SAMSUNG PORTABLE SSD T3

For when data transfer speeds and serious capacity are paramount

For those who really need a portable drive with very fast transfer speeds PLUS easy portability, portable SSDs are a good option. Samsung’s T3 is the class-leading option here. Its attractive tapered slab shape looks fantastic and is nice to hold in your hand. The case is sturdy metal and Samsung claims it can survive up to a 2m drop.

The big technical advances since Samsung’s original T1 are the inclusion of USB Type 3 port as standard, its use of stacked 3D V-NAND to improve capacity while keeping costs reasonable, and the use of xFAT formatting to enable compatibility with PC, Mac and Android without the need to create OS-dependant partitions or make compromises with formatting.

Our testing yielded speeds of 435MB/s read, and 418MB/s write, exactly within expectations. That was via USB 3.1. The results were more or less identical on a USB3.0 port. It is also backwards compatible to USB2.0, albeit at lower transfer speeds – being a limitation of the old USB2.0 standard. While the device itself uses the new Type C port, the included cable is Type C at one end and USB 3.1 ( the traditional-looking USB, so it’s backwards- compatible with 3.0/ 2.0 etc) on the other to attach to devices/ PCs. We’re seeing more and more devices and motherboards using Type C – including many new smartphones which rely solely on Type C. The drive comes with an app that enables AES 256-bit hardware encryption. Once set up, the T3 Security Enabler prevents access without a password and that holds true whether you connect the drive via Windows, Mac or Android. Capacities available are 2TB, 1TB, 500GB and 250GB. Owning something like this is a delight. It makes things quicker and easier if you do a lot of file moving, and it’s not a completely ridiculous point to make that there’s a certain prestige cachet that comes from having such a premium portable storage solution that people will notice.