Glued to You TEAMGROUP PD20M Magnetic External SSD Unboxing Review

The TEAMGROUP PD20M is a magnetically attached device with a thickness of 8.2 mm and an ultra-light weight of 40 grams. With a storage capacity of up to 2TB and a USB 3.2 Gen2 x2 Type-C (20 Gbps) transfer specification, it allows users to quickly back up their memories, such as photos and videos, with their cell phones.

TEAMGROUP PD20M External Solid State Disk Specifications:

Interface: USB 3.2 Gen2 x2 Type-C (20 Gbps)
Weight: 40g
Dimensions: 70(L) x 62(W) x 8.2(H) mm
Continuous read speed: 2000 MB/s
Continuous Write Speed: 2000 MB/s
Warranty: 3 years
Accessories: USB Type-C to C cable

TEAMGROUP PD20M Magnetic External SSD Unboxing

PD20M is an external solid state drive from TEAMGROUP, the most important feature is that it supports Magsafe function, which can be attached to Apple iPhone 16 or other cell phones with magnetic suction function by more than 800 grams of magnetic force.

∆ TEAMGROUP PD20M Magnetic External Solid State Drive.

∆ Product specification.

 

The PD20M looks dark gray to the naked eye but is labeled Titan Gray on the official website, with overall dimensions of 70 x 62 x 8.2 mm, about the size of a palm, and a thickness of 8.2 mm, which is special because it is mainly used on the back of the phone, and if the body is too thick, it will feel worse during handheld use, and the weight of the body is only 40g to minimize the burden of carrying it around.

The interface uses USB 3.2 Gen2 x2 Type-C and comes with a short cable. When tested with a USB 3.2 Gen2 x2 Type-C slot on a computer or laptop, the bandwidth of 2000 MB/s will be reached for reading and writing, and when used with a cell phone, the USB Type-C specifications provided by the cell phone will be used as a guide.

In the capacity section, there are 2TB and 1TB to choose from, and the one I unboxed and tested this time is the largest capacity of 2TB, which is labeled in the official website that if you use iPhone for recording, the file setting is ProRes format and the picture quality is 4K 60 frames for recording, you can record continuously for up to 144 minutes.

∆ PD20M Titan Gray.

∆ uses USB 3.2 Gen2 x2 Type-C specification to connect to the interface and is only 8.2 mm thick.

∆ The bottom is a magnetic retaining ring.

∆ A complimentary short material.

 

iPhone 15 Pro Max Console with

The PD20M is labeled to support different operating systems such as Mac OS, Windows, computer platforms and gaming consoles. This time, the author demonstrates it with the Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max to show you how it will be displayed when it is used with a cell phone.

∆ can see PD20M directly after connecting to iPhone 15, and it can be read directly without formatting.

∆ On Apple, the file format is ExFAT and the available capacity is 2 TB.

∆ file storage, but it doesn't feel like adding a new album, but rather an additional storage space.

 

PD20M External Solid State Drive PC Performance Testing

Tested on Intel Core Ultra 9 285K test platform, motherboard ASRock Z890 Taichi OCF with PD20M 2TB installed on USB 20 Gbps Type-C (USB 3.2 Gen2 x2) slot at the rear of the motherboard, performance may vary depending on SSD firmware version, system hardware configuration and other factors. The test performance may vary depending on the firmware version of the SSD, system hardware configuration, and other factors, so the results here are for reference only.

Testing Platform

Processor:Intel Core Ultra 9 285K (Power Delivery Profile_ASRock Extreme Mode)
Cooler: Valkyrie E360 (full speed)
Water-cooled fan: LIAN LI UNI FAN P28 (full speed)
Motherboard:ASRock Z890 Taichi OCF ( BIOS version: 2.20.OC03)
Memory:G.SKILL Trident Z5 CK DDR5-8800 CL42-55-55-140 1.45V 48GB (2x24GB)
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition 8GB
Operating System: Windows 11 Professional 24H2
System Drive: Plextor PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 2280 SSD 512GB
Game Dish:XPG GAMMIX S70 PRO PCIe Gen4 x4 M.2 SSD 4TB
Power supply:FSP Hydro PTM PRO ATX3.0 (PCIe5.0) 1200W
Case: STREACOM BC1 Benchtable V2
Graphics driver: GeForce Game Ready 561.09

 

First of all, the basic information of PD20M 2TB is viewed through CrystalDiskInfo software. Supported features include S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology), TRIM, Native Command Queuing (NCQ), and GPL, and the version of firmware tested by the author is: X0206AM0.

