ADATA's SE900G is the first USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 20 Gbps external SSD we review, and I have to say I'm impressed. The drive achieves blazing speeds of up to 1.6 GB/s in read and write. This makes it the perfect choice if you have to move a lot of data. Twice the speed than most competitors can really make a difference when time is money. What's important to mention is that while the new USB interface standard doubles the maximum transfer rate, our testing shows that the random IO performance is comparable to other drives in our test group, which use the slower 10 Gbps USB interface. Another interesting data point is that the SE900G has extremely low 512K mixed performance. While it is highly unlikely that you'll be reading and writing large amounts of data at the same time, it can definitely happen in real life, so it's not only a theoretical problem. Still, this definitely shouldn't be a dealbreaker. The low 512K mixed result is the reason why the scores on the summary page got dragged down a lot.

Internally, ADATA is using a full-size SX8200 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD, which is one of our favorites for desktop use. In our SSD reviews, the SX8200 Pro has been one of the fastest drives for years, with excellent price/performance, too. The physical construction of the SE900G is good, most of the drive is made out of metal, only the RGB-illuminated top is made out of plastic, which can scratch relatively easily. The RGB illumination looks fantastic, almost mesmerizing. ADATA came up with a clever design that only uses eight LEDs, yet achieves great surface illumination. Limiting the number of LEDs is important because too much lighting adds heat, which can result in a loss of write performance when the drive overheats. Temperatures were no problem on the ADATA SE900G even though the drive gets fairly warm when heavily used. Unfortunately, there's no way to control or turn off the RGB lighting, which could be a useful capability for that corporate meeting scenario.

With a pseudo-SLC cache of 296 GB, ADATA's SSD can easily soak up large write bursts. Actually, the drive is the fastest portable SSD we ever tested when it comes to sustained write rates. Filling the whole capacity completes at almost 1 GB/s, nearly twice that of the next-fastest competitor.

Priced at $285 for the tested 2 TB version, the ADATA SE900G is very reasonably priced, especially when you consider that competing 20 Gbps SSDs like the WD Black P50 ($500) and SanDisk Extreme Pro ($340) are much more expensive than the ADATA. Even when compared to 10 Gbps SSDs, the SE900G is priced competitively. For example, the Crucial X8 2 TB currently retails for $280, and the Sabrent Rocket Nano is $270. Just make sure your computer supports the USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 20 Gbps interface or the SSD will operate a 10 Gbps only, or even slower. For AMD AM4, not a single motherboard exists with 20 Gbps USB, so you'll have to use an add-in card. For Intel, a handful of boards do exist with native 20 Gbps USB. You can also pair these super-fast USB SSDs with the new consoles, but neither PS5 nor Xbox Series X have support for 20 Gbps USB, so your gains will be limited.