For the 2nd episode of our MOBHouse Storage Wars, we’re reviewing the Sony 480GB G Series 2.5″ SATA SSD SV-GS48. The SV-GS48 is part of Sony’s G Series lineup of professional storage options.
PRICE
Sony prices the SV-GS48 at RM1,300 or USD283.89 to compete with premium 2.5″ SATA SSDs, such as the Samsung 850 Pro. It’s pretty good of a price point considering that Sony made this SSD specifically for recording 4K visuals.
WARRANTY
Sony provides a 10-year warranty as printed on the Sony G Series SV-GS48 box, which is similar to Samsung 850 Pro’s warranty period.
AESTHETICS
The Sony SV-GS48 has a simple packaging design with black and white gradient. The G Series symbol is marked in red, which symbolizes Sony’s Pro Series storage options.
The SSD itself has a black alloy finish, giving it a distinct professional look. Think Sony’s interior with Apple’s subtle finishing. So far, the G Series SATA SSD is only available in matte black.
Designed for external video recording, the SV-GS48 comes in a 2.5″ format. This means that the SSD can be stuck into a laptop or desktop with a SATA cable and a 15 pin power connector.
It can also link up with the Atomos Master Caddy II and Powered Docking Station via USB. Just make sure that your own enclosure supports USB 3.1 gen 1 or 2 (also known as USB 3.0) to avoid bottle-necking transfer speeds. Talk about being multi-functional.
BENCHMARKS
To kick things off, let’s look at synthetic benchmarks.
Surprisingly, the Sony SV-GS48 scored really well, which similar to most SSDs at this price point. What’s interesting here is how Crystal Diskmark shows faster read speeds while ATTO shows the exact opposite. We’ll have to check out the real-world benchmarks for more validation on these numbers.
Moving on to real-world benchmarks, we copied 114GB of 4K video footage onto and off the Sony SSD. The following results are remarkable!
While most SSDs can pull off similar read times, it’s less common to see such a low write time as they often have less consistent sequential write speeds.
When we tested the Sony SV-GS48 by transferring 6.66GB of random files in different sizes and formats onto and off the SSD, the results reveal its the consistency in write and read speeds.
In the final test, the SSD is used to render a 7 minute long 4K H.264 video. So far, this is the fastest time we’ve had. The SV-GS48 will do well for people who want to work off portable SSDs on the go.
VERDICT
We’re very impressed by Sony’s new lineup of fast performing SSDs. Needless to say, we’ll continue to use the Sony 480GB G Series 2.5″ SATA SSD SV-GS48 with our Atomos Shogun Inferno to record 4K at 25p and 50p in both Prores and RAW file formats. Of course, we will also use it to pass video files of inconspicuous nature around in our office.