After ∆ formatting and conversion by Windows OS using binary units, 1.81 TB can actually be used, with decimal labeling on the package.

∆ CrystalDiskInfo software view information.

 

Use on an empty disk CrystalDiskMark The software was used to test the read/write performance of the PD20M 2TB. The test file size was set to 1GiB in NVMe SSD configuration mode, and sequential read/write speeds of 2022 MB/s and 1802 MB/s were measured in the default profile.

The Q8T1 test result in the first column represents a thread with eight queue depths, which means that there are eight 1MB-sized accesses in the worklist waiting to be accessed. This corresponds to a real situation, such as reading or writing eight 1MB files from or to a hard disk at the same time, which is generally less likely to be done in general.

The random read/write results for the RND4K Q32T16 project are 190.84 MB/s and 229.96 MB/s. The RND4K Q32T16 project has a random read/write result.

The RND4K Q32T16 operates with 16 queue depths out of 32 threads, and the file types are random access 4 KB size files written or read into the SSD.

∆ CrystalDiskMark Settings:NVMe SSD / Profile:Default, Sequential Read/Write and Random Read/Write test scores.

 

Professional video multimedia file write and read performance testing using the AJA System Test To simulate the scenario test, the test is set to 1920×1080 HD-180i format 1GB file, the Codec Type is ProRes test, the final result is 1325 MB/s for writing and 1314 MB/s for reading in 1GB mode.

∆ AJA System Test 1GB.

 

PCMARK 10 Data Drive Benchmark (Data Drive Benchmark), is to store documents on the data disk as the main test object, but also can be used to test NAS, UFD and memory cards and other related types of storage devices, in this test, 339 JPEG files (a total of 2.37 GB) copied to the SSD, and then make a copy of these JPEG files, and finally 2.37 GB of JPEG files copied to another hard disk to complete the entire write-read-read three-step test, in this test, the bandwidth is read-write-read. In this test, 339 JPEG files (totaling 2.37 GB) were copied to the SSD, then copies of these JPEG files were made, and finally 2.37 GB of JPEG files were copied to another hard drive, completing the entire Write-Read-Write-Read three-step test, which resulted in a bandwidth of 157.49 MB/s, an average access time of 157 µs, and a final total test score of 1025 points.

∆ PCMARK 10 Data Drive Benchmark.

 

Finally, AIDA64 was used to conduct the Read Test Suite and Linear Write tests. The Read Test Suite mainly uses linear read, random read, and buffer read to test the read performance of the hard disk through these three read methods.

In AIDA64's Linear Write test, users can observe the read/write stability by writing large files with MAX capacity of the hard disk. In the test, after exhausting the cache space at about 3 %, the write speed keeps dropping to about 660.4 MB/s until the end of the test, and the overall write speed averages at 682.2 MB/s. In other words, unless the user writes more than 55GB of files at one time, the user can enjoy the high-speed performance of about 1633.3 MB/s for continuous writing.

∆ AIDA64 Read Test Suite reads the performance combination test.

∆ AIDA64 Linear Write.

 

Conclusion

What surprised me the most about the PD20M was its weight and thinness. The actual weight of the PD20M in my hand is much lighter than it looks, and its 8.2 mm thickness is not too thick to hold with a cell phone, so it doesn't feel like you can't get a grip on it.

When used with Apple's cell phone, the magnetic attachment function is also very stable, but I have seen similar magnetic external SSDs on other competitors, in addition to the magnetic function of the body, they are also included in the package with a sticker type of magnetic ring, so that cell phones or cell phone cases do not have a magnetic function of the user can also be affixed to the magnetic ring to use, it is recommended that the TenTrumps can also consider this approach.

From the actual performance test, this external SSD is designed to be a light-use backup device for cell phones, so there is still a gap between its performance and that of NVME SSDs, especially the AIDA64 Linear Write, which writes large-capacity files at one time. The PD20M is better suited for transferring and storing data such as photos or videos.