Pros & Cons
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- Extremely compact and lightweight
- Low cost per gigabyte
- Zippy sequential read and write speeds (and high PCMark 10 Storage score)
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- Capacity maxes out at 1TB
- Requires a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 port to hit peak speeds
- Lacks the attached port cover of ADATA's SE800
ADATA Elite SE880 External SSD Specs
| Bus Type | PCI Express 3.0 x4 |
| Capacity (Tested) | 1 |
| Interface (Computer Side) | USB-C |
| Internal or External | External |
| NAND Type | TLC |
| NVMe Support | |
| Rated Maximum Sequential Read | 2000 |
| Rated Maximum Sequential Write | 2000 |
| Warranty Length | 5 |
We found a lot to like about the ADATA Elite SE880 external solid-state drive (starts at $79.99 for 500GB; $129.99 for 1TB as tested). This tiny, featherweight portable SSD gives you the zippiness of the USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 interface at a moderate price, though you may need to upgrade your desktop to take full advantage of it. The SE880 did very well in our PCMark 10 Storage benchmark test, which measures a drive's speed in everyday tasks like program loading and file copying. If you don't need Gen 2x2 or aren't up for installing a new motherboard or expansion card to get support for it, the larger ADATA SE800, an Editors' Choice award winner from 2020, costs slightly less and adds a USB port cover that protects the innards from water, sand, and dust.
Built for a Port That's Seldom Seen
The SE880 measures 0.5 by 1.4 by 2.6 inches (HWD)—which essentially ties it in compactness with the Kingston XS2000 Portable SSD—and weighs just over an ounce. The drive is available in just one color, titanium gray. Its frame is made from a single, seamless wraparound piece of metal with black end caps.
At the center of one end is a USB Type-C port supporting USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 transfer speeds of up to 2,000MBps (both read and write). The drive comes with both USB-C-to-USB-A and USB-C-to-USB-C cables. As mentioned, the SE880 lacks the tethered, rubberized port cover of the SE800 and doesn't have an ingress protection (IP) rating indicating resistance to sand, dust, and water.
The problem with USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 is that it's a largely overlooked spec, standard equipment on only a handful of desktop PCs. The most common way to get support for it is to upgrade to a new motherboard or add an expansion card that offers one or more Gen 2x2 ports, such as the Orico card we added to our testbed for testing these drives.
With the forthcoming USB4 standard—capable of Thunderbolt 4 speeds (up to 40GBps) and with some similar characteristics to that interface—already making inroads, especially in high-end laptops, USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 has been superseded without ever gaining traction. You'll always be able to use Gen 2x2 devices with a desktop fitted with a compatible board or card, but on other machines they will revert to the speed of USB 3.2 Gen 2, which isn't too shabby but isn't what you paid for.
I own an ADATA SE800 drive (seen at right in the image below), which I've always considered small, but it seems huge when placed next to the SE880 (at left)...
At 13 cents per gigabyte for the 1TB model we tried, the Elite SE880 costs less than most of its USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 peers. The Kingston XS2000 lists for 16 cents per gig, though it's often on sale for 12 cents a gig or less. The SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD V2, a handsome, somewhat ruggedized drive, currently retails for 19 cents per gigabyte.
The SE880 is offered in 500GB and 1TB capacities. That's true of many Gen 2x2 drives such as the Lexar SL660 Blaze Game Portable SSD, though others like the Kingston XS2000 and SanDisk Extreme Pro V2 add a 2TB model.
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ADATA backs the SE880 with a five-year warranty, which is more or less standard among major external SSD manufacturers.
Testing the SE880: Good General Storage Chops
We test external SSDs using PC Labs' main Windows 10 storage testbed, a desktop built on an Asus Prime X299 Deluxe motherboard with an Intel Core i9-10980XE Extreme Edition CPU. The system has 16GB of DDR4 Corsair Dominator RAM clocked to 3,600MHz and an Nvidia GeForce discrete graphics card. We use its native 10GBps USB 3.2 Gen 2 port for testing compatible drives; for Gen 2x2 drives like the ADATA, we use a Gen 2x2 port added via an Orico PCIe expansion card.
We subjected the SE880 to our usual suite of external SSD benchmarks including 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 for a wide variety of everyday tasks. (See more about how we test SSDs.)
In Crystal DiskMark testing, the SE880's sequential read speed effectively matched its rating; its write speed was a bit off but still far quicker than any USB 3.2 Gen 2 SSD. The drive also did well in the PCMark 10 Storage test, taking the silver medal in our mostly Gen 2x2 comparison group. In the Mac-based BlackMagic speed test, which is run over a USB 3.2 Gen 2 connection, the SE880's read score was typical, while its write score was a touch on the low side.
We also ran the SE880 through our latest test, UL's 3DMark Storage Benchmark, which measures performance in a number of gaming-related tasks. We still have too few external SSD test results to include 3DMark Storage in our table, but the Elite SE880's score of 1,616 is the highest of the three external drives we've tested to date, even beating the gaming-centric Lexar SL660 Blaze's figure of 1,525.
A Tiny External Speedster
The ADATA Elite SE880 has much to recommend it: a featherweight, compact frame; zippy sequential write and (especially) read speeds when given the proper hardware; and a moderate price per gigabyte. It looks tiny compared with the Editors' Choice-winning ADATA SE800 and has nearly double the speed when used over a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 connection, as well as a longer warranty.
But again, it'll only reach those speeds when used with a computer with a Gen 2x2 port on its motherboard or an expansion card. Since PCs with native 2x2 support are rare, you'll have to either upgrade yours or settle for a USB 3.2 Gen 2 drive such as the ADATA SE800—which costs slightly less and has the ruggedization cred the SE880 lacks, making it a better choice if you expect to take it outside. But if you don't need a rugged SSD and have the hardware to fulfill its potential, the SE880 is a petite, modestly priced option.