OWC Envoy Pro EX Thunderbolt 3

£260/$300 (1TB) www.owcdigital.com

With its removable rubberized bumper and bombproof build quality, it’s no surprise that the rock-solid Envoy Pro EX boasts military-grade MIL-STD810G drop protection. However, all this ruggedness does have a downside: bulk. At 14.5x7.4x2.3cm and 300g with the bumper in place, this drive is gargantuan next to its fellow competitors on test.

Crystaldiskmark gets things off to a good start with stunning peak sequential read/write speeds of 1440/726MB/S respectively. Real world file transfers will always be slower than a synthetic benchmark test, but we still recorded a hugely impressive 995MB/S peak read speed when shifting one massive video file, though this figure did drop as the transfer progressed, leaving the final averaged video read speed at a more modest – though still rapid – 645MB/S. An average 612MB/S read speed moving multiple image files is also superb, though write speeds take a significant performance hit, with an average 481MB/S when writing video and just 278MB/S when writing multiple images.

PROS Stunning read speeds; military-grade shock proofing; class-leading build quality

CONS Write speeds disappointingly average; huge and heavy