SK Hynix T31 Tube Lies of P Edition Review
Today at 04:03 AM
The SK Hynix T31 Tube is a portable SSD drive that is fit in a thumbstick. It’s considered one of the best in its category. With an advertised max transfer speed of 1000MB/s when used on a USB 3.2 interface, it’s easy to see why. Recently, SK Hynix reached out to us to review the new SK Hynix T31 Tube Lies of P Edition, coming off a collaboration with Neowiz, and we’re here to confirm the hype: it’s a great SSD.
Just like Pinnochio in the eponymous game, the SK Hynix T31 Tube is a versatile storage device that packs quite a punch. From what we can tell through our experiments, this version of the T31 Tube works just as well as the regular device. The only difference is this special edition version comes with design printed on the surface of the flash drive, depicting Pinnochio’s mechanical arms.
The package we received came with two 1 TB T31 Tubes and a sticker pack filled with Lies of P decals that are perfect for folios or on your laptop’s surface. Personally, I used it to decorate the inside covers of my TCG binders, but you can probably find more fun ways to use the stickers inside. It depicts various members of the Stalkers in the game, along with some cool logos and graffiti.
As one of our favorite games of 2023, this was a treat for us to review.
As for the storage devices themselves, they work as advertised. Limited by our own hardware, on our laptop with a 3.1 USB port, the 3.2 flash drives were able to transfer at a maximum of 500 MB/s. When transferring between two T31 Tubes on the same device on a 3.1 USB port, we reach 300 MB/s but sometimes it spikes up to 500 MB/s.
Not shown in the video above was a separate test we did on a computer with a 3.2 USB port, and we reached around 800 MB/s transfer speeds and about 600 MB/s transfer speeds between two T31 Tubes.
While not reaching the full 1,000 MB/s as promised, 800 MB/s is still strong showing, as the T31 Tube devices consistently transferred files at that speed, barely dipping at any point of the transfer.
Can you treat the T31 Tube like an SSD Hard Drive?
We also experimented with using the T31 Tubes as if they were SSD hard drives. The test involved two things:
- Using the T31 Tubes as the storage device for video editing software and directly writing on it while rendering,
- Using the T31 Tubes to extend a PS5’s storage.
While I initially used both T31 Tubes for storage (they came with great timing as I needed a new storage solution for my videos), I eventually decided to use one as permanent storage for my content creation and the other as an extension of my PS5 storage. The additional 1 TB boost to my PS5 is very much welcome.
Performance in video editing
In terms of performance, I am happy to report that using the T31 Tube for video editing feels the same as if I were using a similar external SSD. Of course, nothing beats having an M.2 SSD installed on your device, but this is actually a quick and easy solution if you need a quick boost for your setup.
I tested using the T31 Tube as the storage device from which I dumped my raw video files and directly imported them into Capcut. I also directly exported and rendered unto the T31 Tube. Despite Capcut warning me that it’ll take longer for me to render a video this way, I still pushed through, in the name of science.
Now, I wouldn’t say that it was a great idea, but I’m happy to report that it was indeed possible to use the T31 Tube this way. I would still recommend using internal storage for both rendering and as an import source, but the T31 Tube is reliable enough if you need the extra space or if moving files around could be easier said than done.
In my most extreme experiment, I dumped eight hours’ worth of raw videos of my Plucky Squire gameplay into the SSD flash drive and then had the video editing device render directly into the flash drive. I don’t really have a good benchmark for this experiment, but it went on without a hitch, although it did take 12 hours for the render to finish.
For shorter videos, I imagine it wouldn’t be as grueling. But the important takeaway here is that the SSD flash drive SK Hynix has here is reliable enough for long-term operations and you can comfortably use them as you would any other SSD hard drives in the market.
Performance in expanding PS5 storage
As a straight-up storage device, the T31 Tube is perfect for your PS5, especially since it’s very portable. Transfer feeds are also amazingly fast, and I experienced this when I transferred all of my saved game footage from my console to this thumbstick.
Sadly, the T31 Tube doesn’t support SuperSpeed USB, and hence can’t be formatted as a USB extended storage device, which limits what this device can do. Still, as a thumbstick that you can use to quickly transfer your game footage from your console to your PC, this is a really nice stick.
What are the Downsides?
Well, packing in this much of a punch in such a small device is bound to have a couple of downsides.
First is its size. While it is indeed portable, when you put it in the same category as other flash drives, it is humongous. A lot of laptops nowadays are built to be compact as well, and you’d find a lot of USB storage devices following suit, built to be as small as possible. That means that while it is small for an external SSD, the T31 Tube is big for a thumbstick.
That also means that while you can easily plug and play the T31 Tube on any computer, it might end up blocking other ports beside it. For my Nitro V 15, I can’t fit two T31 Tubes on the same side which messes up with my usual setup. Two of these don’t even fit at the back of the PS5, and Sony already gave the PS5’s backside a lot of room.
This isn’t entirely a dealbreaker, but you will have to make space for the bulk if you’re planning to use this on a laptop. Besides, this is easily solvable by using USB extension hubs, but that will cost you a little bit of speed as well. Even external hard drives use cables with smaller USB heads nowadays to circumvent this issue, but alas, the T31 Tube can only get so small.
Next is that it doesn’t come in UBS-C. While there are still a lot of devices that use ye old regular USB hubs, USB-C is becoming more and more prominent in modern devices, and thus this puts a limit to what the T31 Tube can interface with. I’d love to have an SSD thumbstick that I can use with my Samsung S21 Ultra, for example, so that I could easily transfer my recordings from my phone to my PC.
Finally, putting in this much power in such a compact device also leads to some rather heated moments. I don’t have a way to check the temperature on this device, but it does get hot fast when you’re transferring files. Thankfully, it doesn’t heat up if it’s just slotted in and not being used, otherwise it would be a much bigger problem.
The SK Hynix T31 Tube Lies of P Edition usually comes with a 3-year warranty when purchased through NewEgg, where it sells for $249.99 (on sale right now for only $149.99). As a limited edition product, there are only 300 units of this available, so be sure to be as fast as this thumb stick if you want any chance of grabbing it before it runs out.
The post SK Hynix T31 Tube Lies of P Edition Review appeared first on ClutchPoints.
