At a glance
Expert's Rating
Pros
- Good data transfer rate
- Quiet fan
Cons
- Data rate drops during long, sustained data transfers
- No operation without fan
Our Verdict
With its quiet fan and attractive metal casing, the TurboMetal Portable SSD looks great. It offers a good transfer rate, but you can find faster drives.
Price When Reviewed
This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined
Best Pricing Today
Best Prices Today: Verbatim Turbometal Portable SSD
The Verbatim TurboMetal SSD comes in the classic NVMe form factor with a length of around 106 millimeters. The beautifully rounded metal housing is 55 millimeters wide and only 18 millimeters thin. At 150 grams, it is not too heavy despite the metal housing, but it is no lightweight either.
As with many USB4 enclosures, Verbatim also relies on cooling with an active fan and cooling slots. The fan is temperature-controlled and starts automatically if the temperature gets too high.
Verbatim specifies a USB4 data transfer rate of 3600MBps for writing and 3700MBps for reading. However, we were not able to achieve this on an M3 MacBook Air; in our 4K test with Aja System Test Lite, it was 2664MBps for writing and 3123MBps for reading. Although these are not bad values, the best USB4 drives we have measured so far achieve slightly higher values for writing, but no higher values for reading. A check on the M4 Max Mac Studio showed much better values, with 2869MBps for writing and 3499MBps for reading.
In a 30-minute endurance test with the Backmagicdesign Disk Speed Test, the fan started up after ten minutes. The TurboMetal getting too warm was also noticeable after around nine minutes in the data transfer rate, which had dropped significantly to below 1000MBps. Shortly after starting the fan, the temperature of the SSD levelled off again, and the data transfer rate rose to its original value. The runs only when it has to.
During the endurance test, the data transfer rate dropped again and again for a short time, only to stabilise immediately. We measured the temperature with DriveDX at around 46 degrees Celsius after using the fan. Once the fan has started, it does not switch off.
The TurboMetal Portable SSD is available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities. A USB4 cable around 20 centimetres long is included. The drive comes formatted as FAT32, so Mac users will want to reformat the drive in APFS. The software supplied is only for Windows.
Should you buy the Verbatim TurboMetal SSD?
The TurboMetal SSD is a rather inconspicuous USB4 drive. The data transfer rates are fine for regular everyday use, but if you depend on speed, some SSDs perform better. The regular dips in the data transfer rate are evidence of a thermal protection mechanism, but in practice, this is unlikely to cause a problem with most applications
Best Prices Today: Verbatim Turbometal Portable SSD
This article originally appeared on our sister publication Macwelt and was translated and localized from German.
Author: Thomas Bergbold, Contributor
Thomas Bergbold is a freelancer for our German sister site Macwelt, for which he has written regularly since 2007. He has been an active Mac user since he came into contact with the Macintosh LC during his studies in the early 1990s. Through Performa and various Power Macintosh G3, G4 and G5, he remained loyal to the Macintosh as a media creator. The trained communications engineer has had a love for high-quality hi-fi devices and music reproduction since his school days. As a photographer and media professional in the creative industry, he relies on Apple products professionally and also enjoys passing on his knowledge in training courses.