Today I have an extremely interesting, serious and very necessary thing on my review. I’m glad to introduce you a compact, protected and incredibly attractive external SSD drive – ASUS TUF GAMING AS1000. To top it all off, the AS1000 is a unique product that has no competitors or peers, but more on that later. Pour some delicious coffee, make yourself comfortable, and have a nice introduction. Spoiler – AS1000 is not afraid of spilled coffee.
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Market positioning
ASUS TUF GAMING AS1000 is, first of all, a high-speed 1TB portable drive based on M.2 disk format using PCI Express protocol. There are plenty of such devices on the market. But most importantly, the AS1000 is also a protected device. Not just from dust and splashes, but seriously, with IP68 certification. And that’s not all. The drive complies with the military standard MIL-STD-810H, which guarantees its performance after drops. Such gadgets on the market are much less. To be more precise, they simply do not exist. Even without taking into account the volume, the market for ruggedized drives is rather sparse.
The only competitor is ROG Strix Arion S500, also made by ASUS. In general, ASUS TUF GAMING AS1000 is absolutely original and its price of $120 can’t speak about anything. There is simply no one to compare it with. Although even non-protected portable SSDs are found with a higher price.
ASUS TUF GAMING AS1000 specifications
- Capacity: 1 TB
- Connector: USB Type-C
- User Interface: USB 3.2 Gen 2
- Drive Interface: PCI Express
- Memory Type: 3D TLC NAND
- Write Speed: 1000 MB/s
- Read Speed: 1050 MB/s
- Power consumption: 6 W
- Operating temperature: 0-70°C
- Dimensions: 125×54×13 mm
- Weight: 157 g
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Package contents
Of course, portable drives are sold as is, without any documentation or accessories. A drive sealed in a plastic holder is a common thing. ASUS pleasantly surprised us by organizing a real package with different goodies for AS1000. At least, the box itself with the image of the device and its specifications looks attractive. That means that both you and I are waiting for a real unpacking, which is both pleasing and intriguing.
A storage device, a cable and a brief instruction manual – that’s the whole kit. But this is more than enough. What matters here is not the filling, but the message and care for the consumer. When you see the accessories carefully placed in their places in the box, you realize that you are dealing with something of high quality.
Did you also think that I’m praising ASUS TUF GAMING AS1000 too much? Not true, for example, I didn’t like the cable at all. It’s short, about 30 cm, stiff, in a simple plastic braid. It doesn’t inspire confidence. There is no clip or clamp to fix it in the coiled position. And this is important, the disk is portable. You will have to bend and unbend the cable often. I’m just afraid it won’t last long.
It’s worth noting that the drive itself comes with some serious software, but I’ll talk about that later.
Appearance
ASUS TUF GAMING AS1000 looks amazing. The brutal design is backed up by a heavy metal case, and the device has an air of reliability. Of course, for everyday office work AS1000 is a bit heavy, but such a reserve of strength is a necessity for compliance with MIL-STD-810H standard. I think that not only will the drive remain unharmed after drops, you can bulldoze it and nothing will happen to it.
Dust and water are no problem either. The AS1000 case is not made of two halves like most similar devices. It is one piece, with no gaps or slots. Only the back cover can be removed to replace the drive itself. However, it is securely tightened with screws and contacts the main body through a rubber gasket. But the USB connector is without a cap. In my opinion, it’s an oversight. USB Type-C is a rather delicate port. If dirt gets into it, it will be problematic to clean it without breaking the connector. You can rinse it with water, but then you need to dry the socket thoroughly to avoid oxide on the contacts.
I liked the massive lug, through which the disk can be hung on a karabiner or a handle. It will come in handy in the field. Also the shape of the drive allows you to hold it securely in your hand. Anti-slip ribs and thinning of the case in the center, everything is thought out to the smallest detail. But believe me, it’s far from small things. The drive is designed for hardcore use and it would be a shame to drown it somewhere in a swamp if it slips out of your hands.
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What is ASUS TUF GAMING AS1000
It seems clear – it’s a portable 1TB disk, what else is there to add? However, there is a nuance. ASUS does not produce SSD disks. I mean as an end device, sure, and the AS1000 is an example of that, but not M.2 drives directly. To put it bluntly, the AS1000 is a pocket for M.2 socket drives, the SSD itself is installed there from a third-party manufacturer. Which one is not specified anywhere, neither S.M.A.R.T. nor utilities display information about the used drive.
What’s my point? Well, in the event of a drive failure or any other case, it’s easy enough to replace it. All you need is a Hex #2 screwdriver and a few minutes of free time. Can you fit more than 1TB drives in your pocket? Most likely yes, but it’s not 100%, it all depends on the USB controller, information about which the manufacturer does not distribute.
However, this is for enthusiasts. Most likely ASUS won’t approve such interference and will cancel the warranty on the disk. By the way, it is for three years.
Scope of application
It’s time to talk about who needs a portable drive like this. It’s simple – anyone who cares about the information on the disk. Digging deeper, there are a number of use cases for the ASUS TUF GAMING AS1000, mostly dictated by its exterior design.
