 XT THICC II (14Gbps) OS Drive: Crucial P1 1000GB OS: Window 10 Professional X64 Before benchmarking the PD1000, I use CrystalDiskInfo to check out some of its details. Not much to note here other then it does seem to run a little bit warm being 49C at idle. I will be running the drive through various benchmarking applications to see how it fairs under different workloads. These applications include: ATTO Disk Benchmark CrystalDiskMark 6.0 Anvil’s Storage Utilities AS SSD ATTO Disk Benchmark “As the industry's leading provider of high-performance storage & network connectivity products, ATTO has created a widely-accepted Disk Benchmark freeware utility to help measure storage system performance. As one of the top tools utilized in the industry, Disk Benchmark identifies performance in hard drives, solid-state drives, RAID arrays as well as connections to storage. Top drive manufacturers, like Hitachi, build and test every drive using the ATTO Disk Benchmark" In ATTO benchmark the PD1000 surpassed its rated read/write speed of 1000/900 MBs with it capping out at 936 MB/s write and 1016 MB/s read. CrystalDiskMark 6.0 “CrystalDiskMark is designed to quickly test the performance of your hard drives. Currently, the program allows measuring sequential and random read/write speeds." In CrystalDiskMark, we see the PD1000 do exceptionally well with a read speed of 975 MB/s and a write speed of 931 MB/s. Anvil's Storage Utilities “Anvil's Storage Utilities is a powerful tool that was designed to provide you with a simple means of assessing the read and write performance of your Solid State Drive or Hard Disk Drive. The benchmark tool helps you monitor and check the response time of your unit as well as view the system information collected using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). Anvil’s Storage Utilities has been designed to be the most comprehensive benchmark tool for Solid State Drives on the market. That does not mean that you can’t use it for conventional platter-based drives as well, but you do get the most out of the program when you test the speed and performance of SSDs with it. The program has gone through a series of beta and release candidate builds already and is currently available as Release Candidate 3. It is usually linked from this forum thread, which currently is not the case for the RC build which you can download here directly. You can’t use previous builds as they are set to expire automatically. You can run a benchmark right away by selecting a drive from the menu at the top right or check out the settings first to make sure everything is configured correctly here. Here you can simulate a compression level of the text file, e.g. database, application, or uncompressed, and whether you’d like to use the same test file on consecutive runs or generate a new one every time. As far as benchmarks go, you can run a standard SSD benchmark that is testing read, write, or both performances of the drive, or run threaded IO benchmarks only.” Anvil is showing similar scores of the PD1000 as ATTO/CrystalMark with 963 MB/s read and 873 MB/s write. You may notice the write speed may seem a little slow but that is common to see in this benchmark. AS SSD “The AS SSD benchmark determines the performance of Solid State Drives (SSD). The tool contains six synthetic and three copy tests. The synthetic tests determine the sequential and random read and write performance of the SSD. These tests are carried out without using the operating system cache. In Seq-test the program measures how long it takes to read a 1 GB file to write respectively. 4K test the read and write performance is determined at random 4K blocks. The 4K-64 corresponds to the test Third 4K procedure except that the read and write operations are distributed to 64 threads. This test should SSDs pose with Native Command Queuing (NCQ), differences between the IDE operation mode where NCQ is not supported, and the AHCI mode. The additional compression test can measure the power of the SSD in response to the compressibility of the data. This is especially for the controllers that use to increase the performance and life of the cell compression, important. In the first three synthetic tests and the compression test, the size of the text file 1 GB. Finally, the access time of the SSD is calculated, wherein the access to read over the entire capacity of the SSD (Full Stroke) is determined. The write access test, however, is done with a 1 GB big test file.” Again you see the PD1000 pretty much running to spec with it scoring a 982 MB/s read and 917 MB/s writing in the AS SSD benchmark. Looking at AS SSD compression benchmark we see a steady read speed of about 980MB/s and write speed between 850MB/s and 938 MB/s with a few dips into the 700 MB/s. Final Thoughts and Conclusion I think I can speak for everyone here that there is nothing more annoying than waiting for files to copy on/off your USB drive. Well with the PD1000 that wait is going to be much shorter with its extremely fast 900MB/s write and 1000 MB/s read. Not only is Teamgroup's PD1000 fast but it can also hold a large amount of data (512GB / 1TB depending on the model) in a form factor that can easily fit in your pocket. This makes it extremely easy to transfer large amounts of data between two locations where it would take much longer over the internet. As with most portable devices, you must consider how while it can withstand the bumps/drops of everyday life. With the PD1000 you can set your worries aside as it can take a beating and still work at the end of the day. With its case constructed of an aluminum casing that can withstand 1,600 Kg and the device having IP98 dust/waterproof certification makes the PD1000 nearly indestructible. Besides being extremely durable the PD1000 comes in a nice blue/gold finish which in my opinion looks great. TeamGroup hit it out of the park with the PD1000 and personally, it will be my new go-to USB drive. From the exceptional read/write speeds, having a large amount of storage, and nearly indestructible body it’s the perfect device for anyone looking to bring their data on the go.

TeamGroup PD1000 Rugged Portable SSD Review

With waterproof connector, there’s no need for the dust plug

A Closer Look

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A Closer Look

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