ADATA RGB SE770G 512GB External SSD review – fast speeds and tons of LEDs

Nowadays, most IT gadgets are getting smaller. That applies to the storage products as well. Years ago it was unbelievable to think that after some time there will be flash drives with a capacity of 1TB but right now you can buy these things. On the other hand, when the SSDs became available to the regular consumer it was a mini-revolution because these drives can significantly increase the responsiveness of any PC compared to a regular HDD. However, the NVMe drives are even faster. The good news regarding their specs is that the most mid-range NVMes are faster compared to a regular SATA drive (at least in most scenarios).

In addition, they are smaller and they don’t need a SATA cable to work and that’s why there are so many on-the-go variants – they are small and light, and that’s why they can fit with ease in a compact enclosure. In this review, we’re going to show you the 512GB  version of the ADATA RGB SE770G – this is an external NVMe drive that comes hidden in a compact metal shell with an interesting design. Oh, yes, and the backside of it shines with many RGB LEDs but unfortunately, that doesn’t provide any speed boost.

You can check the current price of ADATA RGB SE770G 512GB External SSD here: Buy from Amazon.co.uk (#CommissionsEarned)

Contents


Specs Sheet

ADATA RGB SE770G External SSD
Capacity512GB / 1TB
Dimensions (L x W x H)99.5 x 57.5 x18 mm / 3.92 x 2.26 x 0.7 inches
Weight136g
InterfaceUSB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C
Sequential Read (Max*)Up to 1000 MB/s
Sequential Write (Max*)Up to 800 MB/s
Operating system requirementsWindows 8 / 8.1 / 10
Mac OS X 10.6 or later (reformatting required for use)
Linux Kernel 2.6 or later
Android 5.0 or later
Op. Temperature0°C (32°F) to 35°C (95°F)
Op. VoltageDC 5V, 900mA
AccessoriesUSB 3.2 Type-C to C cable, USB 3.2 Type-C to A cable, Quick Start Guide
WarrantyLimited 3-year

What’s in the box?

Actually, nothing fancy here. The device comes in a glossy card box and for additional protection, the NVMe is fitted inside a plastic tray. As usual, there is a quick start guide and two cables – a USB 3.2 Type-C to Type-C cable, and a USB 3.2 Type-C to Type-A cable. The latter makes this drive compatible with almost any PC out there that has at least a USB 2.0 (Type-A) port.


Design

As we said a bit earlier, the drive is fitted in a compact enclosure – the upper side of it is made of metal and it has segregations on top of it. This is definitely good because it plays the role of cooling – it’s a big chunk of metal so in theory, it should cool the drive well. The backside of the device is plastic and it houses tons of LEDs that glow in smoothly flowing colors – it looks interesting for a second or two but after that, we flipped the SSD and we never looked at the LEDs again.


Installation, Benchmarking, and Real-life performance

Installation? What installation? You just have to choose one of the two provided cables in the box that is suitable for your computer and afterward, you can hook the NVMe to the PC – that all. Now, let’s jump straight to the benchmarks.

BenchmarkReadWrite
ATTO Disk Benchmark914 MB/s770 MB/s
ATTO Disk Benchmark IOPS30.42K IO/s29.93K IO/s
AS SSD Benchmark902 MB/s876 MS/s
HD Tune Random Seek 8MB880 MB/s642 MB/s
HD Tune Sequential Read/Write793 351 KB/s663 877 KB/s
HD Tune Random Access728 MB/s573 MB/s

ISO read and write

In the last test, we are checking the real-life performance of the drive by using a 31GB ISO file. In the first screenshot, you can see the speed when the ISO is already on the ADATA NVMe and we are copying it on the system drive of our laptop (which is on an M.2 slot). The second screenshot shows the speed when the same ISO file is copied from the laptop’s drive to the ADATA NVMe (this is the write speed, while the first screenshot is indicating the read speed).

As you can see, ADATA RGB SE770G 512GB can be a real rival to a lot of internal NVMe drives if you use the USB 3.2 Type-C to C cable. No matter the fact that it uses a cable connection, it offers a sustained and fast performance all the time. However, it’ll be great if the backside was just made of metal instead of plastic that houses so many lights in the middle of it.

However, it’ll be great if the backside was just made of metal instead of plastic that houses so many lights in the middle of it. This has a negative impact – the bottom side is always hotter compared to the metal upper side.

As you can spot from the screenshot below when the NVMe is under heavy load it reaches 44°C. After about 5 minutes, the inside temperature stabilizes at 36°C before we pound it with more stress.


Verdict

ADATA RGB SE770G 512GB shows us that an external NVMe drive can be as fast as an internal one. One of the key selling features of this device is its compactness – it’s small and it has rounded edges so it’ll fit in most pockets. It has two cables in the box – one of them is for a fast connection to a USB 3.2 (Type-C) port and for better compatibility, there is a standard cable for a USB 3.0 (Type-A) port.

The benchmarks show great scores but the most important thing is this device is a snappy performer in real-life situations. You can use ADATA RGB SE770G as a regular flash drive for copying and writing files on the go. We’ve tried to install a live copy of Windows 10 on it (with Rufus) – after we tweaked the BIOS to boot from the external NVMe, it’s hard to spot the difference between the internal NVMe and the external one. Everything is snappy, the programs start lightning-fast – and all the data was going through a cable. So, yes, this drive is a good option if you want to have a live Windows installation in your pockets – it’s handy if you want to test something on different PCs without losing time installing Windows on all of them.

Moreover, you can install games on ADATA RGB SE770G – we didn’t face any problems in this situation. No matter what game is written on this NVMe, it’ll start fast and the level loading time is great as well. The drive has its cons – the provided cables can be too short for some of you and if you don’t like RGB implementations, sadly, you can’t turn the “lights” off. But at least you can flip the device and you will not see the glowing small lights anymore.

You can check the current price of ADATA RGB SE770G 512GB External SSD here: Buy from Amazon.co.uk (#CommissionsEarned)

Pros

  • Not-so-expensive
  • Has USB Type-A and Type-C cables in the box
  • Compact
  • Fast
  • Has tons of LEDs…


Cons

  • … but unfortunately, you can’t turn them off
  • The provided cables are too short
  • The backside gets warm because of the LEDs

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