Samsung T7 Touch SSD 1TB
An impressive update for this SSD device
By adding biometrics, the T7 Touch raises the baseline for securing data on the move
£194 FROM Samsung, samsung.co.uk FEATURES 1TB, biometric fingerprint sensor, USB-C port (USB 3.2 Gen 2), AES 256-bit hardware encryption
Samsung’s T7 is available in two versions; a plain-vanilla model and one that packs a fingerprint reader and is known as the T7 Touch.
Three different capacities are available (500GB, 1TB, 2TB) and two colour schemes (black and silver). Both the T7 and T7 Touch come with a three-year limited warranty, Samsung’s Portable SSD Plus 1.0 software and AES 256-bit hardware encryption. The 1TB T7 Touch on test here costs £194.
The T7 Touch looks very similar to the old T5 but is a tiny bit bigger and heavier. The hardware needed for the biometric feature explains the 7g gain in weight.
Samsung has stuck with the solid aluminium unibody construction which fits snuggly in your hand. The LED square also lights up with a cool blue glow to keep you informed about what the SSD is doing. There’s a Type-C connector to which either of the two bundled cables can be connected.
Samsung has swapped the SATA-based SSD of the previous T5 for an NVMe SSD behind the USB 3.2 Gen 2 bridge to offer up to significantly better performance. It is likely that the T7 Touch uses sixth-generation 136-layer V-NAND as opposed to the T5’s 64-layer V-NAND.
Use and performance
The T7 Touch came formatted as exFAT with a usable capacity of 931GB. It had three files on it, one of which was the bundled Samsung Portable SSD Plus software needed to enable fingerprinting capabilities. Setting up the biometric feature is straightforward, as easy as doing it on a smartphone and so is adding password protection to the T7 Touch.
Note that the device needs to be connected at all times for the fingerprint reader to work, which could be a bit of an issue if you have to move the drive around.
Samsung claims that the drive can achieve read/write speeds of up to 1.05GBps, which it says is about twice what the T5 could reach. In real life, we measured 1032MBps and 924MBps in our benchmark tests, which are not that far from Samsung’s own readings.
It lacks an IP rating (although it is shock resistant) and doesn’t have any of the security certifications most of its more expensive rivals have, but the T7 Touch can’t be touched (pun intended) when it comes to the right balance between security, speed, portability and pricing. Indeed, what Samsung has done with the T7 Touch is raise the baseline for securing your data on the move by adding biometrics to password protection; expect others to follow suit swiftly both on external SSD and flash drives as well.
We’re slightly disappointed that Samsung didn’t provide a free trial for its own Samsung Cloud service (similar to what WD does), with a reminder that you should always backup their files, but this doesn’t distract from the fact that this is a speedy and safe external storage device that fully deserves a best-inclass award from MacFormat.
Bravo Samsung! DESIRE ATHOW