Why You Can Trust CNET Samsung T7 Shield Portable SSD Is Fast, Rugged and the Size of a Credit Card
And the price isn't bad, either.
- More than two decades experience writing about PCs and accessories, and 15 years writing about cameras of all kinds.
For the new T7 Shield portable SSD, Samsung took its speedy T7 model and cranked up the durability so you can drop it, step on it, get it wet and dusty, and it will still read and write at speeds up to 10Gbps. The drive has the footprint of a credit card and weighs only 3.3 ounces (94 grams), but its aluminum housing and nonslip rubber casing help it survive drops from up to 3 meters (9.8 feet), and it's IP65-certified for dust and water resistance.
The T7 Shield is priced at $160 for a 1TB capacity while a 2TB model will retail for $290; the purchase price is $135 for 1TB and $240 for the 2TB. That converts to approximately £125 and AU$221 for the 1TB model. SanDisk's rugged Extreme Portable SSD has the same read-and-write speeds as the T7 Shield, but it's not quite as durable -- it has an IP55 rating and can withstand drops up to 2 meters -- and it's more expensive unless it's on sale.
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There is a single USB-C port on the T7 Shield and Samsung includes a USB-C-to-USB-C and USB-C-to-USB-A cables. The drive supports USB 2.0 but your computer will need a USB 3.2 Gen 2 to take full advantage of its speed. The drive works with Windows or MacOS and can also be connected to Android devices. Preinstalled on the drive is Samsung's Portable SSD app for setting up a password for AES 256-bit hardware encryption and keeping its firmware up to date. There's an Android app available, too.
Windows users can also download Samsung Magician, which gives you details about the drive such as capacity, model and serial numbers, firmware, drive health and temperature. There's also a built-in performance benchmark to see just how fast the read-and-write speeds are.
Samsung's Magician software has a lot of info on drive performance.
The speed performance lived up to Samsung's claims, hitting a sequential read speed of 1.1GBps and a write speed of 1GBps using the CrystalDiskMark benchmark test. However, on Samsung's own benchmark test, sequential speeds were just below 1GBps. I regularly need to move large 4K video files and raw photos between laptops, and that's a breeze with a drive this speedy. Plus, it's fast enough to work with files on the T7 Shield without first transferring them to a laptop.
With its size, rugged build, password-protected security and high-speed performance, the T7 Shield is a perfect fit for creators or anyone else who needs safe portable storage for the largest of files.