These days most people who need to shift around files that are too big for DropBox will use USB flash drives, but even USB 3 flash drives top out at just over 200MB/s read speeds, with writes coming in a little lower. For professionals, who might work with huge datasets, massive project files or simply things that are too confidential for cloud storage there’s a definite need for external storage that’s both fast and robust. If you’ve ever dropped an external mechanical drive you know the results are hardly ever pretty.
Samsung seems to have come up with a pretty neat solution: An external USB 3 SSD that’s really, really fast. The Portable SSD T1 comes in three sizes: 1TB, 512GB and 256 GB.
In terms of speed, sequential reads and writes can hit up to 450 MB/s over USB 3. Obviously random reads and writes are going to be slower, but portable storage is exactly the scenario where sequential performance matters most.
Furthermore, the T1 supports 256-bit AES encryption with password protection, making it a good choice for confidentiality.
The 1TB version is prices at about $570, which seems like a lot, but if you tried to buy a 1TB USB 3 flash drive today it would run you almost $890 and still be slower.
The drive is bigger than a flash drive, but smaller than a 1TB mechanical drive, in fact it’s eminently pocketable.
If speed is more important than size you can pick up the 512GB and 256 GB versions for $300 and $175 respectively.
For the mainstream users the Samsung T1 might be a bit niche and not really make all that sense when looking at much cheaper solutions only in terms of capacity, but for professionals for whom time is money we think the T1 makes perfect sense.
