Samsung 1TB T5 Portable Solid-State Drive (Black)

Samsung's Portable SSD T5 drive has a speedy USB-C interface, plenty of reliable storage, and it takes up about as much room in your pocket as a short stack of credit cards.

• +

  Excellent performance. Includes USB 3.0 and USB-C cables. Compact. Android-, Mac-, and Windows-compatible.

• -

  While a comparable good per-gigabyte value, the drive itself is expensive.

Samsung's new Portable SSD T5 is the same great product released last year with a slight improvement in technology. The lower capacity models come in the Alluring Blue color that we love and are affordable for nearly everyone.

• +

  Attractive design, USB 3.1 Gen 2 support, USB Type-C connector, Full hardware-based encryption, Excellent price point ($199.99), Attractive design, USB 3.1 Gen 2 support, USB Type-C connector, Full hardware-based encryption

• -

  A little buggy at release, Small performance increase over existing products, A little buggy at release, Small performance increase over existing products, Very expensive ($799.99)

If you can afford a pocket SSD as opposed to a pocket hard drive, and especially if your PC has a USB 3.1 Gen 2 port—it's not Samsung's fault, but we tried the T5 with a slow USB 2.0 port and the results were not pretty—we don't know of a better external storage solution.

• +

  Couldn't be more portable, Fast performance, Handsome design, Comes with USB-C and USB-A cables

• -

  Expensive, No utility software except for password lock

Performance Summary : The Samsung Portable SSD T5 offered strong performance throughout the vast majority of our testing. For all intents and purposes, when attached to a USB 3.1 (preferably gen 2) controller, it is as fast as a typical internal SATA SSD.

Final ThoughtsWhen it comes to portable solid state drives there really is not much you can change, but I think that Samsung made the right changes to for the T5 to make it current and one of the fastest portable drives you can buy.

• +

  – Superfast transfer speeds, – Small and very portable, – TypeC to C and TypeC to A cables included, – Software allows for password protection

• -

  – None that I found

Tiny and outrageously fast, the Samsung T5 Portable SSD is the ultimate portable hard drive -- albeit with a price tag to match. It's about the same size and weight as a stack of 10 credit cards, so you'll barely feel it in your pocket.

• +

  Tiny, Outrageously fast, Rugged aluminum body, Three-year warranty

• -

  Very expensive per GB

The Samsung T5 vastly improves on its predecessor as this ultra-portable SSD boasts best-of-class performance and design.

• +

  Great overall performance, Durable, modern and slim design, Easy-to-use software

• -

  No increase in maximum capacity

While testing this unit, you'd almost forget that it is a USB flash storage device :) And for USB 3.1 it is fast, but perhaps could have been faster? I mean this is USB 3.1 Gen 2, we've seen USB 3.0 and 3.1 Gen 1 at this performance level for two years now.

The T5 is an updated version of their portable line and the first to use Samsung’s 64-layer V-NAND technology. By using the most up-to-date advances in storage density and USB protocols, Samsung has produced a high speed, portable SSD that’s very compact and versatile.

I noticed the smaller transfer sizes were lacking on the ThreadRipper platform, which appears to be a processor/memory related latency issue I'll dig into the external storage performance on the newer AMD platforms soon, but that's another article :).

Large blueprints have always been a pain in my industry - not anymore! With 2TB of storage, I am not even worried this will run out of space and it's durable too - which is what I need.

Received it last night. Had a quick test. It is considerably faster than normal portable drive. It is small, light weight, beautifully designed, perfect as a backup drive for traveling. The USB-C to USB-C cable works nicely.

So far so good. Fast, small, lot's of space and mounts quickly on my Macs. Very happy so far. The only thing is that it's not cheap ! But for me it's worth it.

Really fast! What I like the most is the two types of connection, usb and thunderbolt

I have to use the great tech service to set up device so it can be used for Windows and Mac at different times . Great tech service . It would be nice to have written directions that came with the unit that clearly explained the setting of the device so that both windows and Mac can use it .

1TB ssdis fast, reliable, and light weight. Easy to pack with your MacBook Pro when shooting on site. Allows you to store and edit your photo images on the go.