Samsung Portable SSD T1 hands-on

Portable drives are already pretty common these days. They serve so many purpose that it has already become standard to have an external drive to go along with your desktop PC, laptop or tablet. If only they could make it smaller so it’s easier to take them around. Samsung accepted this challenge and introduced the T1 back in January.


The Samsung Portable SSD T1 is the smallest one we’ve seen. It is only around the size of a regular calling card (71 x 9.2 x 53.2mm) and weighs so light (30 grams) you would not think it can handle a storage capacity of up to 1TB.

Samsung uses their new 3D V-NAND technology to create a much smaller and lighter SSD component. This technology uses flash cells stacked vertically and 3-dimensional compared to the usual 2D Planar NAND technology. This is the same technology Samsung used when they released the 850 EVO and 850 Pro SSD last week.

With this form factor, one can carry around 1TB of storage comfortably inside the breast pocket or even inside your wallet.

The T1 also looks elegant with a simple black matte and glossy design encased in a heat-resistance polycarbonate shell.

I did not hesitate to purchase on at the duty free counter at the Incheon airport while enroute to the Philippines from our recent trip to the US.

The Samsung T1 comes in three capacities — 250GB, 500GB and 1TB. I got the 250GB variant which costs about $150 (Php6,750); the 500GB variant is $250 (Php11,250) while the 1TB variant costs as much as $500 (Php22,500).

Granted that these external storage are still pretty expensive compared to the regular ones that you can get for just around $50 to $100, the 250GB variant of the T1 seemed like a reasonable compromise.

We tested it out and the device worked flawlessly. It’s even much faster than the usual HDD and SSD we’ve used before. Samsung promises an average top speed of 450MB/s and based on our experience, the drive can easily reach that speed with continuous usage.

Using it is pretty straight forward although you have the option to use the accompanying software to help manage the security of the drive. This gives you the ability to password-protect the drive and secure sensitive information stored in the device.

It’s a nice feature but one has to be careful with this because once you forget your password, there’s no way to retrieve your encrypted files. The only way to be able to use the drive again is to bring it to a Samsung Service Center and use their software tool to erase/format the entire drive, including all your precious files.

The Samsung Portable SSD T1 is like the Ferrari of portable drives. You can always look elsewhere for cheaper and bulkier ones to carry around but if you have the moolah to spend, this is well worth it.

The Samsung T1 is not yet officially released in the Philippine but there is already a schedule for a local private preview this July 23. We think the device will be available in the country by the end of the month or next month.

Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

6 Responses

  1. Avatar for kingjsb kingjsb says:

    meron na bang 500gb sa pinas?

  2. Avatar for dj0502 dj0502 says:

    I think ang isa pang importanteng ipoint out ng article is yung hindi corrupt ang data sa drive kahit malaglag mo pa..

  3. Avatar for Zobel Zobel says:

    for that price makakabili ka na ng anim na 64 GB SD cards which is equal to 384 of GB storage.

    • Avatar for accel accel says:

      You’re comparing apples to oranges – a lame comparison!

      Looks like you’re missing the point of this product – speed and reliability. Guess you don’t even know that SSD data rates are miles ahead compared to the speed of thr fatest SD Card available on the market.

      Sure, the External SSD shown in this article may be way more expensive than your typical external HDD but at least you won’t risk losing data if you’re a klutz when it comes to handling things like these.

    • Avatar for eric jay eric jay says:

      Burn.

    • Avatar for tangamozobel tangamozobel says:

      Aba! May 6 na SD card slots ba yang laptop/computer mo? Paano kung pagma-mass-transfer ka ng isang folder containing na 200GB worth of movies, alangan namang icopy mo yung subfolders na kakasya lang sa 64GB, edi ang hassle.

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