Buffalo Portable SSD-PUT USB-C 500GB Portable SSD Review

TweakTown's Rating: 91%

The Bottom Line

The SSD-PUT is a great option for users wanting an amazingly fast pen drive at a solid price with top capacity options of 1TB.

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Continuing our coverage of the new portable storage solutions from Buffalo, the SSD-PUT ditches the 2.5" form factor of the SSD-PG in favor of a smaller pen drive form factor.

Capacity options stay the same with both 500GB and 1TB options available, and we do have an interface swap as well; internally, this drive uses NVMe over UASP, so performance should peak at the top of the USB 3.2 Gen 1 at 600 MB/s read and 500 MB/s write. This in itself could make the SSD-PUT the better of the two available options offering higher performance over a smaller form factor.

MSRP of the Buffalo SSD-PUT in the 500GB capacity carries an MSRP of $74.99.

Packaging

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Packaging has been swapped to a white box, branding and model info at the top, along with capacity in bold.

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Included, we once again have the USB-C adapter and guides for recovery and connecting to your gaming console.

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The drive itself offers a matte exterior, plastic enclosure with Buffalo branding at the bottom with an included attachment point for a lanyard, etc.

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The bottom has a slide-out USB 3.2 connection, blue-colored to denote USB 3.2.

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On the bottom, we have model identification.

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Looking at the drive through disk info, we find the drive in good health with an NVMe over UASP interface.

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Factory formatting is with NTFS; this gives a capacity of 465 GB.

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As stated above, this drive offers a much quicker interface internally with NVMe, so we have external drive performance that tops out at 614 MB/s reads, and 537 MB/s write in CDM.

Final Thoughts

The pen drive form factor has always been the best when it comes to portability. Until recently, the performance of these solutions was always limited, with the best drives barely hitting 400 MB/s. With NVMe, vendors have been able to give a second life to this form factor, pushing the limits of USB 3.2 Gen 1 relatively easy with very little heat output from the drives.

The SSD-PUT, in my eyes, is the much better game drive not only for its performance but for the space-saving it offers and price. It competes with the likes of the Samsung T5, SanDisk Extreme, and others while being smaller and faster. It even beats them out in price, coming in at $74.99, $15 cheaper than the Samsung T5, and $20 cheaper than the SanDisk Extreme Pro.

TweakTownTest System

• System: Xenia 14