An exciting product ADATA had to share this CES 2022 is the company’s new Elite SE920 USB4 external SSD. An external storage solution that packs true NVMe speeds in the size that is smaller than a normal 2.5″ external SATA solution.
This new drive is rated at up to 4,000MB/s, just 1,000 less than the theoretical max throughput of USB4*. Making it an incredibly fast solution for gamers, enthusiasts, professionals, or anyone else interested in speeding while mobile (data-wise, at least). It isn’t the fastest drive out there by far, but it is when you narrow it down to just external drives (thus far).
The casing is metal to help spread heat with, while it also packs its own fan to help cool things further. You are able to slide the casing apart gently, revealing an airway for the air to travel. Not really a necessary design spec, but it does add a little coolness to it as you slide it open and shut when using it or packing it away. In addition, of course, it supports RGB LED lighting built-in because everyone wants RGB lighting built into everything right now.
We don’t quite know what is inside the external unit, although based on conversations with ADATA, it does sound like it is embedded storage and not an NVMe that can be removed for internal use later on (or swapped out with something larger). Something to keep in mind if you like to swap parts as you evolve your devices. ADATA hasn’t directly confirmed this, this is just what we were led to believe.
There isn’t a release date or price just yet. However, you can bet the price will be decently high at launch given there isn’t a lot of competition within the USB4 side of the industry yet. It should drop sometime this year and you likely won’t see it happen until late summer or fall since there really isn’t a lot of USB4 support out there yet either. Additional motherboards will be rolling out this year that will brand the port though, which will drive a lot of demand for such devices. Until then, our predictions are pure speculation based on what information is available thus far.
We were very excited to see the USB4 drive in person at CES 2022, along with everything else ADATA has been working on both on the side of ADATA as well as its XPG products. This is going to be a fantastic year for tech.
You can see this drive along with other innovations ADATA and XPG had to show off at CES 2022 in the below interview. If more information develops or we get to test one of these out for ourselves, we’ll make sure to share in further stories.
*USB4 Explanation: USB4 in general is capable of up to 40Gbps (theoretically). We say theoretically since we almost never see the “max” speed of most of these connectivity standards as they are based on perfect conditions and sometimes products that aren’t even in existence yet. That being said, ADATA’s USB4 drive is rated at up to 4000MB/s. Which comes close, as 40Gbps = 5,000 MB/s (the whole bits vs bytes conversion thing).
