TEKQ Rapide Thunderbolt 3 External SSD Review
by Ganesh T S on February 20, 2018 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
- SSDs
- DAS
- Thunderbolt 3
Miscellaneous Aspects and Concluding Remarks
The Thunderbolt 3 specifications indicate that the host port must be able to supply up to 15W for bus-powered devices connected to it. Since the TEKQ Rapide is a bus-powered device, it is given that its power consumption can't exceed 15W in order to be a certified Thunderbolt 3 device. It is still relevant to take a fine-grained look at the power consumption profile. Using the Plugable USBC-TKEY, the bus power consumption for the external SSD was tracked while the CrystalDiskMark workloads were processed. The workloads were set up with an interval time of 30s. The power consumption was tracked only for the exFAT version of the CrystalDiskMark workloads.
We find that the peak power consumption is slightly south of 7W. The SSD idles at around 2.5 W.
Support for TRIM is an important aspect - it ensures that performance consistency is maintained even after the SSD has been subject to long-term use. Since the Thunderbolt interface is transparent for all practical purposes, and the host OS sees a PCIe NVMe SSD, it comes down to the Phison E7 reference design supporting TRIM. We were able to successfully activate TRIM on the TEKQ Rapide.
The final aspect that we deal with in the review is the pricing. TEKQ sent over the following pricing table for the three variants.
| TEKQ Rapide Thunderbolt 3 External SSDs - Pricing | |||
| Capacity | Retail | Indiegogo | Amazon |
| 240 GB | $319 | $255 | $300 |
| 480 GB | $479 | $383 | $450 |
| 960 GB | $899 | $719 | $900 |
There are very few bus-powered Thunderbolt 3 external SSDs currently in the market, though a number of them have been announced recently. The only current alternative to the TEKQ Rapide in its price range is the OWC Envoy Pro EX / EX(VE). The 250GB variant of the OWC unit comes in at $280, which is much cheaper than the TEKQ Rapide. That said, the Envoy Pro EX tops out at 1800 MBps. The EX(VE) goes up to 2600 MBps, but carries a hefty price premium. The TEKQ does guarantee a M.2 SSD with MLC NAND flash. While OWC doesn't clarify that aspect for either of their Envoy Pro offerings, it appears likely that the EX uses TLC, while the EX(VE) uses MLC flash. Most of the upcoming Thunderbolt 3 external SSDs are going to be based on the Phison E8 reference design with 3D TLC. In this context, a MLC external SSD such as the TEKQ Rapide is bound to appeal better to a section of the market.
While taking up the review unit, I was expecting to wade through the usual beta-testing bugs (particularly given that TEKQ had not released any high-performance external storage devices before). I was pleasantly surprised that all our tests were processed without a hitch. The performance of the TEKQ Rapide is top-notch and meets the claimed numbers. Adding a user-friendly way to activate the hardware encryption capabilities of the internal SSD would be a nice feature to have, but, it is a minor nit-pick. Our main concern is the pricing (compared to the TLC-using competition in the market) and the availability of flash for TEKQ to ramp up volume and make the device more economical to address the mainstream market.
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repoman27 - Tuesday, February 20, 2018 - link
“The only current alternative to the TEKQ Rapide in its price range is the OWC Envoy Pro EX / EX(VE).”What about the Sonnet Fusion Thunderbolt 3? Only available in 1TB, but pretty comparable.
ganeshts - Tuesday, February 20, 2018 - link
Yes, I am aware of the Sonnet Fusion. However, it is definitely not a mainstream market product (as you can guess from the only available capacity point). I would say $300 is the sweet-spot for a high-end portable SSD that still caters to the mainstream market.Vidmo - Wednesday, February 21, 2018 - link
You can just ignore this Thunderbolt device in you use Windows Server, Intel does not allow Thunderbolt support on Windows Server: https://communities.intel.com/thread/113299timbotim - Thursday, February 22, 2018 - link
It would be really nice if there was a commercially available box for using NVMe SSDs (preferably in pairs) externally over PCIe 'cable', along with a PCIe adapter such that you could connect internal PCIe to an expansion slot bracket for the aforementioned PCIe 'cable'. I've had to create a piece of home-brew kit to do this but it's not pretty. All the pieces of the technology are COTS, I'm surprised someone like Startech hasn't done this.jabber - Thursday, February 22, 2018 - link
So...e-NVMe basically?jabber - Thursday, February 22, 2018 - link
If such a thing existed that is. We ended up with e-SATA so I guess other options will come along in time.GPUnut - Thursday, February 22, 2018 - link
Your 6 minute Thermal Test was interesting. I ran a 10 minute cycling sequential read/write using AJA System Test (16G test size, 4K frame size). The write speed of the Rapide dropped from 1200MB/s to 300MB/s at the 6 minute mark and never recovered. The Sonnet Fusion TB3 maintained a steady 1100MB/s during the full 10 minute test.ganeshts - Friday, February 23, 2018 - link
Interesting - but, have you considered that in 10 minutes - you have probably written more than the capacity of the drive itself ? The 6 minute test that I did accesses around 240 GB of data - equivalent to the capacity of the drive - anything more than that is not realistic.Btw, the drop in the write speed is probably not due to thermals, but, the nature of the Phison SSD itself. I am willing to bet that if we use the same SSD inside as the Sonnet Fusion, the perf will be similar.
GPUnut - Saturday, February 24, 2018 - link
I was testing the 512G version. You are correct about the Phison. I replaced it with a 512G Samsung SM951. No drop in write speed during 10m test.s.yu - Sunday, March 4, 2018 - link
I wonder where I'd get a single slot 3.5" enclosure with support for up to at least 12TB, right now it's hard to expand the storage of my laptop setup as my old case only supports 4TB.