ADATA SC735 is a rugged yet surprisingly lightweight portable SSD, which blurs many lines between this product class and consumer USB flash drives. The drive falls in the same category as the Seagate Ultra Compact SSD that we recently reviewed, offering performance more characteristic of SSDs than flash drives, yet in a significantly compacted form-factor, resembling flash drives from the 2000s. The drive features a USB 3.2 Gen 2 type-C interface, and is marketed by ADATA to saturate the interface, offering sequential transfer speeds of 1 GB/s. The drive comes in 1 TB and 2 TB variants; we have the latter with us.

There are two key design choices ADATA made differently from Seagate. First, the drive is monolithic, it doesn't come with a detachable cap or a silicone sleeve like the Ultra Compact SSD does; and second, it uses hard plastics, either HDPE or ABS, throughout the body. This gives the drive an exceptionally lower weight than the Seagate drive, tipping the scales at just under 14 g (compared to 24 g). The drive may be monolithic, but it doesn't lack moving parts. The USB-C connector is retractable. We've seen such mechanisms in hundreds of flash drive models before. You press and slide a lever, and the connector pops out.

ADATA achieves such low weight thanks to a very simple PCB that's based on a Silicon Motion SM2322G, a USB-native SSD controller with four NAND flash channels. The controller directly interfaces with USB, without any bridge chips in between. It also integrates a USB-PD controller. On paper, ADATA is claiming both its read and write sequential speeds to reach 1 GB/s, or the interface limits of 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2.

ADATA advertises the drive as being compatible with not just PCs, but also smartphones and tablets powered by iOS, iPadOS, and Android. It's also recommended for game consoles such as the PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.

The NAND flash pricing crisis has adversely affected prices and availability of all consumer storage product segments, and the SC735 is no exception. The 2 TB variant was launched around the $130-mark, but you'd be lucky to find this drive for $330 today. The company is backing the drive with a generous five-year product warranty.