This is faster than SSDs that employ Serial ATA-based internals, whose read and write speeds usually top out around 550MBps and 520MBps, respectively, but slower than top-end drives with USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 interfaces, which tease sequential read-write speeds reaching about 2,000MBps. While the Samsung T7 and Samsung T7 Touch are not among the fastest portable SSDs I’ve tested, nor are they the most affordable, they both have an excellent combo of speed, features, and design. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. Is that price bump worth it? A good portable SSD should be small, fast, and able to connect to devices through the almighty USB-C port. Now available in Titan Gray, Indigo Blue, Metallic Red, Samsung’s latest T7 portable SSD foregoes the Touch treatment instead it stops by the anodizing shop for some more colorful treatment instead. Learn all about Portable SSD T7 including prices, offers, specifications & shop from Samsung India. It's a USB 3.2 Gen 2 connection capable of transfer speeds up to 10Gbps, which is much higher than the drive's actual throughput. Since it is of a DRAMless design, it updates the FTL tables directly on the NAND, resulting in slower performance over DRAM-based designs. Not only that, but Samsung’s T7 brings pricing down to much more competitive levels per capacity; without the fingerprint sensor, street prices are roughly 15-20% lower than the Touch variant. Greater cell density can result in increased data speeds, all else being equal. data passthrough as well as Trim, link power management, and UASP (USB Attached SCSI Protocol) for best performance. Delivering 10 Gbps performance in a sleek and well thought out design, we found Samsung’s T7 Touch quite well rounded when we reviewed it earlier this year. The T7 Touch portable SSD (Amazon: https://amzn.to/30Gq3B9) from Samsung makes for a great MacBook companion. PCMag, PCMag.com and PC Magazine are among the federally registered trademarks of Ziff Davis, LLC and may not be used by third parties without explicit permission. This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Although it lacks the fingerprint reader that made the Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch PCMag's favorite external solid-state drive of 2020, the Samsung Portable SSD T7 is a tiny yet very capable drive that retains its sibling's 256-bit AES hardware encryption and comes in at a more modest price (some $30 lower than the T7 Touch for the 2TB version we tested). None the less, Samsung rates the T7 to sustain falls of up to 2 meters. However, once the TurboWrite cache fills, write speed can degrade quite a bit, and depending on the model of T7 you purchase, the device’s base write performance can vary quite a bit. It's fast, well made, and with Samsung, you get a guarantee of reliability. The Samsung T7 supports USB 3.2 Gen 2, and is supposed to offer read speeds of up to 1,050 MBps and write speeds of 1,000 MBps. This works in conjunction with a firmware feature called Dynamic Thermal Guard, which manages the overall device temperature and will thermal throttle performance as needed to maintain an acceptable level of heat output. However, with a DRAMless architecture, performance can suffer quite a bit during large transfers that exceed Samsung’s TurboWrite cache. NY 10036. Samsung rates the T7 as being drop-resistant at up to 6.5 feet. For that price, you’re getting nearly twice the speeds of the T5, a newer SSD inside with a … Operating at 1 Gbps, they are faster than most competitors flash that operates at up to 666-800 MT/s and require just 1.2V. When tested, the sequential read and write speeds for the T7 Touch are double that of the T5. Thank you for signing up to Tom's Hardware. He won an award from the American Astronomical Society for an article he co-wrote for Sky & Telescope. But it isn't a drive that everyone can use; you have to have a USB 3.2 version port as well as the corresponding connector to really take advantage of the high speed transfer rates. As a freelance writer, he’s written articles for Grolier’s Encylopedia, Health, Equities, and other publications. SSDs tend to generate a lot more heat than spinning hard drives, and a tiny aluminum case tends to do the job for heat dissipation but can get toasty to the touch with sustained operations. Inside the metal enclosure is an ePCM or encapsulated Phase Change Material that takes the brunt of the thermal load during heavy transfers, absorbing excess heat and then gradually releasing it. Samsung had introduced the Samsung T7 series of portable SSDs earlier this year and we got a chance to review the 1TB version. Christopher Coke Posted: Aug 4, 2020 4:00 PM Category: Hardware Reviews 0. The Samsung Portable SSD T7 is available in three different anodized colors: Indigo Blue, Titan Gray, and Metallic Red. It’s AES 256-bit encrypted password protection with built-in touch sensor put it over the top though. The T7 is minuscule compared with any portable hard drive, and it's similar in size to the smallest external SSDs, including the T7 Touch, the Thunderbolt-based Samsung Portable SSD X5, the ADATA SE800, and the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD. As mentioned, Samsung’s T7 comes in three color options and we have been sampled Indigo Blue today. It's designed to keep the surface temperature below 45 degrees C (113 degrees F), and it seems to have done the trick. With sleek styling and performance of up to about 10 Gbps read / write, it both looks and performs fast. Features and Specifications. Samsung’s T7 measures 85 x 57 x 8mm, weighs in at just 58 grams. Powering the T7 touch is Samsung’s latest DRAMless NVMe controller, inscribed “Pablo” on the package. Samsung sent across a review unit of their new T7 SSD and boy is it fast or what! The T7 comes in a full metal body closure that not only looks sleek but is also what gives the device its physical durability and aids it in cooling. