Samsung Portable SSD T1 Review: Blazing Fast External Storage
Performance Summary & Conclusion
Performance Summary: Samsung's Portable SSD T1 is supposed to hit transfer speeds up to 450MB/s, and sure enough, our benchmarks demonstrated that not only is the drive capable of reaching its advertised ceiling, it can even surpass it as we saw in ATTO. Of course, the stars need to be aligned just right to meet or exceed the drive's upper threshold, but that's okay -- even though it's rare for the T1 to hit 450MB/s, it'll often stay in the ballpark, as we saw in both CrystalDiskMark and AS-SSD. Equally impressive is that it doesn't suffer from wild fluctuations as USB flash thumb drives are prone to do.
No brainer, right? Sure, if you have the funds. The T1 is essentially an 850 Evo SSD in external trim, and it's priced accordingly. At $569 street, it's a decent price for a 1TB SSD, but since it's an external solution, some consumers might have trouble wrapping their minds around the cost when USB flash drives and external HDDs are so much cheaper. Fair enough if all you're after is affordable storage. But what the T1 brings to the table is a major boost in speed in a form factor that's portable.
You also get 256-bit AES encryption that's easy to configure -- just give the device a name and input a password. It's an optional feature, though if you don't mind punching in a password and committing it to memory, our tests showed that enabling encryption on the T1 has a negligible impact on performance.
Is the T1 a game changer? No, not really. But is it a better all-around athlete? Most definitely. Your budget will have to dictate whether it's a sensible purchase, but what we can tell you is that it works as advertised. Also keep in mind that the T1 comes in 500GB and 250GB capacities, which street for around $300 and $175, respectively.
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