Orico GV100 1TB Portable NVMe SSD Review

TweakTown's Rating: 90%

The Bottom Line

The GV100 is a surprisingly good solution offering performance, capacity, and lightweight impact on your wallet.

Buy at Amazon

In the past, we have had several products from Orico in the lab. Most recently, it was their NVMe enclosure and USB 3.0 hubs that we tested in a roundup article. However, their latest solution happens to be a portable SSD, and they have outfitted it with 10Gb/s USB 3.2.

The portable SSD market has taken on three tiers of drives over the past year with the addition of 20Gb/s USB 3.2 connectivity. SATA to USB 3.2 Gen 1 drives fill out the budget and high capacity needs of the market, while the next tier is the NVMe portable drives that feature USB 3.2 Gen 2 or 10Gb/s connectivity. Coming up quickly this year, we should see USB 3.2 Gen2x2 emerge as the preferred method of 20Gb/s connectivity over Thunderbolt 3, which will maintain its 40Gb/s advantage over the market.

The Orico GV100 is a tier two solution offering USB-C connectivity on top of a USB 3.2 Gen2 interface. This gives 10Gb/s connectivity with an NVMe drive to support it. Marketing performance sits at 940 MB/s with capacity options ranging from 256GB to 512GB with a top capacity of 1TB.

Compatibility includes both macOS and Windows 7, 8, and 10. The MSRP of the 1TB Orico GV100 comes in at $189.99 with a three-year warranty.

9

The packaging is on point with an image of the drive and capacity listed lower right.

9

The back goes into more detail with specifications and warranty info.

9

Unboxing, the Orico GV100 offers a unique circular design with a hole to add it to a lanyard or key ring. Included with are USB-C and Type-A cables.

9

The body of the drive is single piece aluminum with an anodized blue finish. The top and bottom are plastic securing the PCB and drive inside.

9

Along the bottom edge, you will find the USB port for connecting the drive.

9

Taking a quick look at CDI, we find the drive is NVM Express 1.3 connected over a UASP interface.

9

Starting our testing, we look to CDM. The GV100 brings in 873 MB/s read and 849 MB/s write. 4K numbers top 23 MB/s read and 40 MB/s write.

9

ATTO shows peak performance at 512K through 64M.

9

Adding the Orico GV100 to our Price/Performance charts, the drive comes away in the number 2 spot at 89.5%.

I'm rather surprised by the GV100. I honestly wasn't expecting this level of quality from Orico, and, well, they have done it. Build quality is rather solid apart from the plastic end caps - we have a full aluminum enclosure, anodized for color. The internal SSD is more than capable of the performance needed for 10Gb/s USB 3.2 Gen 2.

The performance of the GV100 wasn't the best we have seen but was solid at 873 MB/s read and 850 MB/s write. And looking at ATTO, we found the drive to prefer 512K through 64M file sizes. Adding this solution to our Price/Performance netted it a substantial boost landing in the second spot, just behind the X8 from Crucial.

If there we one thing for Orico to work on, it would be pricing. At $189.99, the drive is NOT overpriced by any means, but it is reaching towards the upper end of the market. If they were able to bring it more into direct competition with the X8 at $159, we might have a drive that's the best bang for your buck!

Tyler's Test System Specifications

• Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair VIII Formula X570 (buy from Amazon)
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (buy from Amazon)
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB 2x8GB DDR4 3600 (buy from Amazon)
• Cooler: Corsair Hydro H60 (buy from Amazon)
• Case: Corsair Carbide 275R (buy from Amazon)
• OS Storage: Corsair MP600 1TB (buy from Amazon)
• Power Supply: Corsair RM850x (buy from Amazon)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 (buy from Amazon)