Adata Urban TapSafe review: Clever security, disappointing speed

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Adata’s Urban TapSafe 20Gbps SSD is unique in that you can clip it to your belt, and once security is enabled you can unlock it using your phone’s NFC capabilities — both eminently handy traits in certain situations.

The downside is that it’s not a very good performer for 20Gbps with anything but small data sets. Think of it as more of a 15Gbps SSD (which don’t exist) and you won’t be disappointed.

Read on to learn more, then see our roundup of the best external drives for comparison.

What are the Adata Urban TapSafe’s features?

The Urban TapSafe is a smallish 2.70-inches long, by 1.42-inches wide, by 0.76-inch thick external USB SSD. It’s a 20Gbps USB 3.2×2 drive using a RealTek RM1220 controller and unspecified NAND. Performance will be roughly 2GBps, though 1GBps on anything other than USB 3.2×2 and some USB4 ports.

The Urban TapSafe offers three unique features, two of which I’ve already mentioned. First, it may be locked, then unlocked using Adata’s TapSafe app via your phone’s NFC (near-field communication) chip.

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It also has a rather large and beefy integrated clip mechanism on the back. IT types running around the office all day will appreciate this ability to keep the drive within easy reach.

Adata also includes a second magnetically attached top cover should you tire of the stock starry-charcoal cover. It’s pearlescent and I actually preferred it. I was expecting a tussle prying off and replacing the top plate, but while the plates are held securely in place, a minimum amount of force is required to pop them off.

Note that when the TapSafe is operating in secure mode, it returns to its locked state whenever you remove it from the USB port. You must unlock it with the app after you insert it into a port before it can be used again.

How easy is the Adata Urban TapSafe to use?

Setup for the Urban TapSafe was easy enough — once I found the Submit button that was scrolled off the bottom of the Add Drive screen in the iOS TapeSafe app. As noted, the drive locks itself whenever you disconnect it so if you use secure mode, you’ll also need your phone around.

Yes, I know, not a problem with most people in today’s world but biometrics might be handier.

You can kill the drive security with the reset command, but it will erase all the data on it. That would not be my choice, and it requires entering a rather long key. There’s also a user-definable password for the app.

How much does the Adata Urban TapSafe cost?

I surmised that the TapSafe would be a little more than average due to the NFC. However, that depends on what you consider average. It’s not as cheap as some no-name SSDs that you can buy on Amazon. But I consider my initial opinion wrong as at $229 for 1TB is actually a little less than other name brand 1TB SSDs without NFC. The 2TB TapSafe will set you back $412.

Yes, folks, even with AI data centers being cancelled left and right, SSDs remain far more expensive than they were less than a year ago. To be fair, margins were razor thin for vendors back then. They’re likely loathe to go back to the “good old days.”

How fast is the Adata Urban TapSafe?

The 1TB TapSafe that Adata sent me was fast with small data sets, but the results were rather odd to say the least. Read numbers varied wildly depending on how much data was involved. They never dipped below 1.1GBps, but they peaked at 1.9GBps. Normally, it’s only write numbers that suffer.

I test all drives with CrystalDiskMark 8’s 64GiB data, so to be fair to the other drives, those are the numbers shown in the charts below. But with the 4GiB and 8GiB data sets, which are actually more representative of daily use, the Urban TapSafe performed at the advertised 1.9GBps. Check the second image to see the difference, with the lower numbers kicking in with the 16GiB data set.

The difference in the Urban TapSafe’s read speed is very noticeable when you increase the data-set size in CrystalDiskMark, and again, those numbers in the 64GiB image actually are the same as soon as you hit 16GiB.

Normally, it’s write performance, which is highly dependent on caching, that varies. It certainly does with the TapSafe, but I can’t honestly remember if I’ve ever seen read performance vacillate, or if I have, when that last time might’ve been.

I rarely show ATTO results, but this image perfectly illustrates the TapSafe’s decrease in read speed as the amount of data increases.

The Urban TapSafe hardly aced CrystalDiskMark 8’s 4K tests either. But the slowdown isn’t quite as obvious.

The trend continued in our 48GB transfers, with the TapSafe barely squeaking into second place on only two of the eight tests.

The bad news continued in our 450GB write. Most users will never write a file this large; however, if you do, expect a drop in transfer rate to 150- to 200MBps. This occurred rather early at the 260GB mark due to our test unit having 1TB to play with. The 2TB unit will likely slow down at the 500GB mark.

That said, the PNY RP60 was also 1TB, though the Corsair EX400U had twice as much NAND to play with. Generally speaking, the more NAND there is, the more secondary cache can be allocated.

Secondary cache is writing the NAND as SLC — a much faster process with minimal error checking. Data is later rewritten in the native format as time permits, or additional writes dictate. In the TapSafe’s case, the NAND is likely QLC given the lower-than-200MBps write performance.

You can see the exact point where the TapSafe slowed to native speed in the capture below. The bump at the beginning is due to Windows caching.

Not to pile on, but formatting on one occasion took far longer than the normal 2 to 5 seconds, perhaps 30 to 45.

All told, the Urban TapSafe is not a particularly fast 20Gbps SSD for anything but the lightest of workloads. This might be reflected in the decently low pricing.

However, while not as fast as others, we’re still talking faster than 10Gbps SSDs. Except of course for super-long writes, which very few people ever perform.

Should you buy the Adata Urban TapSafe?

If you’re looking for security and clip-on convenience, the Urban TapSafe is a unique and handy solution. I can imagine IT guys who roam around the premises being fans. Performance isn’t optimal, but certainly acceptable. I mean, come on, SSDs are all pretty fast.

On the flip side, if you don’t need a clip or security, there are faster drives available for around the same price, and much cheaper 10Gbps SSDs that are as fast as most users need.

How we test

Our storage tests currently utilize Windows 11 (22H2) 64-bit running on a Z790 (PCIe 5.0) motherboard/i5-12400 CPU combo with two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 modules (64GB of memory total). Intel integrated graphics are used. The 48GB transfer tests utilize an ImDisk RAM disk taking up 58GB of the 64GB total memory. The 450GB file is transferred from a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB, which also contains the operating system.

Each test is performed on a newly formatted and TRIM’d drive so the results are optimal. Note that as any drive fills up, performance will decrease due to less NAND for secondary caching, and other factors.

The performance numbers shown apply only to the drive we were shipped as well as the capacity tested. SSD performance can vary by capacity due to more or fewer chips to read/write across and the amount of NAND available for secondary caching (writing TLC/QLC as SLC). Vendors also occasionally swap components. If you ever notice a large discrepancy between the performance you experience and that which we report (systems being roughly equal), by all means — let us know.