Whether or not you wish to again up the information in your PC, switch movies out of your Mac or offload just a few video games out of your PlayStation 5, a transportable SSD is a fast and simple solution to increase your storage. These little bricks might price greater than conventional onerous drives, however they’re considerably sooner, lighter and extra dependable. Determining the very best transportable SSD for you, although, isn’t so simple as simply selecting the one with the bottom worth or essentially the most house. (Nicely, it can be, however that wouldn’t be very environment friendly.) To assist, we’ve weeded by means of the transportable SSD market, examined a bunch of contenders and sorted out which of them provide essentially the most worth. Yow will discover our high picks beneath, plus an outline of what to know before you purchase.
Desk of contents
Finest exterior SSDs for 2025
Different exterior SSDs we examined
The pre-built OWC Express 1M2 is a premium-feeling USB4 SSD that’s roughly as quick because the ADATA SE920, nevertheless it’s bigger and considerably dearer as of this writing.
In case you’re within the comparatively small group with a PC that helps USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 however not Thunderbolt or USB4, the Crucial X10 Pro is basically a sooner model of our high decide. The Lexar SL600 is a bigger however barely faster possibility, whereas the Lexar SL500, Kingston XS2000 or Samsung T9 might additionally work if you happen to see them on low cost. As a reminder, although, drives like these are aimed primarily at content material creators and different professionals, and you must be sure you gained’t improve to a tool with a sooner USB interface anytime quickly.
The Samsung T7 Shield has a conveniently rugged design with a rubberized, IP65-rated shell. It additionally comes with each USB-C and USB-A cables. But it surely was persistently slower than the X9 Professional and XS1000 in our benchmark checks, plus it has a shorter three-year guarantee.
The Silicon Power PX10 is an particularly reasonably priced USB 3.2 Gen 2 mannequin. Its peak speeds weren’t too far off the X9 Professional or XS1000 in artificial benchmarks, however it might probably get distractingly scorching and its sustained writes are markedly worse. It took 50 seconds longer to maneuver our 70GB customized take a look at folder to this drive in comparison with the X9 Professional, for instance.
The Crucial X6 is one other low-cost possibility that’s an excellent bit slower than our high picks. It’s restricted to a three-year guarantee and lacks an IP ranking as properly. It’s not a horrible possibility for the fundamentals, however there’s little motive to get it over the XS1000 when their costs are related.
The OWC Envoy Pro FX is well-built and helps Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.2 Gen 2, nevertheless it’s a smidge slower than the SE920 and Specific 1M2, and it’s a lot pricier than the previous.
What to contemplate earlier than shopping for an exterior SSD
Capability
The very first thing to determine earlier than shopping for a transportable SSD is simply how a lot space for storing you want. A lot of the drives we thought-about for this information can be found in capacities starting from one to 4 terabytes, although loads of smaller and bigger choices exist.
There’s no hard-and-fast rule for which measurement is “finest” — that’ll finally rely in your finances and what precisely you’re seeking to stash. However typically, it’s higher to overcompensate than underdo it. No one desires to be pressured into shopping for a second drive as a result of they crammed the primary one up too shortly. In case you’re backing up a PC, an excellent rule of thumb is to purchase an exterior SSD with twice as a lot house as your laptop’s inside storage. This manner, it can save you not less than one full backup whereas additionally having room for extra knowledge. If you wish to retailer a bunch of PlayStation or Xbox video games with large set up sizes, it’s possible you’ll want extra space. In case you simply wish to again up a small assortment of recordsdata, it’s possible you’ll be higher off saving your money and simply getting a smaller USB flash drive as an alternative, which aren’t fairly the identical because the exterior SSDs we examined for this information.
Worth
Usually, you get a greater price-per-gigabyte ratio the additional you go up the capability ladder. As of this writing, the 1TB Samsung T9 is priced at $130, or $0.13 per gigabyte (GB), whereas the 4TB version is on the market for $297 or $0.07 per GB. That technically makes the bigger mannequin a greater “worth,” however not everybody must pay that rather more upfront.
SSDs in the identical velocity class are likely to not range too wildly when it comes to efficiency, so a part of our decision-making for this information got here all the way down to which of them are sometimes the most cost effective. However costs can fluctuate over time; if you happen to see that one in all our high picks is priced means greater than a comparable honorable point out, be happy to get the latter. At this cut-off date, prices are broadly trending upwards.
