Active Stocks
Thu Mar 28 2024 15:19:25
  1. Tata Steel share price
  2. 155.75 1.90%
  1. ICICI Bank share price
  2. 1,091.10 0.65%
  1. HDFC Bank share price
  2. 1,446.15 0.38%
  1. ITC share price
  2. 429.05 0.25%
  1. Power Grid Corporation Of India share price
  2. 275.85 1.77%
Business News/ News / Business Of Life/  Reviews: Samsung Portable SSD T1, Seagate Seven, Seagate Wireless Mobile Storage
BackBack

Reviews: Samsung Portable SSD T1, Seagate Seven, Seagate Wireless Mobile Storage

Portable drives have become faster and slimmer, and some work well with tablets and phones too

Premium


NEW DELHI :

The latest generation of external storage devices do not test your patience while copying a video file or a big folder. We review a unique portable solid-state drive (SSD)-based storage device, an extremely slim drive, and one that connects wirelessly to PCs, tablets and phones.

Samsung Portable SSD T1

12,000 (250 GB)/ 18,000 (500 GB)/ 35,000 (1 TB)

This is a one-of-its-kind device—there are no portable SSDs for consumers. They have only been used so far in laptops and PCs.

The T1 is tiny—71x 53.2x 9.2mm. And it is light too, weighing just 30g. It has a plastic body, and you’ll have to be careful when putting it in the bag—a heavier object, such as a laptop or a DSLR camera, can dent it. But the data remains secure since there are no moving parts in the drive.

When you plug this in, a software runs on the T1. It lets you set up the drive—format, name and password. The format adjusts to your device, be it Windows or Mac.

The flash memory cells are stacked vertically in up to 32 layers, which offer more storage capacity. The TurboWrite technology alters the pattern that external drives usually follow while copying data. In the T1, the data is first copied to a buffer zone and then moved to a permanent storage location when the drive is in idle mode. Simply put, the transfer of data to the drive is much quicker.

During our tests, the T1 exhibited the kind of performance we have not seen from a portable storage drive. The transfer speeds peaked at 300 MB/s (megabyte per second) but generally stabilized at around a zippy 130 MB/s. Hard-drive based storage doesn’t come close.

The Samsung Portable SSD T1 is extremely fast. This sort of performance is ideal for business users and even some video-editing on the go. But the rest of us might want to hold off till SSDs become still more affordable.

9,500 (500 GB)

The Seven is a stainless-steel clad portable drive just 7mm thin. It’s thinner than most smartphones and is available in just the 500 GB variant, because the internal space restrictions mean that higher capacity storage cannot be fitted in—the internal drive is just 5mm thin. The hard drive inside the Seven is placed on an aluminium housing, which means that the device can survive a number of drops and impacts without any data loss.

It comes pre-formatted in the exFAT (extended file allocation table) format, which makes it compatible with Windows and Macs. However, exFAT drives are not compatible with some smart TVs—in case you are planning on plugging this into the TV regularly, we would recommend reformatting this to NTFS (the new technology file system). The Seven still manages to churn out decent data copy speeds. While we noticed a momentary spike to 140 MB/s, the transfer speeds were usually stable at around 70 MB/s.

The Seven is a beautiful take on an otherwise boring gadget, but you do pay a premium for just 500 GB space. It’s perfect only if you aren’t going to carry a lot of data.

10,500 (500 GB)

The Wireless Mobile Storage has a rather unique design—it resembles the cases used to store CDs earlier. It is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, but doesn’t really feel very premium, either to look at or to touch. It is heavy too, tipping the scales at 280g.

But it isn’t short on features. The built-in wireless connectivity allows it to be used with tablets and phones too (through the free Seagate Media app). It’s compatible with Apple’s AirPlay and Google’s Chromecast media-streaming methods. This is a USB 2.0 drive, which means it is not very fast. In our data transfer tests, the speeds were a rather modest 16 MB/s. Switch to wireless, and the speed drops another 20%.

While we appreciate the design and simplicity, it is a bit perplexing that Seagate has gone with the slower USB 2.0 interface. If you really need something to attach wirelessly with your phone or tablet, we would recommend Seagate’s own Wireless Plus Mobile drives.

Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!

Catch all the Business News, Market News, Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
More Less
Published: 04 Aug 2015, 07:59 PM IST
Next Story footLogo
Recommended For You
Switch to the Mint app for fast and personalized news - Get App