Silicon Power MS70 2TB Portable Solid State Drive

Model: Silicon Power MS70 2TB Portable Solid State Drive
Manufacturer: Silicon Power
Provided By: Silicon Power

Silicon Power is a relatively new name in the storage industry. Founded in 2003 by a group of professionals specializing in international business, global marketing and technical engineering, the company has already established itself as one of Taiwan's top manufacturers. With an eye for attractive and versatile design, Silicon Power has built its brand around the concept that its customers deserve products that represent who they are in life and mirror their personality. The end result is a variety of uniquely designed storage products including USB flash drives, memory cards and solid-state drives (SSD).

One of the latest additions to Silicon Power's family of portable SSDs is the MS70. Designed with content-creators, mobile professionals and gamers in mind, this lightweight, pocket-sized drive features an all-metal body for extra durability as well as a rubber cap that protects the connector when not in use. On the inside, the MS70 is equipped with up to 2TB of NAND flash along with a USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gb/s) Type-A interface that will allow you to copy a 30-minute 4K video to your computer in under 28 seconds. To top it all off, the MS70 works with Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Android and iOS and is covered by a 5-year warranty.

The MS70 is available in 250GB, 500GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities. For this review, Silicon Power sent us the 2TB version of the drive which is capable of delivering up to 1,050 MB/s sequential read and 850 MB/s sequential write speeds.

Needless to say, this is only a taste of what the MS70 has to offer. To give you an idea of what to expect, we'll take a closer look at Silicon Power's latest portable SSD and then see how well it performs. Does the MS70 have what it takes? Can it deliver the value and performance we've come to expect from Silicon Power? Keep reading as we find out.

Physical Features:

The MS70 is one of the smallest and lightest portaable SSDs in Silicon Power's product lineup. Measuring 71.3 x 21.3 x 10.4mm and weighing a mere 13.8, the drive fits comfortably in the palm of a hand as well as your pocket.

While the ends of the MS70 are rubber and plastic, the body is constructed out of aluminum. This not only looks great, it provides extra durability and helps dissipate heat.

The MS70's USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-a port is located underneath the rubber cap on the end of the drive. This interface not only transfers data, but provides power for the device.

If you were to crack the MS70 open, you'd find Phison's PS2251-17 (U17) controller. Designed for use in USB flash drives, this DRAM-less controller solution offers native USB 3.2 Gen 2 support as well as two NAND flash channels with up to 16 chip enables (CE). The U17 also features up to 4TB of capacity using the latest TLC and QLC NAND.

The test system used in this review is equipped with an AMD Ryzen 9 7900x CPU, Gigabyte B650E AORUS Master motherboard, 32GB (16GB x 2) of Corsair Vengeance 5200MT/s DDR5 memory, Samsung 990 Pro 2TB SSD and a GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1060 WINDFORCE OC 6G graphics card. For the operating system, I used the latest version of Windows 11. 

To test the performance of Silicon Power's MS70 SSD, I ran a series of benchmarks using CrystalDiskMark, ATTO Disk Benchmark, AS SSD, HD Tune Pro, Anvil's Storage Utilities, Iometer and PCMark. For comparison, I've also included test results from the Crucial T705, Silicon Power US75, Samsung 990 EVO, Silicon Power PX10, Crucial T500, ADATA SE920, ADATA LEGEND 970, Crucial T700, Solidigm P44 Pro, Samsung 990 PRO, ADATA LEGEND 960, Crucial P3 Plus, SK hynix Platinum P41, Silicon Power XS70, WD_BLACK SN770, ADATA XPG ATOM 50, ADATA XPG GAMMIX S70 Blade, Crucial P5 Plus, Plextor M10PY, ADATA XPG GAMMIX S70, Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus, WD_BLACK SN850, Silicon Power US70, ADATA XPG GAMMIX S50 Lite, Crucial X10 Pro, Crucial X9 Pro, ADATA Elite SE880, Kingston XS2000, ADATA XPG ATOM 30, Samsung 980, Silicon-Power UD70, Crucial P2, SK hynix Gold P31 and Crucial P5..

Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that the MS70 performs equally well with both incompressible (0%) and compressible (100%) data.

CrystalDiskMark 8.0.4:

First, I ran a few quick tests using CrystalDiskMark. This benchmark measures the performance of a storage device by testing its sequential and random read and write speeds. For this test, we're using the peak and real world profiles.

According to Silicon Power, the MS70 is capable of reading at 1,050 MBs and writing at 850 MB/s when plugged into a USB 3.2 Gen 2 port. While the drive had no problems reaching its rated write speed, it came up short in CrystalDiskMark's sequential read speed test.

As you'd expect, the MS70 wasn't as fast when tested with the "real world" profile which uses a single thread and a much lower queue depth. Nevertheless, it was still able to read at 676 MB/s and write at more than 956 MB/s.

