The Buffalo SSD-PUT Portable SSD is an unusual product: an external solid-state drive with the size and shape of a USB flash drive. Available in 500GB and 1TB capacities at prices of $74.99 and $119.99 respectively, it's a triumph of miniaturization that owes a debt of gratitude to silicon specialists Phison, which created the NAND flash controller that let Buffalo shoehorn some snappy storage into a tiny container. The SSD-PUT offers the appealing combination of the speed and capacity of a basic SSD with the size of a thumb drive at a reasonable price.
When Is a Flash Drive Not a Flash Drive?
Looking like a beefy USB flash drive, the SSD-PUT measures 0.4 by 0.9 by 2.7 inches and weighs a mere 0.6 ounce. The drive is all black—matte on the top and bottom, sandwiching a central glossy wafer—except for a red slider on the side. The slider deploys and retracts the drive's USB 3.2 Type-A connector. (Also included in the box is a compact USB-A-to-C adapter.)
At the other end of the drive is a plastic loop through which you can snake a lanyard (not included). On top, near the loop, the Buffalo name is printed in silver-gray type.
Next to the loop is a small status light, which glows white when the drive is plugged in and blinks while a transfer is in progress. The status light is a nice touch that's missing from many external SSDs and most thumb drives.
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Stepping Up With a Special Controller
The SSD-PUT employs some unusual internals. A drive utility with which we scanned it identified it as an SSD but provided little other information. Our Buffalo rep told us the device uses a newly released Phison NAND controller, the PS2251-17 or U17. Phison describes that controller as "the world's first and fastest USB 3.2 native UFD [USB flash drive] controller." (Puzzled by some of this lingo? Be sure to check out our handy SSD dejargonizer.)
As a USB device, the SSD-PUT works with a wide variety of systems and gaming consoles, from Windows and macOS computers to Chromebooks, the PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox One and Series X/S. Popular use cases, according to Buffalo, include on-the-go swift storage and photo/media repository duty.
Another plus, one that the SSD-PUT shares with Buffalo's SSD-PG, is that it is certified shockproof, being MIL-STD 810G 516.6 Procedure IV qualified. That testing entails multiple drops from heights of about four feet.
Based on its current retail pricing, the SSD-PUT can be had for 15 cents per gigabyte for the 500GB version tested here and 12 cents per gig for the 1TB model. This is similar to the pricing for other basic, but full-size, external SSDs. For example, the workaday Crucial X6 sells for 12 cents per gigabyte for the 500GB and 11 cents per gig for the 1TB version. The TeamGroup T-Force Treasure Touch costs 15 cents per gig for its 1TB model.
There are thousands of USB flash drives on the market, but they tend to be slow, with typical read and write speeds in the 100MBps to 300MBps range. Few have capacities as high as 1TB, and those that do aren't cheap. For example, at this writing Amazon was selling Corsair's amped-up 1TB Flash Voyager GTX, with rated read and write speeds of up to 440MBps, for more than $300.
Testing the SSD-PUT: Small Speed
We ran our usual suite of SSD tests on the SSD-PUT, comprising Crystal DiskMark 6.0, PCMark 10 Storage, BlackMagic's Disk Speed Test, and our own folder transfer test. The first two are run on a PC with the drive formatted in NTFS, and the latter two on a 2016 MacBook Pro using exFAT. Crystal DiskMark's sequential speed tests provide a traditional measure of drive throughput, simulating best-case, straight-line transfers of large files. The PCMark 10 Storage test measures an SSD's readiness to perform a wide variety of everyday tasks. (See how we test SSDs.) See those tests on the first two chart tabs below...
The SSD-PUT's Crystal DiskMark scores of 439MBps read and 404MBps write are a smidge above its rated sequential speeds (430MBps read and 400MBps write), and in line with the speeds we'd expect from a USB external SSD with SATA guts, or a very fast USB flash drive. Its scores were considerably faster than the Buffalo SSD-PG's (251MBps read and 227MBps write), and comparable with several lower-end external SSDs we measured it against.
In the PCMark 10 Storage test, the SSD-PUT's score of 495 was the lowest in our comparison group, with several of those same lower-end SSDs scoring in the 600-to-800 range. Its BlackMagic scores were in line with that group of SSDs, however.
Buffalo claims that the drive's sequential speeds will soon be getting a boost—a forthcoming firmware update that will extend its USB interface support to USB 3.2 Gen 2, hiking peak read speeds to 600MBps and write speeds to 500MBps. (According to Phison, the PS2251-17 controller is capable of supporting even faster sequential speeds, up to 1,000MBps read and 800MBps write, but we would have to wait for another drive to see them.)
The SSD-PUT is covered by a two-year warranty, although Buffalo will tack on a third year of support if you register the drive with the company within 90 days of purchase. Like with its SSD-PG drive, we wish the third year were stand-issue.
The Best of Two Worlds
With the SSD-PUT, Buffalo has managed, in effect, to scrunch an external SSD into a thumb-drive form factor. It combines the compactness and portability of the latter with the speed and capacity of the former.
That said, don't expect the cutting-edge throughput you'd see from a first-class USB 3.2 Gen 2 or Gen 2x2 SSD with PCI Express internal components; that class is represented in our charts above in models from Samsung, SanDisk, and others. The SSD-PUT approximates the speed of a middling external SSD. But while you can get drives that are faster, more cost-effective, or of higher capacity, Buffalo's gadget provides a compelling mix of basic SSD performance and miniaturization at a decent price. It's a reasonable pick if you need more pep than a conventional flash drive can give you, or a typical external SSD is just too big.
Buffalo's innovative SSD-PUT offers solid-state speed and capacity in the body of a typical USB thumb drive. It's good for general use, though its test scores show it better suited for file transfer and storage than program loading.
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