Gadget Review: Samsung SSD T5
I you’ve never had a hard drive fail on you, consider yourself lucky. Hard drives may still have no equivalent in terms of storage capacity and cost per terabyte, but when it comes to sheer performance and reliability, solid state drives — storage devices that store your data on memory chips instead of spinning magnetic platters — are unparalleled. Samsung’s led the charge on solid state storage for a while now, and the new Portable SSD T5 shows you just why. This diminutive drive measures 74x57x10.5mm and weighs only 51 gm, making it small and light enough to be carried in a pocket, yet it is durable enough to survive drops from as high as two meters. Plus, there’s 256-bit AES hardware encryption (with compatible software for Windows, macOS, and Android) to keep your data safe even if you were to lose the drive.
Yet, it’s the T5’s performance which will be the biggest draw for media and video professionals looking for a safe way to carry their gargantuan work files on the move. The drive supports the USB 3.1 Gen 2 standard, which allows read speeds to touch nearly 500Mbps and write speeds about 440Mbps when coupled with a 3.1-compatible device — that’s about five times faster than most other external storage devices! And since it uses the future-proof USB Type C port, you can as easily connect the T5 to your Android device with a Type C port, and pull up important work files (or a movie on a trans-Atlantic flight) without needing to boot up your laptop!
Its pricing will be a deterrent though, particularly if you’re looking for storage capacities in the range of 1TB (Rs 40,000) or 2TB (Rs 80,000). What’s good to see is that Samsung acknowledges the half-here-half-there state of USB Type C-compatible devices and includes a regular type C-to-A cable (aside from a USB C-to-C cable for your newer laptop/smartphone) for maintaining backward compatibility with all your older devices — a small but thoughtful inclusion.
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