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The Samsung T7 portable SSD (MU-PC2T0T/AM) is part of the company’s flagship portable SSD line. Though released a few years ago, it remains a favorite among professional creatives and anyone else who needs to leverage the efficiency of external redundancy backups coupled with the Cloud.
Samsung’s Portable SSD T7 Touch has been our Editors’ Choice, largely for the strength of its fingerprint-based security, but with the Samsung T7 Portable SSD, you save money by skipping the fingerprint reader, and it is available in a trio of colors and capacities (starting at 500GB and extending to 4TB).
For this review, I have the 2TB version – a compact, handy storage device with excellent performance for its class. While it doesn’t offer the seamless convenience of the T7 Touch’s biometric security, it does provide strong password-protected encryption, which should be more than ideal for keeping your data secure.
The T7 Portable SSD’s read and write speeds are comparable with almost all of its competitors, including the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD V2 and the Western Digital My Passport SSD. And with the robust metal case, there’s very little to ask for here, especially if you work remotely and need a robust storage solution. For digital professional who take lots of pictures or edit 4K/8K videos, or gamers who need ample real estate to store their large files, Samsung made this specially for you.
Samsung Portable SSD T7 Specs
- Internal or External: External
- Interface (Computer Side): USB Type-A or Type-C
- Capacity (Tested): 2 TB
- NAND Type: MLC
- Bus Type: PCI Express 3.0 x2
- Rated Maximum Sequential Read: 1050 MBps
- Rated Maximum Sequential Write: 1000 MBps
- Warranty Length: 3 years
The Samsung T7 Portable SSD offers a class-leading durable design with stronger security than most external SSDs out there.
Design & Features
The Samsung T7 is slick and portable. We’re talking of a small rectangle cut from aluminum with rounded edges, measuring 0.3 by 3.3 by 2.2 inches – almost the size of a credit card, just a smidge thicker – and weighing only 2 ounces. You have a choice of three colors: gray, blue, and red. The Samsung T7 is much smaller than any portable hard drive I’ve reviewed before, and it’s almost the same size as the smallest external SSDs, including the Samsung T7 Touch, the ADATA SE800, and the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD.
The aluminum casing provides better durability for the internal components, as it can withstand drops of up to two meters (or 6.6 feet). Even with the metal casing, it doesn’t get hot during use as it uses the latest thermal management technologies. Samsung uses Dynamic Thermal Guard Technology that minimizes overall heat generation and automatically adjusts to optimal operating temperatures.
Connectivity on the Portable SSD T7 comes in the form of a single USB Type-C on one end. It’s a USB 3.2 Gen 2 connector capable of reaching up to 10 Gbps transfer speeds, which is much higher than the drive’s actual throughput. With this connection, the T7 is easily compatible with your desktop, laptop, or smart device made in the last five years or so with a USB 3.x or Thunderbolt 3 port, though not necessarily at peak speeds.
There’s a tiny status light next to the USB port, which illuminates blue when the drive is connected and blinks when data transfer is in progress. Samsung bundles both a USB-C cable and a Type-C cable into the box. The latter is a clever addition as it means you won’t need to buy an extra adapter or dongle to connect to a rectangular USB Type-A port. We’ve seen some external SSDs, such as the WD My Passport SSD, come with such an adapter, but I find the cable more preferable, as those tiny dongles are easily misplaced.
Performance
The ideal external storage solution is often about read/write speeds, security, and portability. As such, most external SSDs are designed to be light enough and small enough to be carried anywhere, but you’d still want to ensure that the setup you have is going to move your files around fast enough and securely.
The Samsung T7 SSD has a listed read speed of 1050 MB/sec, and its write speed is 1000 MB/sec. That puts it in the same ballpark as the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD V2 and Western Digital My Passport SSD. Fast read/write speeds are available from the likes of the Adata SE920 (read 3,201 MB/s; write 3,045 MB/s) for Windows devices, and the OWC Express 1M2 (read 3,151 MB/s; write 3,023 MB/s) for content creators and Apple users.
Beyond speed, it’s crucial to consider the build quality of the storage device. Apart from providing an extended level of backup for your stored files, an external drive that is being moved around should ensure that what stays inside is secure. With the Samsung T7, you have no concerns at all. As mentioned before, it boasts a drop rating of up to 2M, and the metal casing provides an extra layer of protection from any bumps and knocks. With Samsung, there’s nothing flimsy about their engineering; your data isn’t going anywhere.
While there aren’t any specified operating temperatures with the Samsung T7, that doesn’t mean Samsung never thought about this crucial performance element. The Portable T7 SSD has no problems getting too hot, all due to the Dynamic Thermal Guard that keeps everything below 48°C.
Samsung T7 Portable SSD Review: Bottom Line
The Samsung T7 Portable SSD is an excellent storage solution for the size of a little bigger than a credit card, and at a price much lower than most competitors. With capacities of 500GB and up to 4GB, Samsung takes credit for that, and this impressive portable SSD line features robust multi-device compatibility, superb read/write speed, durability, and is super portable.
That said, it lacks the touch security feature of its stablemate, the Samsung T7 Touch, but it does come with strong password protection and AES 256-bit hardware encryption, which is more than most of us would ever need. To that, it adds a slick, modern aluminum design and is available in three color options alongside multi-platform support, including PC, Mac, Android devices, and gaming consoles.
Overall, Samsung just added another phenomenal storage device to its already spectacular line of portable SSDs. If you need a portable SSD with the best security features, I’d recommend the Samsung T7 Touch version or the Apricorn ANVX-2TB, a keypad-secured external SSD with speeds of up to 10GBps. But if you don’t need all that security and need to save a few bucks, the Samsung T7 Portable SSD is a terrific value in both form and function, especially those read/write speeds.
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