Tested: PNY’s featherweight 2,000MB/s Mac-ready portable SSD is much more robust and affordable than it should be

After we saw major price hikes across the portable SSD space in 2024, and finding myself in need of at least one more modestly-sized external storage solution, the PNY RP60 kept coming back up for a few reasons. But the most glaring details that had me leaning in its direction was the fact that it was a relatively new option from a relatively affordable storage brand – the RP60 is indeed one of the least pricey 1TB portable SSDs rated for speeds up to 2,000MB/s right now from a trusted brand. Head below for our hands-on impressions.  

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Hands-on with the PNY RP60 Portable SSD

The PNY RP60 Portable SSD comes in 1TB and 2TB capacities in a black colorway and currently fetches $79.99 and $134.99, respectively.

Features at a glance:

• 1TB and 2TB capacities
• USB 3.2 Gen2
• Rated at up to Up to 2000MB/s
• IP65 rated for water and dust
• Ultra-light build
• Onboard clip loop
• 3-Year limited warranty

gadgetnewsonline’ Take

Let’s dive in. 

Price aside for a moment, and the fact that most typical machines most folks are using aren’t going to be able to hit the full 2,000MB/s anyway, let’s take a look at the build first. 

One of the staple marketing strategies most storage brands take when it comes to portable SSDs is how rugged and built to last they are – PNY very much did the same thing with its RP60. It is IP65-rated for water- and dust-resistance and can withstand drops of up to 3-meters, according to PNY. 

But unlike much of the competition I have reviewed previously, that very much seem rugged and robust the second you remove them from the box, the PNY RP60 does not – but this might not be a bad thing. 

It is very light. I mean insanely light. It almost feels empty, like someone is playing a trick on me and just sent me an empty portable SSD case that was never intended to actually work. it’s hard to even compare it to anything – it’s roughly the same weight as my key ring that has two keys on it. 

That said, it very much does work and well – it has been entirely reliable with regular backups over the last couple months, from quick batches of documents to sizable multi-GB transfers of audio assets and things of that nature. 

But how rugged is it? Well, I’m not going to submerge it in water or anything, but I did let it sit in a very small puddle of water on the countertop for a few minutes and it still works just fine. 

But let’s test that 3-meter drop claim shall we (no, I’m not going to let it bonk the concrete but I will let hit the hardwood floors and my area rug from as high in the air as I can reach and it still worked after three drops in a row. Nice. 

Overall the build quality, other than its weight class, seems well, okay. I don’t love the look of it – this sort of cross hatching on the front of the slightly soft, rubber-like exterior isn’t particularly appealing to me. It’s just fine. 

The logo is relatively subtle, despite still being too large and in my face, and the corner cutout is nice touch if you’re the type to string your drive on something (I’m not), and I do appreciate the small port cover that helps to seal up the bottom-mounted USB-C port – it is a littler cumbersome to get back in place once completely removed, but you don’t have to totally take it off to access the port, and it does go back in with some mild, finicky effort. 

All-in-all, not great, but not bad at all, and for me, it’s really all about reliability, and that it has entirely been. 

The only real gripe I have with the actual build here is the one of the same things I have had with other brands in the past – this thing is soft and rubbery and a bit of a dust magnet. As you can likely tell to some degree in my pictures throughout this post, the outer material used can attract dust quite easily and it can be somewhat difficult to get it off if you leave it for too long. There have been worse offenders from other brands in this space in the past (Samsung T7 Shield, I’m looking at you), but it is a thing worth mentioning. Even when it looks clean to the naked eye, which to be honest is good enough for me, it’s not really. At least there’s a dust cover on the port here?

Now let’s talk speeds. As I have said it has been entirely reliable with no fails of any kind and I have been relatively pleased with the speeds. It’s not going to hit the full rated 2,000MB/s on my Mac mini with a high quality Thunderbolt cable, nor is it going to be as fast as the pricey OWC portable SSDs I have tested out, but it does beat out some of the models I have here from other brands.

Here’s a look at the Black Magic speed test if that means anything to you:

A, perhaps, more real-world and useful test might be the just over 33 seconds it took to move 719MB from my internal Mac mini drive. Sure some folks will be doing larger backups than that, but as far s areal world, day-to-day dumps of project files and documents, that’s more than fast enough for me.

In the end, it’s really all about the price. It’s not the fastest, it’s not the prettiest, and it’s certainly not the most robust-feeling model out there. But it very much gets the job done at a pace more than fast enough for me and does it at a relatively affordable price tag by comparison to other models with these sorts of specs.

Buy the PNY RP60 Portable SSD

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