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 $150PHP 8,803INR 12,712EUR 143CNY 1,092 (Php6,750USD 115INR 9,751EUR 110CNY 838); the 500GB variant is $250PHP 14,671INR 21,187EUR 238CNY 1,820 (Php11,250USD 192INR 16,252EUR 183CNY 1,396) while the 1TB variant costs as much as $500PHP 29,343INR 42,375EUR 476CNY 3,639 (Php22,500USD 383INR 32,504EUR 365CNY 2,792).

Granted that these external storage are still pretty expensive compared to the regular ones that you can get for just around $50PHP 2,934INR 4,237EUR 48CNY 364 to $100PHP 5,869INR 8,475EUR 95CNY 728, 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.