Any similarities between the name of this product and a gadget mag are purely coincidental
Samsung is always looking for new ways to exploit its VNAND flash technology, and the T3 is the latest it’s come up with.
Essentially a USB memory key on steroids, the T3 is a precision-made device that looks like something Q would hand James Bond before sending him into action.
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It’s just 7.4cm long and therefore is much easier to carry around than a typical external drive, while offering similar capacities.
The review model was 500GB, though Samsung also makes 250GB, 1TB and 2TB versions of the T3.
A pleasant surprise for this reviewer was that the T3 uses a USB Type-? connector, though the cable provided converts this to the normal USB blade. The interface is USB 3.1 gen-1, limited to 5GB/s, though that’s more than enough for the flash memory inside it.
Security is provided by a baked-in AES 256-bit encryption, and the drive comes pre-formatted in exFAT for large file size convenience.
But where this unit really distinguishes itself from a typical external drive is in just how fast you can get your data on and off it.
What I’ve noticed with USB 3.0 SSDs is that the performance can vary, depending on what chip is used for that port and the PC. The best read speed I ever got was 439.4MB/S, though in that instance only 279.5MB/S writing.
On another system I got about 350MB/S read but almost as high write, so the potential is in here for the 450MB/s quoted performance if you have UASP mode and USB 3.1 on your system.
Unless you’re crazy enough to plug the T3 into a USB 2.0 port, you’re unlikely to be disappointed with the speed on offer. However, you need to be mindful that the performance on offer will be generally limited by the other drive you’re using for the transfer, so to really leverage this speed, you’ll also need an SSD in your PC.
The only aspect of this device that might need some adjustment is the price. The 250GB model is close, whereas the 500GB one I tested is a much better value. And for those with very deep pockets, the 2TB model is nearly, almost a linear scale from the 500GB drive.
As you can buy a 500GB 2.5? SSD, and a USB 3.0 caddy for a fiver, there’s a premium for the cuteness factor.
Some might pay that for the 500GB model, though the 250GB seems wildly expensive in comparison.
Overall, the T3 is a neat device that’s beautifully made, and it could be a godsend to anyone wanting to leave the office on time with their data to hand. Mark
Pickavance
Portable SSD performance on USB 3.1..
Can the Samsung Portable SSD T3 be used to boot Mac and work from it all day long?