1. Best overall
2. Best on a budget
3. Best premium
4. Best lightweight
5. Best for speed
6. Best for students
7. Best for freelancers
8. Best for gamers
9. Best compact
10. Best rugged
FAQs
How to choose
How we test
The best portable SSD gives you high-speed, high-capacity storage you can take with you anywhere - and these are the external solid-state drives we recommend.
Our expert reviews team tested hundreds of the best external hard drives, best external hard drives for Mac, the best USB flash drives. And we're here to highlight the stand-out portable SSDs you can get right now. The Samsung T7 is the best portable SSD you can get, featuring a good range of capacities, fast read/write speeds, and a fingerprint scanner for boosted security. Below, you'll find our round-up of top-rated solid-state drives, benchmarked by our team, assessing speeds, storage options, portability, and bundled software.
Best portable SSD of 2024
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Below you'll find full write-ups for each of the best portable ssd candidates on our list. We've tested each one extensively, so you can be sure that our recommendations can be trusted.
Best portable SSD overall
The Samsung T7 is ideal if you’re looking for the best portable SSD with lots of features. This external storage is not only fast – with sequential read and write speeds of up to 1,050 and 1,000 MB/s, respectively – but it also boasts quite a few great features in the palm-sized package.
The most important of those features is its built-in security options. This uses AES 256-bit encryption and gives you the option to use fingerprint sign-in, which you can set up through the device’s own management software.
On testing the kit, we found this drive offers the perfect balance between security, speed, portability and pricing. While it lacks IP68 and the security certifications of more expensive rivals, the price point makes it an attractive choice. The Samsung T7 SSD could do with a rugged case, but it remains our pick for best portable SSD on the market, and well worth your consideration.
Read our full Samsung T7 SSD review
Best budget portable SSD
I have a confession to make - I may have been a bit too harsh on a review I wrote three years ago. I gave a mere three star to the product I am now writing ecstatically about today.
The Lexar SL200, I wrote back then, was an, "OK product and that’s about it. Compared to almost everything else on the market, it lacks a clear edge and its premium pricing is not helping it at all."
Well, fast forward almost three years and the price of the 2TB version SL200 has been slashed by a staggering 70% since it launched back in June 2021, almost a year after my review. That alone means I should probably re-review the drive and add at least one star to the review.
At $89.99, it is the cheapest 2TB portable SSD right now anywhere. That is still far more expensive than a standard portable hard disk drive of similar capacity but let's not forget why an external SSD is a better long run solution for storing your data, files and folders.
✅ Faster It is one of the slowest external SSDs we've ever tested but it is still 3X quicker than most portable hard disk drives.
✅ Works with smartphones A little-advertised feature is that most of the newer portable SSDs have a native Type-C connector that can be plugged into any recent smartphones and be used as storage for your portable device.
✅ Sturdier Because there's no moving parts, the SL200 is a bit more ruggedized than any external consumer hard drives. It should survive a drop on a hard surface from a few feet unscathed.
✅ Smaller The SL200 is smaller than any 2.5-inch hard drive we've seen and by extension, smaller than any portable hard disk drives as well. For once, you can easily slide it in your rear jeans pocket.
✅ 3-year warranty Lexar offers a three-year warranty on its SSD which is 3x what the likes of Seagate and WD offer for portable hard disk drives. Again, that's down to the fact that mechanical parts fail more often than electronics.
Read our full Lexar SL200 review
Best premium portable SSD
Samsung’s brilliant line-up of portable SSDs continues with the excellent Samsung Portable SSD T5. “A masterclass in portable storage” is how we described this speedy drive after our time. If you’re looking for a true portable, this one is proof at last, that an external drive can be smaller than a high-powered power bank or a stack of credit cards.
Building on the brilliant design and performance of its predecessor, the Samsung T3, the T5 does bring performance gains. There’s a fast USB Type-C connection that ekes out every last drop of performance from the solid-state drive inside. It comes with a 10Gbps USB 3.1 Type-C Gen 2, making it capable of delivering twice the maximum theoretical transfer rate of its predecessors. It's also backwards compatible with USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 if your PC doesn't have USB Type-C.
If you’re not fussed about those performance gains, the Samsung T3 should be more than enough, and at a cheaper price now, too. If you already have a T3, you can doubtless stick with it for the time being. Otherwise, the Samsung T5 is a great all-rounder SSD with fast transfer rates for moving or carrying large amounts of data.
Read our full Samsung Portable SSD T5 review
Best lightweight portable SSD
There’s no prizes for guessing the focus of the Seagate Fast SSD. Yes, that’s it’s name - and yes, it lives up to it.
In our review, we reckoned “when it came to performance, this drive ranked amongst the fastest without resorting to any sort of magic tricks (RAID-0 for example). Seagate’s newest storage product delivered some impressive numbers, almost tying with the G-Drive Slim SSD on CrystalDiskMark and Atto. HD Tune Pro and AS SSD numbers were also amongst the best we’ve seen.”
For a slim, lightweight drive, it’s one of the best portable SSDs - although not as compact as the WD My Passport SSD. Weighing in at 82g, just 9mm thick with a footprint of 94 x 79mm, it will easily slip into your pocket for a comfortable carry.
Best of all, you can usually get it at a good price. You can certainly pay a lot more (or a lot less) for one that doesn’t match the high performance in such a svelte design.
Read our full Seagate Fast SSD 500GB review
Best portable SSD for speed
The Samsung X5 is the best portable SSD for you if you want faster speeds above all else, and money is (almost) no object.
