The Exascend brand is synonymous with high-quality products. So, does their award-winning SSD Explorer, designed for challenging environments, live up to its name? When going gets tough, will the trouble continue?
There’s one lesson I’ve learned the hard way in my years of working in the world of photography, that quality products are worth the investment. Not too long ago, I reviewed the Exascend Catalyst SDXC card and was impressed. So now I have 2 TB 20 Gbps Explorer Portable Solid State Drive (PSSD). I’ve put it through its steps.
The Exascend Explorer PSSD won the 2023 Red Dot Design Award, and not without good reason: great design.
It is neatly packed in a cardboard box, inside there is a sturdy plastic tray, with a lid. I’m not a fan of plastic packaging, but the tray is sturdy enough to keep the device inside, so there’s no need to throw it away right away.
SSDs definitely look great. It has a sleek, modern design with a quality finish. Is appearance important? I also believe so. First, I believe that all artists should surround themselves with things that inspire them. Furthermore, you know that if a manufacturer has worked hard to perfect a product, it is likely to be well-manufactured as a whole. Take Rolls Royce, Apple and Rolex as examples to prove my point.
This is a portable solid-state drive built for extreme conditions. So taking it out of the packaging, it feels reassuringly solid.
The drive itself is surprisingly small, smaller than other external SSDs I own, about the size of a small smartphone. The drive housing is solid aluminum. It is mounted inside a silicone rubber cover to protect its corners. The top of the case is contoured and has the Exascend logo on one end that lights up with a blue LED when connected. The bottom surface is smooth so it can be labeled.
It measures approximately 4.3” x 2.46” x 0.6” (110 mm x 62.6 mm x 1.55 mm) and, with the supplied USB cable, weighs 7.83 oz (222 g).
It’s built tough enough to withstand almost anything adventurers can throw at it. If you’ve read my articles before, you probably know that one of the reasons I’m excited about the camera system I use is its unique and industry-leading IP53 weather resistance. like OM-1, Exascend Explorer has weather resistance, However, it is on a higher level. When I started writing this, it was IP67 rated.
IP stands for Intrusion Protection. The number “6” in that IP code is the highest possible rating, meaning it can fully protect against dust, while the number “7” indicates that it is protected from the effects of temporary immersion in water to a depth of 15 cm to 1 m for 30 minutes. So this IP67 rating means this device will withstand the harshest conditions that photographers and filmmakers may be exposed to.
However, just before submitting this article for publication, it was announced that the immersion test has been upgraded to IPX8. The IPX8 device can be continuously submerged in water to a depth of 3 meters for up to 30 minutes. If you drop it in the river and get it back, there’s a good chance it will continue to work.
The protection doesn’t just apply to the case. Inside, there is a matching coating. It is a water and grain resistant layer applied to the printed circuit board and all embedded components. It protects the entire Exascend Explorer SSD from environmental damage.
Explorer PSSD has an operating temperature range of -10–70 °C and a storage temperature range of -40–85 °C; it can exist in far greater extremes than most of us will ever face.
It can also withstand 50 g of shock and has a write capacity of 12,000 terabytes written (TBW). TBW tells you how many terabytes you can write to the drive during its warranty period before its memory cells start to degrade; 12,000 terabytes is a lot and more than what I would use.
It ships with a 20 Gb USB-C to USB-C, and that cable has a built-in USB-3 adapter. This is great news as many people who use external hard drives these days do so to connect to laptops with minimal internal memory, which I find unnecessarily annoying, as the memory can be physically shrinking. With a USB-C connection, it claims a blazing fast 20 Gb/s transfer rate. With USB-3, the transfer speed is still more than respectable. See test results below.
Like the SDXC cards I tested, the Explorer comes with a generous 5-year warranty. It also has Exascend’s industry-leading factory data recovery capabilities, which means you can rest assured that your data is in safe hands. If something goes wrong, Exascend will restore it for you.
There are 1 TB, 2 TB, 4 TB, and 8 TB capacity options for this drive.
Other exciting, advanced features include RAID ECC, which is Exascend’s technology that combines the power of RAID with the granularity of NAND flash blocks. In short, this allows the storage device to be rebuilt even after the data is severely damaged.
SuperCruise™ is another Exascend technology that optimizes write performance for stability. They claim unmatched consistent write performance even in the most demanding applications.
Take Exascend Explorer through its steps
I like the challenge and I want to know that the drive will withstand extensive environmental tests.
I accidentally dropped it from the kitchen table on my very annoying stone kitchen floor. Then I purposely ran it under hot water for two minutes. Days later, it’s still working and shows no signs of damage.
Speed performance test
Exascend cites a maximum read and write speed of 2,000 Mbps (20 Gbps) when using the USB-C connection.
I transferred a large folder of photos from my computer using USB-3 and it maintained a steady rate of 270 MB/S. That’s three times faster than my Seagate USB-3 backup hard drive, and a third faster than another solid-state drive I recovered from my old computer and attached to an external case.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a USB-C drive on my computer to test my desktop speed. However, when connecting it to a laptop using USB-C, the file transfer happens instantly. Laptops don’t have enough internal hard disks to transfer anything long enough to measure speed.
Of course, the transfer speed will vary from computer to computer depending on the chipset, internal hard drive, RAID mode, server controller, RAM and drivers, so fortunately there are programs that do that for us.
Below are the performance measurements provided by Exascend that they performed on the 4 TB instance.
They first tested using a desktop computer with a 20Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 expansion card
We tested the theoretical performance of Explorer PSSD on this desktop with a USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 interface. On CrystalDiskMark, we achieved excellent results with 2,101 MB/s sequential writes and 2,036 MB/s sequential reads.
On HDTune and AIDA64 DiskBenchmark, the former achieves a continuous read/write speed of around 100 GB, while the latter achieves an average write speed of 1,905.6 MB/s.
We chose the M1 Max version of Mac Studio with three ports: USB-A 5 Gbps, USB-C10 Gbps, and USB-C 10 Gbps Thunderbolt 4 compatible. (There are no good USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 solutions on Apple products). We tested the performance of the EXFAT file format on different interfaces (USB-C 10 Gbps obtained via the thunderbolt interface dock) and concluded that it is advisable to plug the hard drive into the thunderbolt dock first.
What I like and what can be improved with Exascend Explorer PSSD
pros
- Explorer’s robust construction makes it suitable for any environment a photographer, videographer or videographer might use.
- It’s compact so it’s easy to carry while traveling.
- It’s lightning fast.
- The USB cable matches the quality of the drive.
- Design is great.
- The outer packaging is recyclable.
- It has a five-year warranty.
- It is made in Taiwan, which has the best human rights record in Asia.
- The company has friendly and helpful staff.
Defect
- Installing the built-in protective silicone USB socket cover when removing the cable is a bit difficult.
- The inner packaging is plastic, but it’s sturdy and worth storing the drive.
- It is expensive compared to some other drives. However, you get what you pay for, and you’re paying for great build quality, speed, reliability, and longevity.
My Conclusion about Exascend Explorer
I’ve got some future travel plans, and I’ll get it done. This will be the perfect tool for backing up my photos when I’m away and don’t have an internet connection. Small enough to slip into a pocket, it’s perfect for deep in the rainforest, in the mountains, on arctic expeditions, and in the desert.
It’s worth noting that Exascend also generates a Portable SSD named Gecko. This is a similarly powerful product with 1,700 Mbps transfer rates that can be fitted into the camera’s hotshoe.
But Explorer Portable Solid State Drive is another Exascend product that I would highly recommend. When the road gets tough, this tough little momentum kicks in and leaves the competition behind.