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You will receive a verification email shortly. It supports S.MA.R.T. And so, onward to our benchmark results. The Bottom Line. The tests below were run on our desktop SSD testbed and on a 2016 MacBook Pro. © Samsung's Portable SSD T7 is a crowd-pleasing, compact external drive with strong security (256-bit AES hardware encryption) and a rough-and-tumble aluminum chassis. Sporting a sleek and slim design, the T7 leverages the USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface and offers a speedy physical alternative to store digital projects and redundancy for backups coupled with the Cloud. (We recently tested the 2020 version of the SanDisk Extreme Pro SSD at read and write speeds of 1,909MBps and 1,919MBps, respectively.). You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time. Ultimately, the T7 Touch is everything we'd expect from a Samsung SSD. Furthermore, our 2TB model interfaces with thirty-two 512Gb dies of Samsung’s 92L TLC V5 V-NAND flash. The company also embedded the management software on the device. © 1996-2021 Ziff Davis, LLC. That means for moving a few massive files, the T7 Touch just flies; it’s crazy fast. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product or service, we may be paid a fee by that merchant. Buy Samsung 1TB Portable SSD T7 (Black) MU-PC1T0K/WW online. PCMag Digital Group. Samsung claims that the T7 Touch is twice as fast as the T5. Most recently, the T5 has been the go-to choice for those who need reliable, compact, fast portable storage. Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for SAMSUNG T7 Touch Portable SSD 2TB - Up to 1050MB/s - USB 3.2 External Solid State Drive, Silver (MU-PC2T0S/WW) at Amazon.com. With optional to use AES 256-bit encrypted password protection, it is not only fast, but it is also secure, too. The Samsung Portable SSD T7 (starts at $109.99 for 500GB; $369.99 for the 2TB version tested) saves you money by skipping the fingerprint reader and is available in a … The T7 comes preformatted in the exFAT file format, which means it should work with Windows, macOS, and Android without any reformatting needed on the user's part. We will cover its sustained write performance a bit more on the next page. However, it commanded a premium price given the innovative design. (See how we test SSDs.). If you don't need the biometric bulletproofing of fingerprint security, there's no sense in paying extra for it. The Samsung Portable SSD T7 (starts at $109.99 for 500GB; $369.99 for the 2TB version tested) saves you money by skipping the fingerprint reader and is available in a … Performance of the T7 Touch comes in the fourth spot in our charts at 85.3%. As Analyst for printers, scanners, and projectors, Tony Hoffman tests and reviews these products and provides news coverage for these categories. Interfacing the SSD with the host is an ASMedia ASM 2362 PCIe Gen3 x2 NVMe 1.3c to USB 3.2 Gen2 bridge chip. The WD My Passport SSD has a similarly basic set of durability features. 1) 1GB=1,000,000,000 bytes, 1TB=1,000,000,000,000 bytes. Samsung’s T7 is a portable SSD that blends security with 10Gbps performance for those on the go. The T7 uses AES 256-bit hardware encryption, which is nearly unbreakable provided you use a strong password. I have a 4-year old Western Digital portable HDD and the T7 Touch literally sucker punches it to oblivion in almost every parameter that I can think of. Today's best Samsung T7 Portable 1TB SSD and deals, We check over 130 million products every day for the best prices, Where to Buy an RTX 3060 (or 3060 Ti), 3070, 3080 or 3090, Get This 24-inch Acer Nitro Gaming Monitor for $70 off, Nvidia Intros Resizable BAR Support with RTX 3060 Cards and 30 Series Laptops, Biden Orders Extensive 100-Day Review of Critical American Supply Chains, Customizable Framework Laptop Lets You Pick Ports, Reduces E-Waste, USB Type-C to Type-C & USB Type-C to USB Type-A, Titan Gray (T) / Indigo Blue (H) / Metallic Red (R). Tony’s work as an amateur photographer has appeared on various Web sites. The Samsung T7’s starting price of $129.99 is only $32 more than the MSRP of the T5. Samsung’s T7 features the company’s TurboWrite SLC cache acceleration technology all other SSDs share. The best portable SSD for editing videos and photos. https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/samsung-portable-ssd-t7. Obviously, the only downside is the higher price point of SSDs compared to HDDs. In addition to the three color options, Samsung’s T7 is available in capacities of 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB. But while the WD drive—like the more ruggedized SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD—is backed by a five-year warranty, the Samsung's warranty is only for three years. Samsung's T-lineup portable media has been increasingly popular over the years. The Samsung T7 supports the Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) data transfer protocol for accessing SSDs over a PCI Express bus, which helps ensure fast transfer rates. The Portable SSD T7 has a USB Type-C port on one end. Samsung addresses this in the T7 by including a phase-change layer—which absorbs and then gradually releases heat—next to the drive's circuit board. The T7 has a blue colored power indicator light so, when you plug it in, you know it is working. Please refresh the page and try again. New York, The T7 is a cost-effective choice as a mainstream pocket SSD, whether for a business traveler or for housing a home media library. To reach maximum read/write speeds of up to 1,050/1,000 MB/s, … And, in terms of speed, Samsung rates the T7 to hit speeds of up to 1,050/1,000 MBps read/write over a USB 3.2 Gen 2 10Gbps link. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York and is a regular columnist for the club’s newsletter, Eyepiece. It’s thinner, a significantly faster reader, and it … However, due to the DRAMless architecture, performance lags most of the competition. The T7 is a small aluminum rectangle with rounded edges, measuring 0.3 by 3.3 by 2.2 inches (HWD)—the length and width of a credit card, though considerably thicker—and weighing just 2 ounces. Samsung includes two premium 18-inch long USB cables with the T7, one USB 3.2 Gen 2 USB C to A cable and one USB 3.2 Gen 2 USB C to C cable. If you have an Android device, Samsung also provides a mobile app for use on smartphones and tablets. As a USB 3.2 Gen 2 device, the T7 is rated to achieve sequential read speeds of 1,050MBps and sequential write speeds of 1,000MBps. You really can't go wrong with a T7 … Samsung's Portable SSD T7 Touch scored our PCMag Editors' Choice award and Best of the Year honors as the top external solid-state drive for 2020, largely on the strength of its fingerprint-based security system. Installers for the Windows and Mac versions of the software come already loaded on the drive, while the Android app can be downloaded from the Google Play Store on devices running Android 5.0 (Lollipop) or later. 4) Performance may vary depending on host configuration. The Crucial X8, for example, posted an identical score in the read test and a slightly better 953MBps for writes, while the Samsung T7 Touch was very similar, at 952MBps read and 960MBps write. Visit our corporate site. The latter is a thoughtful addition, since it means you won't need to buy an adapter or dongle if you're connecting the device to a rectangular USB Type-A port. Samsung claims that the T7 is two times faster than the T5 which is a good improvement. The Samsung T7 is a great portable storage solution that is tiny, super fast, lightweight and most of all secure. Sign up for What's New Now to get our top stories delivered to your inbox every morning. It's a tiny, handy storage device with solid performance for its class, and while it lacks the convenience of the T7 Touch's biometric security, its strong password-protected encryption should be more than adequate to protect your data. He specializes in landscapes (natural and manmade). In addition to editing, Tony has written articles on digital photography and reviews of digital cameras, PCs, and iPhone apps Prior to joining the PCMag team, Tony worked for 17 years in magazine and journal production at Springer-Verlag New York. PCMag.com is a leading authority on technology, delivering Labs-based, independent reviews of the latest products and services. Get instant access to breaking news, in-depth reviews and helpful tips. The display of third-party trademarks and trade names on this site does not necessarily indicate any affiliation or the endorsement of PCMag. And the integrated fingerprint sensor on the Touch version is a … As is usual with most portable SSDs, Samsung’s T7 doesn’t come with an endurance rating or an IP rating, but it comes backed by a rather short 3-years warranty. Samsung's Portable SSD T7 Touch scored our PCMag Editors' Choice award and Best of the Year honors as the top external solid-state drive for 2020, largely on the strength of its fingerprint-based security system. You can also choose a 1TB drive for $189.99 or the 500GB model for $109.99. crowd-pleasing, compact external drive with strong security (256-bit AES hardware Samsung’s Portable SSD Software can be used on both Windows and Mac systems for setting up the password protection and receiving the latest firmware updates. For us this is something strange to see when the company keeps touting their superior reliability, yet competitors like SanDisk’s Extreme offers up a premium 5-year warranty and IP55 water-dust resistance. 2) Compatible with USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 3) Exact weight of product may vary by capacity. Some external SSDs, such as the WD My Passport SSD, come with such an adapter, but you'll probably find a cable preferable as adapters are small and easily misplaced. Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology. The build hits all the right notes and delivers a cutting-edge product that meshes modern style with next-level performance and security. Samsung pioneered this cell-stacking approach, which essentially involves multiple layers of cells instead of just a single layer. Next to the port is a tiny status light, which shines blue when the drive is connected and blinks when a data transfer is in progress. It also uses triple-bit multi-level cell (MLC) flash memory technology. Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera, or Safari: Which Browser Is Best? The Samsung Portable SSD T7 (starts at $109.99 for 500GB; $369.99 for the 2TB version tested) saves you money by skipping the fingerprint reader and is available in a different set of colors. Still, if you are looking for a speedy and secure portable SSD, Samsung’s T7 is well worth your consideration at a much lower cost per GB than the Touch variant. Dynamic Thermal … The slim and compact design of the aluminum metal case offers enhanced durability and mobility. I tried out the software on the drive with a Dell XPS 13 running Windows 10. Samsung SSD T7 Review written by Lyle Smith July 23, 2020 The Samsung SSD T7 is the latest model of the company’s flagship portable SSD line. The T7 also employs the latest thermal management technologies. Lower capacity may be demonstrated by your computer due to use of a different measurement standard. Offering excellent performance and easy-to-use security, Samsung's credit-card-sized, fingerprint-reading Portable SSD T7 Touch is a versatile external solid-state drive. We have been big fans of the T series line up right from the T1 SSD 5 years ago, and it is a very refined product line from Samsung. In our sequential read and write testing using the Crystal DiskMark 6.0 utility, the T7’s scores of 958MBps read and 921MBps write were a bit short of its rated speeds but on par for its class, in the middle of a narrow range of scores turned in by a pack of solid-state drives with USB 3.2 Gen 2 connectivity. Even when transferring 300GB worth of files, the drive never got uncomfortably warm. Featuring Samsung’s latest 92-layer TLC V5 V-NAND flash and a DRAMless NVMe controller Samsung’s T7 is a cost effect portable SSD that will suit the needs of many. Samsung will be offering the Portable SSD T7 Touch three capacities, ranging from 500GB on up to 2TB, in both black and silver finishes – we’ve got a … Current page: Samsung’s Portable SSD T7 Touch is the next generation of fast, safe, and stylish external storage. There was a problem. Samsung’s Portable SSD T7 Touch is a very nice upgrade to the older T5 (which will still be available). Color choices include gray, blue, and red. https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-t7-portable-ssd-review A tiny—yet capable and secure—external SSD. It lacks a formal ingress protection (IP) rating, meaning it has not been tested for water or dust resistance. Samsung’s T7 Touch portable SSD is an innovative, secure, simple-to-use portable SSD. Future US, Inc. 11 West 42nd Street, 15th Floor, You will have to install the Samsung Portable SSD software to set a password. The Samsung T7 Touch is similar in size to the T5, but it is a tad bit longer, while at the same time losing some of the thickness of the T5. Samsung T7 Portable SSD Review NVMe on the Go. Nine percent of the NAND’s capacity is set aside for over-provisioning to help with bad block management and other background FTL tasks. The Editors' Choice-winning WD My Passport SSD had a higher read speed (1,066MBps), while the SanDisk Extreme SSD (2020) did a bit better in both read (1,072MBps) and write (1,044MBps). Price vs. Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. These are competitive prices for an SSD with PCI Express-based internals; the 500GB Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch costs about 26 cents per gig, while the 500GB WD My Passport runs about 24 cents per gig. With such a small mass, it still does a decent job of maintaining reasonable thermals. Keep an eye on your inbox! He is an active observer and astrophotographer, and a participant in online astronomy projects such as hunting for comets in images from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). It can withstand drops of up to two meters (6.6 feet). The Samsung T7 Touch is a small device, so it arrives in a compact box featuring the drive itself, a brief setup guide and warranty paperwork, and … That means there is a pool of SLC programmed NAND flash that is used to absorb inbound write requests. The company didn’t reveal any details about it, but based on the slower performance than our T7 Touch at 1TB, we believe it to be of a 4-channel design and possibly having three ARM Cortex R5 cores (read/write/host interaction) rather than five cores as per the 970 EVO Plus to help save on production costs. The T7 Touch is now available for purchase, and Samsung sent us a 500GB model for review purposes. Samsung provides both a USB-C cable and a Type-C-to-A cable in the box. A full review of the Samsung T7. Drives can be replaced, but your data can't, so as always, be sure to keep a separate backup. Tony has worked at PC Magazine since 2004, first as a Staff Editor, then as Reviews Editor, and more recently as Managing Editor for the printers, scanners, and projectors team. If you have a desktop, laptop, or smart device made in the last five years or so with a USB 3.x or Thunderbolt 3 port, the Samsung should be compatible with it, if not necessarily at its peak speeds. Even if you forget your password, it allowed you a second form of unlocking and it comes in two colors. Your subscription has been confirmed. At $369.99, the 2TB version of the drive we tested comes to 18.5 cents per gigabyte (before a limited-time discount to $279.99 on Samsung's website at this writing). 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