It comes with a Thunderbolt 3 connection that takes full advantage of the super-fast speeds of the Samsung 970 Evo NVMe SSD that comes inside. Although after testing and reviewing the device, we thought the transfer speeds weren’t as spectacular as you’d expect. But this drive is still exceptionally fast given the right connector.
However, that pure dedication to speed comes at some expense. First, there's the premium pricing. Then there’s the design. Because this drive is no Samsung T3 or Samsung T5. It’s larger and bulkier than either, coming in at 150g - triple the weight of the T5 - with a footprint of 116 x 60 x 18mm.
Not one for those prizing portability, then. However, for speed alone, the Samsung X5 is one of the best money can buy.
Read our full Samsung X5 Portable SSD review
Best portable SSD for students
With its thin, lightweight design, four different colors, good speeds, and a reasonable price, the WD My Passport SSD is our top pick for students. The device comes in a range of storage capacities up to 4TB, which makes it perfect for storing lots of documents, reports, essays, and media files.
The compact size of this portable SSD is what first caught our eye during our review. At 46g, measuring 10 x 5.5 x 0.9cm, this is an impressively slim-line footprint. We were just as impressed with its sleek, ridged metal design, which improves grip while reducing the chance of causing damage to anything else thanks to its curvy, pebblesque shape.
Inside, you’ll find a SN550E, a PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe drive that pairs an ASMedia ASM2362 bridge with a SanDisk 20-82-10023 controller and SanDisk BiCS 4 96L 3D TLC flash memory. During our benchmarking with CrystalDiskMark, the drive reached 1046MBps (read) and 1013MBps (write). Other benchmarks delivered the same range of results but transferring a single 10GB file proved to be slower than expected.
Overall, expect a fast, compact portable SSD with an excellent five-year warranty that will last throughout your course. Expect to pay for it for the higher-capacity 4TB model - it’s the drive’s biggest black mark, especially as smaller, nimble rivals are taking the lead when it comes to value for money. Otherwise, there's something for everyone here.
Read our full WD My Passport portable SSD review
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Best portable SSD for freelancers
The Seagate OneTouch is a flawless portable SSD, offering exactly what you’d expect - and then a bit more.
Built from plastic, metal, and cloth, it’s an elegant design in itself. But at a mere 70 x 50 x 10mm and weighing 43g, this drive is ridiculously small and portable, too. The kit includes both USB Type-C and Type-A cables, although we wished they were longer than they were. The drive is available in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities, with a black, blue or silver finish.
Performance is excellent. Benchmarking on CrystalDiskMark gave us speeds of 1047MBps (read) and 1027MBps (write). This means we actually managed to beat the rated speed by just over one percent. In other words, this is a speedy drive with plenty to give. In real life, rather than the simulated tests, we transferred a 10GB file in 18 seconds which is equivalent to a transfer rate of more than 500MBps.
The drive uses a USB 3.2 Gen 2 connector, making it one of the fastest external solid state drives in its category, and matching the likes of the Samsung T7 or the Crucial X8. It also comes bundled with a raft of premium software, including a year’s subscription to Create by photo management firm MyLio, and four months of Adobe Creative Cloud.
Read our full Seagate OneTouch review
Best portable SSD for gamers
A striking RGB design and remarkable performance marks the Adata SE770G out as one of the best portable SSDs with a little something extra.
You may not have heard of them over the likes of Western Digital and Seagate, but the company has a long and excellent record in solid-state storage, including the SD700 and the compact SE730H. Adata is always coy about its hardware because it can change during a production run. But our assumption is, the SE770G uses an SMI controller, like an SM2262G. Depending on the price-point, expect a Samsung, Intel or SK Hynix NAND.
Whatever’s in there, performance is perfectly in line with most USB Gen 2 drives on the market. In our benchmarking, CrystalDiskMark 7.0 recorded 954MBps reads, and 898MBps writes. .
And anyway, it’s the outside that really catches the eye. A mesmerizing lightshow, indicating the drive is powered. It risks coming off as gimmicky, but it’s just subtle, even elegant, enough to work even if it isn't usually your preference. Our only real gripe is, we wished we had more control over the effects. Overall, a great performer. As you'd expect from the RGB design, this is also a portable SSD for gaming, hooking up to consoles like the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 for storing our ever-growing back logs.
Read our full ADATA SE770G external SSD review
Best compact portable SSD
Small, light, solidly built, the Kingston XS2000 USB 3.2 Gen 2 x 2 external SSD is an impressive portable SSD. And we mean portable. This one’s a pocket-sized drive that can be carried anywhere. measuring 13 x 31 x 67mm without the sleeve, weighing just 29g. Popping the sleeve on might add a little extra, but it adds protection against shocks, water, and dust.
Testing the drive, we found speeds were good. Our benchmarking with CrystalDiskMark: showed read speeds of 1062MBps and write speeds of 999MBps. In fact, the drive is touted as the world's fastest native USB SSD. The key word here is ‘native’, since it uses the USB 3.2 Gen 2 x 2 interface.
Performance, then, is hamstrung in part by Kingston’s baffling decision to release it right before the launch of the speedier USB 4.0. During our review, we noted “it really, really needs a compatible system to hit its headline speed of 2GBps, allowing it to rival Thunderbolt 3.” A misstep for an otherwise excellent portable SSD with 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB models available.
Read our full Kingston XS2000 external SSD review
Best rugged portable SSD
