Please stop buying portable SSDs based on the speed on the box

Over the years, I have had to purchase many external SSDs for myself and my wife, who is a video professional. You might think that one external SSD is a lot like another, but as I learned the hard way, it’s not just about choosing the fastest or cheapest drive.

In fact, the key specifications listed on the box or online listing are often not very relevant or important to your needs. They tend to focus on maximum burst speeds for example, which is rarely important for an external SSD. So these days I have summarized the most important criteria into three key factors.

Actual sustained speed, no theoretical maximums

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We tend to use internal and external SSDs differently. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with using an external portable SSD for the same things you’d use an internal drive for. For example, I use external SSDs with my laptops to store Steam video game libraries. It works great, but it’s obviously not as good as an internal drive.

However, for most people, what matters is fast, sustained performance. How fast does the drive perform when you transfer 100 GB of data to or from it? Because if it starts to slow down after a few minutes due to heat or a disk controller that can’t keep up, or a lack of DRAM cache, then those max numbers don’t mean much. Of course, the only way to know if this is happening is to find a good rating, which would include sustained transfer of large files as part of the rating.

In addition to having a sustainable level of performance necessary for your needs, I think write endurance is a key specification for external drives in particular. More than a system drive. This is because SSDs mainly wear out when erasing and writing to memory cells, and external drives are used to transfer files, then are erased, then used to transfer files again. SSDs are not suitable for long-term backups. For this, external mechanical hard drives are much better. So it’s a good idea to spend less on speed and more on a higher quality drive with a longer TBW (TeraBytes Written) figure.

Hardware encryption that doesn’t get in the way

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I don’t care about keeping my Steam game installations private, but portable drives are used at any time to move confidential or sensitive information. If I want to travel with a drive where it could be lost or seized by airport security, then built-in encryption is very important.

Then you’re looking at something like the Samsung T7 Touch, which features 256-bit hardware encryption. This means you don’t have to worry about operating system support or decryption overhead. You can still encrypt any drive using something like BitLocker to Go, but having hardware encryption in the drive itself means you can use the drive with more devices without any issues.

Ruggedness that matches how you actually use it

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I like to buy external drives that fit the job they’re supposed to do. So a small metal SSD in my MacBook pocket doesn’t need to be waterproof or drop-proof. The SSD that I connect to a camera or that my wife might use to capture and store images in the field could end up getting soaked or falling over.

I’m a big fan of buying cheap cases to convert the internal SSDs I’ve replaced with faster models, and here you also have the option to go for a sturdy case if you need one without breaking the bank. Reusing old internal SSDs is a great idea anyway if they haven’t been badly worn, as the bottleneck for many NVMe drives over USB is still around 1 GB/s (although the latest equipment and ports can double or triple this figure) and external SATA SSDs can stretch their legs and often get close to the theoretical 600 MB/s limit for this interface.

8/10

Storage capacity

2TB, 4TB

Compatible devices

Windows, Mac, Xbox Series S|X, PlayStation 5, a range of other USB-C devices

Brand

SanDisk

Also, if you’re getting an external NVMe enclosure to turn an old M.2 NVMe drive external, you should use a model with a heatsink. Even if the metal body of the SSD acts as a cooling system. This is not only important to maintain performance, but also to avoid causing the disk to die prematurely.

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Now, there are also a few features that are on my list of things I’m either ignoring or will actively deter me from buying a player. Anything frivolous like RGB lighting seems like a waste of budget that could have been spent on something useful like speed or longevity. Likewise, paying for fancy designs and form factors isn’t something I personally would do for a portable SSD. I need it to work and last, not to look like a fashion accessory!

9/10

Storage capacity

1TB, 2TB, 4TB, 6TB, 8TB

Hardware interface

USB-C 3.2 generation 2×2

Brand

Crucial

Transfer rate

2,100 MB/s