People who work in aggressive environments are sure to appreciate the AS1000. For example, a production engineer who has a software package for setting up and maintaining a machine tool fleet. The small and rugged AS1000 is always in his pocket, ready to help. Dirty hands, dust and soot in the air, accidental drops – these are all realities of the work of highly specialized specialists. But the accumulator does not care about all this. It is washed under a stream of water and is as good as new again.
Whether you’re a mountaineer, geologist or just an amateur naturalist. ASUS TUF GAMING AS1000 has something for everyone. Whether you’re saving photos from your camera or downloading maps, you’ll always have a disk at your fingertips. High humidity, low temperatures and constant shaking while traveling are just normal conditions for the AS1000.
Or maybe a cameraman who needs to transfer material off camera as quickly as possible so as not to miss a moment. There’s no time for foreplay in this job. All that matters is data transfer speeds and a good portable storage enclosure. The ASUS TUF GAMING AS1000 will come in handy in this area too.
Lastly, I’d like to mention one more area of use for the AS1000 – gaming. Surprised? Well, the “TUF GAMING” prefix hinted at it from the very beginning. Why play games from an external SSD? Well, first of all, the main PC disk may run out of space, and an additional terabyte will come in handy. Secondly, ASUS TUF GAMING AS1000 is widely compatible with different platforms. Windows, Mac OS, Chrome OS, Linux, Android and most importantly, PlayStation and Xbox! Get the idea? PS5 games can be stored on the AS1000! There will be no FPS sags and drops, 10 Gbps speed is enough for any game.
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Proprietary software
It’s time to talk about the software that ASUS has packed with the TUF GAMING AS1000.
TUF SSD Dashboard
A simple utility to display all necessary SSD parameters. You can view the temperature or run time of the drive. Alarm log and other diagnostic parameters of the drive are available. The “Secure Erase” menu allows you to delete all information from the device with a single button. TUF SSD Dashboard is simply a dashboard for monitoring the performance of both ASUS TUF GAMING AS1000 and third-party drives.
NTI Backup Now EZ 7
NTI Backup Now EZ 7 is a powerful tool for working with file backups. Imagine that your data has been corrupted by viruses, or you yourself have accidentally deleted important information from the disk. An unfortunate and sometimes critical situation. NTI Backup Now EZ 7 utility is capable of restoring deleted data from a backup. The program is able to back up files both from PC to external drive and vice versa, depending on your requirements. There is even cloud storage where the data you need can be stored. The application is not free, and costs $36, but not for ASUS TUF GAMING AS1000 owners. There will be a license key waiting for you in the package.
ASUS TUF GAMING AS1000 Testing
Capacity
As a rule, the manufacturer believes that there are 1000000000 bytes in 1 GB. These are evil tricks of marketers for beautiful numbers on the package. Fortunately, there is a simple formula that allows you to translate the commercial volume of the drive into a real and understandable for the user – (1000000000 / 1024 / 1024). It turns out that 1 marketing gigabyte equals 954 real megabytes. So the real capacity of the ASUS TUF GAMING AS1000 was 954 GB. Keep this in mind if the additional 46 GB is crucial for you.
Performance
Now for the most interesting part – the drive speed tests. 1050 MB/s read and 1000 MB/s write are serious values, good thing that the speed of USB 3.2 Gen 2 port will not limit them. I found such a connector on my motherboard, so I will connect ASUS TUF GAMING AS1000 to it.
I will start testing with CrystalDiskMark benchmark, which emulates operations of writing and reading files to disk.
Please pay attention to the Q8T1 parameter, it indicates the linear read and write speeds of the drive. This is exactly what the manufacturer claims. As you can see, the AS1000 fully complies with the promised characteristics!
But this test is just a synthetic one, it won’t show the real diagram of speeds taking into account the clipboard, linearity and stability of memory cells. But the professional utility Victoria will be able to show everything. I’ll start with testing SSD for read speed.
As we can see, the real situation is much worse. The average read speed amounted to 570 MB/s, which is almost twice less than the declared one. I’m glad that the diagram is stable throughout the entire SSD volume, without obvious sags, which speaks about the quality of memory elements. I realize that 570 MB/s is a very decent figure, but it’s not even close to 1050 MB/s.
The average write speed on the drive was 580 MB/s, which is also much less than the speed stated by the manufacturer. However, the diagram is stable and you won’t notice any noticeable speed drops while working with the drive.
Temperatures
It will be interesting to check the operating temperatures of the disk under load. After all, ASUS TUF GAMING AS1000 has a massive metal case, which should provide serious cooling.
So, after 30 minutes in the stress test, the AS1000 heated up to only +32°C, which is simply an excellent result. And that’s considering the room temperature of +20°C. There is definitely no need to worry about the AS1000 overheating. This means that the drive will last for years to come without damaging the memory cells.
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Conclusions
ASUS TUF GAMING AS1000 is a great and versatile portable SSD. High-quality and unbreakable, yet compact and stylish. Good, useful software in the package, attention to details and excellent build quality are the direct care of the consumer. And there are so many different uses for the drive that you can’t count. And everywhere it will show itself well, and will always come in handy. An armored little helper for all your tasks, in a sleek black case.
What I liked:
- Design
- Cooling
- Software
- Equipment
- Versatility
- Security
What didn’t like:
- Performance
- Open USB Type-C connector
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