SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD 1TB up to 550MB/s read Solid State Drive

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In a bigger-picture sense, SSDs (which have no moving parts) have largely made the notion of a "fast" hard drive a bit old-fashioned. Even the slowest external SSD is faster than a 7,200rpm hard drive, often several times over, depending on what you're transferring and measuring. Also know that you can find external drives that do way more than just store your data. Some include SD card readers to offload footage from a camera or drone in the field, while a few specialized models have built-in Wi-Fi and can double as a little media server, able to connect to more than one device at a time.

Over the Type-C connection you get sequential read speeds of 1090MB/sec and write speeds of 1050MB/sec, although these drop to 469MB/sec and 461MB/sec over the slower Type-A. Random read/write speeds are speedy either way, peaking at 262MB/sec and 241MB/sec. While it’s not in the same league for speed as the fastest USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 SSDs, it’s an effective all rounder at a price more of us can afford. Perhaps the only thing you don't need to pay all that much attention to is the warranty. Sounds counter-intuitive, perhaps? Sure, a long warranty is nice. But if your drive breaks because you dropped it, the warranty likely won't cover that, anyway. Even if the drive fails because of a manufacturing defect, most warranties simply replace the drive and don't cover the cost of recovery services that attempt to rescue your data from the broken drive. The real value lies in what's on your drive, not the drive itself. Still, while external SSDs are cheaper than they were a few years ago (see the best we've tested at the preceding link), they're far from a complete replacement for spinning drives. Larger external drives designed to stay on your desk or in a server closet still almost exclusively use spinning-drive mechanisms, taking advantage of platter drives' much higher capacities and much lower prices compared with SSDs.Beyond that, USB 3.2 (the speed specification) comes in two primary (and one rarer) flavors as of this writing: "Gen 1" and "Gen 2." The iteration called "USB 3.2 Gen 2" has a maximum theoretical interface speed of 10Gbps. (Few single external devices can saturate that interface, even most solid-state drives.) "USB 3.2 Gen 1," on the other hand, is identical in maximum potential speed to old, familiar USB 3.0. (Confusing, we know.) There's also the uncommon 20Gbps "USB 3.2 Gen 2x2," an interface found in some high-speed external SSDs and using USB Type-C ports exclusively. To get its full speed benefits, you need a computer that specifically supports it, or else need to get a compatible expansion card or motherboard. Do you care more about speed, capacity, or price? If it’s the first, SSDs store data in flash memory rather than on spinning platters the way traditional hard drives do and thus operate a whole lot faster. The interface can also make a difference; Thunderbolt 3 will be a lot faster than USB, for example.

Given that even our fastest USB Type-C drive – the Kingston XS2000 – could only reach 2GB/sec over USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, that’s extremely impressive. From editing 4K, or even 8K, video to gaming, there’s nothing that this drive can’t handle. We devote hundreds of hours of rigorous testing to help make sure your drive is worthy of your best work — and so you know your precious files are in good hands. Most portable external SSDs aren't expressly advertised as rugged, though ADATA, LaCie, SanDisk, and a few others do offer such drives, with caps to cover their ports to protect their innards from moisture. But in a general sense, any portable SSD should hold up to drops and being jostled around in a bag better than almost any traditional portable hard drive. If that's the extent of the extra protection you're after, a portable SSD, rugged or not, is enticing, particularly if you don't need lots of storage space. READ NEXT: Best SSD: Give your computer a speed boost The best external hard drives you can buy in 2023 1. Seagate One Touch: The best cheap USB hard drive This means that much of the speed will be wasted on the Xbox Series S/X and PS5 consoles, where the P50 could be used to store games you aren’t playing or run last-generation titles. On a fast PC with the right connection, though, it’s an absolute beast. It’s also happy working in the most demanding content creation apps, making it one powerful and versatile external drive.Once you complete the steps, the system will proceed to create a new volume with a partition and a drive letter. Fixing drive with an unsupported file system