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Overall, the PSZ-HB2T performs exactly as one would expect and want from a portable 2TB drive. I use a Mac for work and I have a Windows machine at home for gaming. I do a lot of switching between the two and I always have different flash drives and what not to work on. But, with the Sony PSZ-HB2T, it is nice to be able to have two different connections built in. With the Sony hard drive, I was able to easily switch between USB and Thunderbolt, depending on what I want to use, and it's simple.
Performance
Sony claims that the PSZ-HB2T can, on USB 3.0, can hit transfer speeds of 122mb/s.
Doing a Read/Write test using ATTO Disk Benchmark did confirm that this statement is true. And, I tested it on two Windows computers and a Macbook Pro using an application called Blackmagicdesign Disk Speed Test (free on the App Store).
The results are as follows:
- ATTO Disk Benchmark: 122 mb/s Read and 130 mb/s Write on Windows.
- Blackmagicdesign Disk Speed Test: 124 mb/s Read and 125.3 mb/s Write on Mac OS X.
Well done, Sony. Not only did the disk meet Sony's advertised speed, it actually performed better on Mac OS, which is pretty impressive.
I spent the week using the Sony PSZ-HB2T and I was very happy with its performance. The silicon casing is a bit annoying if you are a daily traveler looking for something to use to go to and from work. But, since the silicon casing is removable, it is a temporary annoyance at worst.
Since the PSZ-HB2T comes formatted in exFAT, it provides an easy way to swap between Windows and Mac OS X Operating systems as both OSes can read and write to an exFAT formatted disk. The switchover was easy and intuitive without any additional steps needed on my end.