Pace and USB interface
Nearly all exterior SSDs are considerably sooner than mechanical onerous disk drives (HDDs), so that you’ll save time ready for recordsdata to switch and video games to load it doesn’t matter what. Throughout the market, nevertheless, there are distinct efficiency tiers. These are outlined largely by the USB interface a drive helps. Whereas all the SSDs we thought-about for this information can join over USB-C, some USB-C connections can provide sooner switch speeds than others. Sorting by means of this may get actual complicated actual quick, so we’ll attempt to put it in easy phrases.
You’ll be able to basically divide at present’s crop of transportable SSDs into totally different segments. On the very high are drives that make the most of the (comparatively) new Thunderbolt 5 commonplace, which has a theoretical most switch price of 80 gigabits per second (Gbps). (You might even see it promote speeds as much as 120 Gbps, however that increase doesn’t apply to storage units.) However transportable SSDs that support this tech solely simply began to trickle out towards the tip of 2024, and the marketplace for units with Thunderbolt 5 ports remains to be fairly limited, with essentially the most notable exceptions being Apple’s top-end Macs with a M4 Professional or M4 Max chip.
Thunderbolt 5 is constructed on a spec referred to as USB4, which might technically attain as much as 80 Gbps as properly however is extra sometimes obtainable in a taste that tops out at 40 Gbps. Transportable SSDs based mostly on that commonplace began to roll out towards the tip of 2023 however are nonetheless comparatively rare. The older Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4, which different high-end exterior SSDs proceed to make use of, help the identical 40 Gbps most.
A third model of USB4, in the meantime, maxes at 20 Gbps, as does an older but extra ceaselessly used commonplace referred to as USB 3.2 Gen 2×2. Beneath that’s USB 3.2 Gen 2, which maxes at 10 Gbps. Then there’s USB 3.2 Gen 1, which is capped at 5 Gbps. Lastly, we’ll bundle collectively SSDs that use older requirements and aren’t price contemplating right here.
To make this simple: For on a regular basis of us, an excellent USB 3.2 Gen 2 drive is the candy spot between fast-enough efficiency, wide-enough compatibility and cheap-enough worth, so these make up our major suggestions above. In case you work in a artistic discipline or don’t thoughts paying additional to shave seconds off your massive file transfers, although, a “higher-tier” mannequin would make sense. Nevertheless, be aware that precise computer systems that make the most of USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 aren’t tremendous frequent — no Mac helps it, for one — and the interface is successfully being changed by USB4.
Usually, your chain is barely as robust as its weakest hyperlink: In case your laptop solely has USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, for instance, you might nonetheless use a Thunderbolt SSD, however you gained’t get past Gen 2 speeds. Be sure to know what you’re working with before you purchase.
As a refresher, storage units are broadly measured when it comes to learn and write speeds. The previous refers to how lengthy it takes to entry one thing from the drive; the latter, how lengthy it takes to avoid wasting one thing to it. From there, you may break these metrics into sequential and random efficiency. Sequential speeds are likely to matter extra with transportable SSDs, since most individuals use them to avoid wasting or entry lengthy, fixed streams of information resembling a bunch of high-res photographs. Random speeds could be vital if you wish to run video video games off the drive, since that’d contain studying and writing smaller, extra scattered recordsdata. Both means, how properly an SSD can maintain its efficiency with prolonged use can also be vital.
Different efficiency elements and enclosures
A contemporary transportable SSD’s speeds aren’t nearly its USB interface, although. Its efficiency can even depend upon how superior its controller is, whether or not it has a local USB flash controller or a separate bridge chip to speak with a number system, the sort and high quality of NAND flash reminiscence it makes use of, whether or not it has a DRAM cache or it’s DRAM-less, and extra.
We’re simplifying issues, however listed below are some fast ideas: Drives with triple-level cell (TLC) reminiscence aren’t as low-cost as quad-level cell (QLC) SSDs, however they’re usually extra dependable and so they provide higher write efficiency. Having a devoted DRAM cache helps if you happen to plan to hit your drive with extra intense, sustained workloads, however is probably not price the additional price for most individuals. Some fashions with native flash controllers might not carry out in addition to these with a bridging chip, relying on the SSD inside, however they sometimes draw much less warmth and are bodily smaller. All of that is to say that an exterior SSD’s speeds aren’t fairly as simple as what the producer chooses to promote on the field.
It’s additionally price remembering which you can flip an inside SSD into a transportable answer with an excellent enclosure. If in case you have a spare drive and don’t thoughts going the DIY route, this could be a cheaper and extra versatile answer, although we’ve caught to pre-built fashions for this information for the sake of simplicity.
