We would like to thank at first Silicon Power for supplying their PC60 960GB USB 3.2 Gen2 Portable SSD for testing and reviewing.

 

 

About Silicon Power:

 

"Founded in 2003 by a group of enthusiastic data storage industry experts, Silicon Power is committed to delivering outstanding product and service quality. Headquartered and with our own state-of-the-art production site in Taipei, we have become a leading manufacturer of flash memory cards, USB flash drives, portable hard drives, solid state drives, DRAM modules and industrial-grade products. As an international player with four branch offices around the globe, we continuously strive to offer the perfect data storage solution for all requirements of modern digitalized life. With a strong focus on combining innovative technology and award-winning design, we live up to our brand promise to reliably preserve and protect your most valuable data.

Because memory is personal."

 

Product Features:

 

Rapid data transfer with USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C extreme high-speed interface (up to 10 Gbps)

Performance read and write speeds up to 540MB/s and 500MB/s, respectively

3D NAND Flash technology allows for greater capacity, up to 1.92TB

Pocket-size design is ultra-compact and lightweight for superior portability

Square shape with a polished frame and textured surface

Convenient keyhole design for easy attachment to keychains or bags

LED indicator informs of any activity

Shock-resistant design can withstand minor drops and bumps

Includes 1 Type-C to USB Type-A cable

Free SP Widget software download available for backup and restore, AES 256-bit encryption, and cloud storage

 

Product Specifications:

 

Cable

Type-C to USB Type-A

 

Capacity

240GB, 480GB, 960GB, 1.92TB

 

Dimensions

80.0mm x 80.0mm x 11.2mm

 

Weight

46g (max.)

 

Material

Plastic

 

Color

Black

 

Interface

USB 3.2 Gen 2 (USB 3.1 Gen 2, USB 3.1 Gen 1 & USB 3.0 & USB 2.0 backwards-compatible)

 

Performance Read(max.)

up to 540MB/s

 

Performance Write(max.)

up to 500MB/s

 

Supported OS

Windows 10/8.1/8/7, Mac OS 10.3.x or later, Linux 2.6.x or later, Android OS 6.0 or later

 

Operating Temperature

0°C - 70°C

 

Certification

CE, FCC, BSMI, RoHS, KCC

 

Warranty

3 years Limited

 

 

 

 

With the PC60, Silicon Power is proposing another cost-efficient storage drive, which uses SSD instead of HDD but with the usual shortcomings because of the included TLC NAND packages (speed drops when the SLC cache is fully filled). The USB 3.1 Gen2 supported interface advertised on the box does allow transfer speeds of up to 1GB/s, but Silicon Power rates this drive as “up to” 540MB/s reads and 500MB/s writes, typical to SATA standard products and not NVMe.

 

The product is shipped inside a small cardboard box with a frontal window; here, we see the main features highlighted, including the storage capacity and the fact that the drive does feature a LED indicator:

 

 

 

On the back, we will get to see the product specifications, the package contents, the product internal code name and serial number, but also some information regarding the Silicon Power service centers:

 

 

 

After removing the outside layer, we will get to see that the drive is further protected inside a transparent plastic mold and also includes the data transfer cable, along with the User Manual:

 

 

 

The manual is in multiple languages and is quite straight-forward:

 

 

 

The USB transfer cable is of Type-C to Type-A and fully braided for additional durability; the same design for the connectors is used as we have seen with other recently reviewed Silicon Power products:

 

 

 

As expected with the use of a SSD instead of HDD, the unit is very light (about 46 grams) and slim (11.2 mm), being able to fit in pockets without an issue. On the top area, we are seeing a textured plastic finish with a ripple design, accentuating the square theme. The middle area does hold a subtle SP logo:

 

 

 

The chassis frame is made of shiny black plastic and here we will note the USB Type-C port as well. This side does also accommodate the data transfer white internal LED:

 

 

 

Silicon Power has also provided a small hole in one of the corners for attaching the unit to a keychain or bag:

 

 

 

On the back of the unit we will be able to spot black textured plastic again, but also plenty of supported standard logos and the drive capacity:

 

 

 

Let’s connect the unit to our test PC and see how it performs!

 

 

 

 

Test Bench:

 

CPU: Intel I5 9700K Retail

CPU Cooler: Deepcool Captain 240 EX RGB AIO

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Ultra Gaming

RAM: Patriot Memory Viper RGB Series DDR4

Video: KFA2 GeForce GTX 1060 OC 6GB

Power Supply: Cooler Master 850W

SSD: OCZ Vector 150

Case: Cooler Master ATCS 840

 

 

The drive has arrived formatted as FAT32:

 

 

For testing purposes, we have formatted it NTFS; here is the total remaining free space afterwards:

 

 

With the help of AIDA64, we could extract more information regarding the drive:

 

 

The drive is preloaded with the documentation in electronic format, but also the utility for registration:

 

The Tests

 

HDTach Short Test

Blank SSD

 

HDTach Long Test

 

Blank SSD

 

CrystalMark HDD Test Suite

 

AIDA64 Disk Test Suite

 

PCMark05 HDD Test Suite

 

 

CrystalDisk Test Suite (Random)

 

HDTune Test Suite

Blank SSD

 

PCMark Vantage HDD Test Suite

 

PCMark 7

 

Anvil [Read]

Anvil [Write]

 

Extra Tests:

 

AS SSD Benchmark

Blank SSD

AS SSD Benchmark (IOPS)

Blank SSD

ATTO Disk Benchmark

Blank SSD

PCMark 8

Blank SSD

 

 

 

The Tests

 

HDTach Short Test

Filled SSD

 

HDTach Long Test

 

Filled SSD

 

CrystalMark HDD Test Suite

 

AIDA64 Disk Test Suite

 

PCMark05 HDD Test Suite

 

 

CrystalDisk Test Suite (Random)

 

HDTune Test Suite

Filled SSD

 

PCMark Vantage HDD Test Suite

 

PCMark 7

 

Anvil [Read]

 

Anvil [Write]

 

Extra Tests:

 

AS SSD Benchmark

Filled SSD

AS SSD Benchmark (IOPS)

Filled SSD

ATTO Disk Benchmark

Filled SSD

PCMark 8

Filled SSD

 

 

 

The PC60 drive does sport a catchy look, is quite compact and light and includes a SATA-based drive for storing data. While we have reviewed the 960GB version, a 1.92TB variant is also available, in case you need to hold quite a bit of data while on-the-go. Due to the use of 96-layer 3D TLC, the write speeds will drop as soon as the SLC portion has been filled up, but the drive will be able to recover quite quickly afterwards.

 

To be more exact, when writing data continuously to the drive (in our case over 200GBs), we have noticed the write speed going down to about 17.6MB/s at random times, but was able to recover successfully afterwards.

 

 

 

Same type of behavior is represented by the write test in HD Tune:

 

 

 

The PC60 is quite affordable at about 117 Euros and is excellent for storing data on-the-go. Its best usage scenario is when you do transfer smaller chunks of data and not hundreds of GBs; in that case, the speed will sometimes drop lower versus a conventional HDD in terms of writes.

Silicon Power PC60 960GB USB 3.2 Gen2 Portable SSD is Recommended for:

 

 

 

We would like to thank again to Silicon Power for making this review possible!