- Portable Design with Internal SSD-level Performance
- Superfast Read-Write Speeds of up to 480 MB/s
- Shock Resistant & Secure Encryption
- Compatible with Windows, Mac, & Android OS
Great for expandable storage on small devices, but still not as fast as true SSDs
05/05/2016
This review is from: SAMSUNG T3 Portable 500GB USB 3.1 External Solid State Drive
Pros:
There's a lot to like about this drive, but don't buy it thinking you will get the same performance as your SSD in your laptop, PC or even newer PCIe smartphones. This drive comes close to maxing out USB 3.0 speeds but it is still limited by the USB 3/3.1 host controller and interface. The NAND and the controller may be the same as Samsung's 2.5" SSDs, but USB 3.0 limits overall performance and latency.
Performance is good, compared to some other drives I tested:
***Samsung T3 Portable 500GB
-Diablo 3: [Read MB/s] [Write 115-188 MB/s]
-CrystalMark [Read 422 MB/s] [Write 279 MB/s]
***Corsair Voyager
-Diablo 3: [Read 294 MB/s] [Write 165 MB/s]
-CrystalMark [Read 316 MB/s] [Write 179 MB/s]
***Sandisk Extreme II in Orico USB 3.0 enclosure
-Diablo 3: [Read 256 MB/s] [Write 224 MB/s]
-CrystalMark [Read 266MB/s] [Write 265 MB/s]
***Samsung 850 Pro SSD SATA3/6G
-Diablo 3: [Read 540 MB/s] [Write 515 MB/s]
-CrystalMark [Read 544 MB/s] [513 MB/s]
Interesting after about a minute of copying Diablo 3, the speed dropped down to 115MB/s which might have been due to thermal throttling. Overall the performance as you can see is good compared to external or USB 3.0/3.1 connected drives, but still much slower than standard PCIe or NVMe drives so don't expect a desktop replacement
Speeds on the 512GB version may be slower as I saw some online reviews showed the 2TB version will do 500MB/500MB R/W, while mine suffered from the typical lower write speed of having fewer channels and NAND modules to write to that lower capacity drives frequently endure.
+Size and quality is great. Its slightly bigger than a pack of Trident but not as big as a pack of Five gum. It has a partial metal enclosure to help with heat dissipation but it doesn't look like this is working that well.
+Cable quality is really nice, USB C connector is awesome as it is universal and can be inserted either way. Cable also has a small Velcro to let you wrap it neatly.
Cons:
-Not as fast as standard SSDs on PCIe.
-May throttle with extended read/writes?
-512GB version seems to have lower writes compared to higher capacities even though it is stated as up to 512GB/s
-You will need to buy or have a device that has USB C to USB C as this comes with only a USB C to USB B 3.1 cable.
Overall Review:
Overall a good product, but room for improvement. I think the main limitation is still the USB 3.0/3.1 controllers just can't handle the throughput of SSDs, but this may improve over time.
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