Dimension, sturdiness, endurance and guarantee
Most transportable SSDs are impressively small and light-weight, so that they gained’t be troublesome to tuck in a bag (or perhaps a pocket) and tackle the go. We be aware above if any drive is bulkier than ordinary.
Nothing we’re speaking about issues in case your drive can’t final in the long run. It’s onerous to definitively say which exterior SSDs are essentially the most dependable, however we scoured by means of person evaluations and suggestions whereas researching this information to make sure none of our picks present a sample of catastrophic errors. If there was an excessive amount of smoke round a specific mannequin, we steered clear. We dominated out sure drives from SanDisk and Western Digital, as an illustration, after stories from Ars Technica and The Verge famous a problem that led to knowledge loss (and lawsuits) in 2023.
That mentioned, one of many large causes you’d purchase an SSD typically is its superior sturdiness. As a result of it has no transferring mechanical elements inside, an SSD has far fewer avenues to failure than an exterior onerous drive. You continue to don’t wish to be careless with them, however an unintentional drop shouldn’t be the tip of the world.
Some transportable SSDs construct on this inherent ruggedness with plastic or rubberized casings and extra sturdy waterproofing. These aren’t mandatory for everybody, however if you happen to’re a frequent traveler or somebody who usually works open air, there are alternatives for you.
Nonetheless, all drives can fail. If in case you have any kind of knowledge you’d be distraught to lose, you must again it up frequently, then make a second backup, ideally with a cloud service. Alongside these protecting traces, we additionally took be aware of the guarantee coverage for every drive we examined. Nearly all of them are backed for both three or 5 years; in fact, longer is healthier.
Encryption and software program
It’s not unusual to retailer delicate knowledge on a transportable SSD, so some fashions provide additional security measures like hardware-based encryption — i.e., direct scrambling of information saved on the drive itself — built-in keypads and fingerprint readers to guard towards unauthorized entry if the drive is misplaced or stolen. Whereas not high necessities, perks like these are actually good to have. Some SSDs additionally include companion software program to additional handle the drive. One of the best of these might be useful to have round, however we wouldn’t name them important.
How we take a look at exterior SSDs
Sadly, we didn’t have entry to a tool that may make full use of USB 3.2 Gen 2, USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 and Thunderbolt/USB4 speeds interchangeably, so we needed to break up our testing throughout a number of units, together with an M1 Professional MacBook Professional and an Alienware gaming PC working Home windows 11. Due to this, we primarily in contrast the transportable SSDs inside every “class” towards each other. Earlier than switching OSes, we reformatted every drive to every platform’s commonplace file system format: APFS for macOS and NTFS for Home windows.
After researching which SSDs had sufficient constructive suggestions to be price testing within the first place, we put 13 drives by means of a spread of artificial and “real-world” benchmark checks. On Home windows, these included CrystalDiskMark, PCMark 10’s Knowledge Drive Benchmark and 3DMark’s gaming-focused Storage Benchmark. On macOS, we used AmorphousDiskMark (successfully a Mac model of CrystalDiskMark), BlackMagic Disk Speed Test and ATTO Disk Benchmark.
We additionally timed how lengthy it took for every drive to learn and write a customized 70GB folder stuffed with roughly 11,500 totally different recordsdata, together with photographs, movies, music recordsdata, PDFs and different massive and small knowledge varieties scattered throughout quite a few subfolders. We carried out a number of passes for every take a look at to keep away from irregularities, and we saved monitor of every SSD’s warmth ranges over the course of the entire suite. Our course of wasn’t an ideal science, nevertheless it gave us a common sense of how every drive compares to different fashions in its worth and efficiency vary.
Current updates
February 2025: We’ve checked to make sure the pricing data and hyperlinks on this information are nonetheless correct. We’ve additionally added particulars on the (comparatively) new Thunderbolt 5 interface, which has been applied in a pair current transportable SSDs just like the OWC Envoy Ultra and LaCie Rugged SSD Pro5. We’ll look to incorporate testing notes for these for our subsequent replace, as they ought to be sooner than the ADATA SE920, our present premium decide, albeit for a a lot greater worth. For now, although, our high picks stay the identical.
October 2024: We’ve taken a sweep by means of this information to make sure all pricing and availability data remains to be appropriate. Our suggestions are unchanged.
This text initially appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/equipment/best-portable-ssd-120043652.html?src=rss
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