The Transcend TS32GSSD25S-M obviously fails as a replacement for a laptop hard drive. With less than half the average read times of a traditional SATA hard disk and a claimed random write speed less than a tenth of that even, it's no wonder that Transcend recommends the SLC version of its drives for OS installations. The performance of the TS32G could be compared to that of a typical USB flash drive, and indeed likely uses the same chips inside its black plastic casing. There is no write cache buffer on this drive, something that all standard hard drives have, and NCQ is not supported either, although in this case I'm not sure if adding these features would even help.

However in a strictly data storage capacity, especially when portability is important, the TS32G might actually be preferable to a standard hard disk. Its much reduced weight, high durability and lack of heat or noise generation make it an ideal candidate for a small, external drive enclosure. With a USB interface the slow access speed becomes much less of an issue, since even 2.0 transfer rates rarely get much above the Transcend's average read speed anyway.

Although the TS32G-M is one of the cheapest 32GB SSD drives I've seen yet, selling for under $150 at Geeks.com, it's still relatively high in terms of price per gigabyte vs. a traditional hard disk. But when compared to other SSDs of the faster SLC type, which can easily cost twice as much or more, the Transcend TS32GSSD25-M seems like a bargain. Undoubtedly prices on SSDs will continue to decline as chip capacity and costs improve, however it will likely be some time before they surpass regular mechanical hard drives. Ultimately it's up to the end user to decide whether the benefits of SSD outweigh the (for now) extra expense, but if you're looking to fill an external USB drive and portability is of utmost importance, the Transcend TS32GSSD25-M would make an ideal candidate.

OCIA.net has awarded our Seal of Approval to the Transcend TS32GSSD25-M for data storage, we don't however recommend you try to use it in your laptop.