When you think of innovation in the storage industry you typically think of things like M.2 and SATA Express that help enable even faster transfer speeds. Well, a while back I was contacted by a lesser known company in the storage industry called Apacer. They had all of the standard products of course but there was one specific product that really caught my eye. This was their AS720 SSD, at first glance, it wasn’t especially innovative. But I noticed that along with the SATA connection on one end, it also had a new USB 3.1 Type C connection on the other end. This really got me thinking about how useful an SSD with dual interfaces could be. For starters, it is worlds smaller than the normal 2.5 inch USB storage devices because it doesn’t need a thick casing on top of the hard drive or SSD like most external USB drives. I was also thinking about how useful it could be when cloning your old drive to your new SSD, especially with laptops that aren’t going to have two SATA connections. So today I’m going to take a look at Apacer’s dual interface SSD. I’m going to dig inside and see what makes it tick, then test both interfaces to see just how well they both perform.

Product Name: Apacer AS720 Dual Interface SSD 240GB

Review Sample Provided by: Apacer

Written by: Wes

Pictures by: Wes

 

Specifications
Interface

-SATA 6.0 Gb/s interface, backward compatible with 1.5, 3.0 Gbps interfaces

-USB 3.1 Super Speed specification compliance, backward compatible with USB 1.1, 2.0, 3.0 interface specifications

Capacity 120 GB, 240 GB
Performance 120GB Model

Via USB 3.1 (Unit: MB/s)

Sequential Read: 550

Sequential Write: 275

Via SATA (Unit: MB/s)

Sequential Read: 550

Sequential Write: 275

4K (IOPS)

Random Read: 60,000

Random Write: 40,000

Performance 240GB Model

Via USB 3.1 (Unit: MB/s)

Sequential Read: 550

Sequential Write: 460

Via SATA (Unit: MB/s)

Sequential Read: 550

Sequential Write: 460

4K (IOPS)

Random Read: 78,000

Random Write: 75,000

Form Factor 2.5 inch
NAND Flash Media MLC
ECC Up to 55bit/1KB
Operating Voltage 5V ± 5%
Power Consumption (Unit: mA) 120GB Model

Via SATA

Active: 450

Idle: 60

Via USB 3.0

Active: 680

Idle: 250

Via USB 3.1

Active: 800

Idle: 300

Power Consumption (Unit: mA) 240GB Model

Via SATA

Active: 700

Idle:60

Via USB 3.0

Active: 950 

Idle: 250

Via USB 3.1

Active: 1,100

Idle:300

Dimension 100.10mm (L) x 69.85mm (W) x 7.00mm (H)
Reliability Features S.M.A.R.T, Wear-leveling, ECC (up to 55bit/512-byte sector), NCQ, sudden power-off recovery, DuraWrite Technology
Operating Temperature 0°C to 70°C
Storage Temperature -40°C to 85°C
Shock Half sine 3000G/0.3ms
Vibration Sine 30G, 10 ~ 2000Hz
Warranty 3 years
Certifications RoHS, CE, FCC
System Requirements

-Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows Vista

-MAC OS 10.4 or later

-Linux 2.6.33 or later

 

Log in to comment

garfi3ld's Avatar
garfi3ld replied the topic: #38046 27 Jul 2016 20:10
Today I take a look at an odd SSD that actually has a USB 3.1 Type C connection in it as well.

We have 1689 guests and one member online

supportus