Please stop buying portable SSDs based on the speed on the box

Over the years, I've had to buy a lot of external SSDs for myself and my wife, who is a professional video maker. You might think that one external SSD is a lot like another, but as I learned the hard way, there's more to it than just choosing the fastest or cheapest drive.

In reality, the key features listed on the box or online listing are often not all that important or relevant to your needs. For example, they tend to focus on maximum burst speed, which rarely matters for an external SSD. So today I've boiled down the most important criteria into three key factors.

Real sustainable speed, not theoretical maximums

Photo: Tim Rattray/How-To Geek

We tend to use internal and external SSDs differently. Of course, there's nothing wrong with using an external portable SSD for the same purposes you use an internal drive for. For example, I use external SSD drives with my laptops for storage Steam video game libraries. It works fine, but is clearly not as performant as the internal drive.

However, for most people, fast and consistent performance is important. How fast is the drive when you transfer 100GB of data to or from it? Because if after a few minutes it starts to slow down due to heat, a drive controller that can't keep up, or a lack of DRAM cache those peak numbers didn't mean much back then. Of course, the only way to know if this will happen is to find a good review that will involve constantly transferring large files as part of the assessment.

I think that in addition to the sustained level of performance required for your needs, write endurance is a key characteristic, particularly for external drives. Larger than the system disk. This is because SSDs primarily wear out by erasing and writing to memory cells, while external drives are used to transfer files, then erased, and then used again to transfer files. SSD drives are not suitable for long-term backup. For this, external mechanical hard drives are much better. Therefore, it is recommended to spend less on speed and more on a higher quality drive with a higher TBW (terabytes written).

Hardware encryption that doesn't get in the way

I don't care about keeping my Steam game installations private, but portable drives are constantly used to move confidential or sensitive information around. If I'm looking for a drive that can actually travel where it might get lost or be confiscated by airport security, then having built-in encryption is very important.

Then you're looking at something like Samsung T7 Touchwhich has built-in 256-bit hardware encryption. This means you don't have to worry about OS support or decryption overhead. You can still simply encrypt any drive using something like BitLocker to Go, but having hardware encryption on the drive itself means you can share the drive with more devices without any issues.

Reliability that matches how you actually use it

A Sandisk Extreme portable SSD next to the box.

I like to buy external drives that are rated for the job they are designed for. So the tiny metal SSD that fits in my MacBook's pocket doesn't need to be waterproof or drop-proof. The SSD that I connect to my camera or that my wife may use to shoot and store footage in the field can get wet or be dropped.

I'm a big fan buying cheap cases to convert internal SSDs which I have replaced with faster models and here you also have the option to choose robust housing if you need it without spending any money. Reusing old internal SSDs is a great idea anyway, unless they're too worn out, since the bottleneck for many NVMe drives over USB is still around 1GB/s (though newer devices and ports can double or triple that), and external SATA SSDs can stretch their legs and often approach the theoretical 600MB/s limit for that interface.

SanDisk Extreme PRO Portable SSD with USB4.

8/10

Storage capacity: 2 TB, 4 TB
Compatible Devices: Windows, Mac, Xbox Series S|X, PlayStation 5, a number of other USB-C devices.
Brand: SanDisk

Additionally, if you are purchasing an external NVMe enclosure to convert an old NVMe M.2 drive into an external one, you will need to use a model with a heatsink. Even if the cooling system is a metal SSD case. This is important not only to maintain performance, but also to avoid premature disk failure.

There are several other features on my list that I either ignore or actively discourage from purchasing the drive. Any frivolous things like RGB lighting seem like a waste of budget that could be spent on something useful like speed or durability. Likewise, I personally wouldn't pay for the fancy design and form factor for a portable SSD. I want it to work and last a long time, and not look like a fashion accessory!