ATTO Disk Benchmark 4.01:

I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the MS70's sequential read and write speeds. The tests are run using blocks ranging in size from 512B to 64 MB and the total length set to 256MB.

Silicon Power MS70 2TB

Crucial X9 Pro 2TB

When tested with ATTO, the PX10's read speeds topped out at about 957 MB/s and its write speeds at 979 GB/s.

AS SSD:

AS SSD is a benchmark designed specifically for solid state drives. The application contains five synthetic tests which are used to determine the sequential and random read and write performance of a drive.

Silicon Power MS70 2TB

Crucial X9 Pro 2TB

AS SSD also includes a copy benchmark. This test copies an ISO (two large files), program (many small files) and game (small and large files), returning the speed and duration of each.

Silicon Power MS70 2TB

Crucial X9 Pro 2TB

HD Tune Pro 5.75:

Next, I ran a series of tests using HD Tune Pro. This hard disk utility measures a drive's performance by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its access time, burst rate and CPU usage. For this review, I'm also going to use it to benchmark the MS70's random read and write speeds, random access times and the number of operations per second.

Silicon Power MS70 2TB - Read Benchmark

Crucial X9 Pro 2TB - Read Benchmark

Silicon Power MS70 2TB - Write Benchmark

Crucial X9 Pro 2TB - Write Benchmark

The MS70 performed relatively well when benchmarked with HD Tune. The drive had average read and write speeds of 751.2 MB/s and 940.2 MB/s, respectively.

Silicon Power MS70 2TB - Random Access Read

Crucial X9 Pro 2TB - Random Access Read

Silicon Power MS70 2TB - Random Access Write

Crucial X9 Pro 2TB - Random Access Write

When reading 4KB blocks, the MS70 reached 10,659 IOPS and had an average speed of 41.637 MB/s. The drive was considerably faster when writing, reaching 25,164 IOPS with an average speed of 98.298 MB/s.

Anvil's Storage Utilities:

Anvil's Storage Utilities is another benchmark designed with SSDs in mind. The standard storage benchmark measures a drive's performance by testing its transfer speeds, access times and IOPS.

Iometer:

Lastly, I ran a series of tests using Iometer. This tool can be configured to benchmark a number of things. In this case, I used it to measure the MS70's read and write speeds and the number of operations per second. The tests were run using random bytes and a queue depth of 3.

The MS70's performance was very similar to what we saw in our other tests. The drive was able to read at 956.31 MB/s and write at 974.44 MB/s.

The MS70 wasn't one of the faster drives we've tested when it came to random reads and writes. In our tests, the drive was able to read at 153.91 MB/s and write at 316.57 MB/s.

Silicon Power really doesn't say what the MS70 is capable of in regards to IOPS. In our tests, the drive reached 39,401 random read IOPS and 81,401 random write IOPS. As with most drives, the MS70 performed better with more threads and at higher queue depths. With four threads and the queue depth set to 32, it reached 99,028 random read IOPS and 87,916 random write IOPS. 

Vantage PCMark 8 - Storage Test:

PCMark 8 is a complete benchmark for Windows. It includes five benchmark tests, each designed around a specific scenario. The storage benchmark measures drive performance using real-world traces recorded from Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office and a selection of popular games.

PCMark 10 - Full System Drive Benchmark:

PCMark 10's Full System Drive Benchmark uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and common tasks to fully test the performance of the fastest modern drives. This benchmark produces an overall score as a measure of drive performance. Comparing devices is as simple as comparing scores. The tests also measure and report the bandwidth and average access time performance for the drive.

Silicon Power's Ms70 portable SSD is a great addition to the company's already impressive line of flash-based storage products. Aimed at creators and mobile professions, this lightweight, pocket-sized drive is constructed out of aluminum and features a convenient flip cap design. With up to 2TB of storage, the MS70 can hold your entire digital library and, with its USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface, you can transfer it to and from your computer or mobile device at some respectable speeds. In our sequential read and write tests, the 2TB version of the MS70 was able to read at speeds as high as 961 MB/s and write at speeds in excess of 985 MB/s.

The only real complaints I have about the MS70 is that the cap can block nearby USB ports when the drive is plugged into your computer and that there is also no way to store the included Type-C adapter. If the later is an issue though, Silicon Power does offer the similarly equipped DS72 with both Type-A and Type-C connectors.

The Silicon Power MS70 is available now in 250GB, 500GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities and can be purchased directly from Silicon Power or through online retailers like Amazon.com. Prices currently range from about $30 up to $140 for 2TB version reviewed here.

Highs:

• Available in 250GB, 500GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities
• Compact, pocket-sized design
• USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface
• Good sequential read and write speeds
• Works with Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Android and iOS
• Includes USB-A to USB-C adapter
• Reasonably priced
• 5 year warranty

Lows:

• Mediocre random read and write performance
• Flip cap can block nearby USB ports