Samsung’s new portable SSD is a shock-resistant speed demon

Samsung has unleashed a new portable SSD which promises blazing fast performance.

The Samsung Portable SSD T5 uses the firm’s latest 64-layer V-NAND technology to deliver transfer speeds of up to a claimed 540MB/s.

Aside from raw performance, the benefit of a portable SSD compared to an external hard disk is that it'll survive a drop, as a solid-state drive doesn’t have moving parts. Not to mention that Samsung has equipped the T5 with a shock-resistant internal frame. 

All this means that the SSD can withstand a drop of up to 2m – the external case offers a rather smart-looking aluminum finish, too

As well as durability, the T5 also scores high on the security front offering AES 256-bit encryption to protect the data on board.

Seriously light

The drive is also very light at just 51g, and has compact dimensions of 74 x 57.3 x 10.5mm. Samsung supplies software for the PC and Mac, and there’s also a mobile app for Android, with two cables provided to connect from USB-C to USB-C port, or USB-C to A.

The T5 goes on sale today in the US with the 250GB model starting at $130 (about £100, AU$165) and the 500GB version weighing in at $200 (about £155, AU$255), with the 1TB and 2TB drives costing $400 (about £310, AU$510) and $800 (about £620, AU$1,020) respectively.

The two smaller drives have an ‘alluring blue’ aluminum finish, while the bigger models are black, and all of the SSDs come with a three-year warranty.

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).