Samsung T5 external SSD is a little ripper

PC Stuff 2019

If a person can covet any techy device, it has to be Samsung’s T5 external SSD storage.

Why? Because the Samsung T5 is small, jam-packed with tech and Samsung’s leadership in SSD and its quality build means this is something special.

My wife quietly appropriated my older, cherished Samsung T3 (circa 2016) that was faster than any external storage at that time. Over USB-C 3.0 Gen 1 5Gbps (meaning SATA 6) it happily reads and writes data at 500MBps when an external hard disk might get 40-50MBps.

Well the Samsung T5 (website here and no there was not a T4) is also SATA 6 (maximum over USB), but the interface is now USB-3.1 Gen 2 10Gbps and UASP (a later version of Serial ATA). It supports sustained read/write data bursts without degradation. In short, large files copy as fast as small ones.

Samsung T5

Competition

LaCie (Seagate) has released a 2TB portable USB-C external SSD  ‘drink coaster’ that almost, but not quite matches the T5 speed over USB-C 3.1 attached to a Lenovo 2109 Yoga C930 (14) that is GadgetGuy’s reference device in H1, 2019 (beautiful laptop).

USB-C test

Samsung T5

USB-A tests

Again, it just beats the Le Cie by a smidgen.

Samsung T5

Features

  • You can drop this 74 x 53 x 10.5mm x 51g device up to two metres. It has no moving parts. In fact, we accidentally tested a T3 when it fell about 5 metres onto concrete and apart from a minor scratch it was fine.
  • It comes with both USB-C to USB-C 3.1 and USB-A to USB-C 3.O cables.
  • It is available in 250/500GB (red and blue) and 1/2TB (black).
  • AES256 encryption on the fly and password protection
  • Management software for PC and Mac
  • 3-year warranty

GadgetGuy’s take: All backup should be this fast

I travel between two homes. Once a month, I copy the entire contents of my main offline storage (WD My Cloud) to the old T3 and then copy it to the offline storage at the other home.

It took a few hours (overnight) on the T3 and almost days if I was using an external hard disk. Now it takes about 33 minutes.

The trick is to use USB-C Gen 2 cables (supplied), and we found the exFAT format a little faster at reads.

We are not using encryption or password protection, but we should. This small drive could be easily lost. As it encrypts on the fly, there is little overhead.

It is a 5-out-of-5 – no worries

Price: Samsung T5 SSD

Samsung RRP for 250/500GB and 1/2TB is $129/169/339/629. From 51 to 31 cents a GB. We found it at mwave for $119/148/318/625 (plus delivery if applicable).

https://youtu.be/rZ_wd7YuXbo
Features
Value for money
Performance
Ease of Use
Design
Reader Rating0 Votes
Small durable and very attractive
As fast as it gets over USB-C and USB-A with a SATA 6 interface
Samsung reliability and quality
Make sure your USB-A port is 3.0 or later – USB-2 may not have enough power
Use USB cables supplied – older cables will not achieve the speed
5