Plugable Thunderbolt 3 drive offers 480GB of NVMe SSD external storage with fast data transfer rates

Dock and accessory producer Plugable introduced the Thunderbolt 3 480GB NVMe Solid State Drive at CES, an external storage device that takes advantage of the high bandwidth of Thunderbolt 3 connections to offer fast transfers in a highly portable form factor.

Plugable's Thunderbolt 3 drive uses NVMe to allow for a direct interface with PCI3 controllers without an intermediary chipset, instead of relying on usual connectivity methods that are limited by a SATA III interface. With this change, it is claimed that the drive is capable of being five times faster than a SATA III equivalent connected over USB 3.1 Gen 2.

The drive is capable of sequential speeds of more than 2,400 megabytes per second for reading, and over 1,200 megabytes per second for writing. Actual transfer speeds will ultimately depend on the host system it is connected to, as well as the workload, and however much of the 40 gigabit per second bandwidth of Thunderbolt 3 itself is used by other devices when daisy chained.

This high transfer speed is said by the manufacturer to be ideal for those requiring a "no-compromise performance solution" that demands "maximum disk performance." Example use cases include fast backups, as well as accessing and storing the large files used in video editing projects.

Produced in an aluminum casing with a single integrated Thunderbolt 3 cable, the drive does not require an additional power source, using the same Thunderbolt 3 connection for both power and data transfers. The drive itself is compatible with Mac systems with a Thunderbolt 3 connection running macOS Sierra or later, as well as similarly-equipped PCs running Windows 7 or later.

The Plugable 480GB Thunderbolt 3 Drive is expected to ship in the first quarter of 2018, though pricing has yet to be revealed.

22 Comments

jd_in_sb 1599 comments · 14 Years

About 6 years ago

480 GB was a useful amount of storage 10 years ago. Way too small today, especially with Costco selling 4 TB external disk-based drives for $99.

Mike Wuerthele 6901 comments · 8 Years

jd_in_sb said:

480 GB was a useful amount of storage 10 years ago. Way too small today, especially with Costco selling 4 TB external disk-based drives for $99.

150MB/sec for the Costco drive is a bit slower than 1200MB/sec from this, though.

Different use cases. This obviously isn't intended as a media storage drive.

entropys 4302 comments · 13 Years

sflocal 6135 comments · 16 Years

I'm not a fan of the cable being integrated into the case. Eventually that cable will get shredded if used often.

Either way, the day of portable storage as fast as internal storage has finally arrived and that is an incredible thing. It's about time. Got to love TB3. I'm looking forward to future revisions of Thunderbolt like TB4 and TB5? It will be insane.

fastasleep 6451 comments · 14 Years

Mike Wuerthele said:

jd_in_sb said:

480 GB was a useful amount of storage 10 years ago. Way too small today, especially with Costco selling 4 TB external disk-based drives for $99.

150MB/sec for the Costco drive is a bit slower than 1200MB/sec from this, though.
Different use cases. This obviously isn't intended as a media storage drive.

Yep, and for those $99 SATA-based drives, a USB 3.1 gen 1 or 2 port is more than adequate — there's no need to blow the extra cash on a TB3 enclosure.