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If you are on the hunt for a fast and consistent 10 GBps portable SSD for your professional media editing workflow, look elsewhere. Samsung’s T7 isn’t the fastest portable SSD going by a long shot. While SSDs like the more expensive LaCie Rugged SSD and SanDisk Extreme Pro can sustain almost any write workload at full speed, but time and time again, the 2TB T7 trailed the competition due to its DRAMless architecture. Not only that, but the company’s T7 is even slower at the more expensive 2TB capacity than the 1TB T7 Touch we reviewed at the beginning of the year.
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That said, it still provides ample performance for most business users and will provide am much more responsive user experience than any HDD out there. One of the biggest selling points for the T7’s password protection. No matter if the device is stolen by a random thief or even by most government agencies, the hardware-based AES 256-bit encryption will keep your data safe from prying eyes. Samsung’s T7 just isn’t as convenient as the T7 Touch without the well-designed touch sensor.
Additionally, with support for Windows, Mac, and Android-based systems, Samsung’s T7 boats compatibility with almost any device out. Regardless of the interface or system, we used in testing, Samsung’s T7 just worked. The connection also remained stable no matter what the transfer and temperatures remained well within a reasonable range, unlike some of the Thunderbolt 3 devices we have tested in the past.
We liked that Samsung provides purchasers with premium cables for the T7 though. Measuring 18,” they suit almost anyone's needs and allow for versatile positioning whether you use the device on your desktop, laptop, or tablet PC. The multiple color options are a big plus over competitors as well. Rarely do portable storage devices allow you to choose your own style in such variety. Besides the few cons against the T7, it’s still a solid performing option for those on the go. While it isn’t the fastest portable SSD going, its performance is more than acceptable for most, sustaining speeds of up to 1 GBps reach way.
Considering the company touts its reliability above everyone else with a dominating marketing share over the past decade, Samsung’s T7 comes up rather short on warranty support, though. With a short three-year warranty, the T7 lacks the support of more premium options that come with longer five-year warranties. The cheaper price over the T7 Touch helps but isn’t enough to help its value proposition qualify it as the best of the best. Additionally, while TurboWrite can help endurance quite a bit, regardless of it and the fact that Samsung’s most advanced V-NAND being used on the T7, the three-year warranty just goes to show you how much the DRAMless architecture impacts reliability and holds the device back.
