Reviews |Samsung SSD T7 Shield 4TB Review

Samsung SSD T7 Shield 4TB Review

Item: Samsung SSD T7 Shield 4TB Review
Rating: 5
Author: Ali Jennings

Review

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Wednesday February 1, 2023

By Ali Jennings

Price when reviewed

£395

$335

Our Verdict

When I looked at the Samsung SSD T7 Shield last April, I was impressed; it was compact, lightweight, had a decent storage capacity and offered the transfer speeds I need for editing. Now, not quite a year on, Samsung has announced the Samsung SSD T7 Shield 4TB, an almost identical drive, just with a larger capacity.

The price is still high considering a 4TB standard drive will set you back as little as £80, although this is SSD rather the HDD, so a big difference on performance and robustness and ultimately it’s a great investment if you need those traits for your storag.

Putting the Samsung SSD T7 Shield 4TB through its paces connected to the MacBook Pro M1 16-inch, I couldn’t quite eek the top transfer rates highlighted by Samsung, but then those speeds will have been quoted for an ideal test environment, and those results that I did gain are still exceptional.

While there are other drives out there that are comparable when it comes to transfer rates, where the T7 Shield comes into its own is with consistency. Those transfer rates keep going for as long as you need with heat dissipated and speed held steady.

Considering the size and performance, I thought this portable drive was going to be tipping the balance at around the £500 mark, however, I was slightly taken aback when the final price finally landed in my inbox; it’s expensive but not eye-watering at £395. Overall a sound investment for those working with video.

For

Large capacity
Robust
Excellent transfer rates

Against

Relatively expensive

What is the Samsung SSD T7 Shield 4TB?

The Samsung SSD T7 Shield 4TB is the largest drive in the T7 range and offers videographers a powerful storage choice when recording or editing footage. The new drive follows the same form factor as the T7 Shield I looked at last year and, for the most part, is identical in dimensions, weight and performance. The only major difference is that the new release has a 4TB capacity.

As with the other T7 Shield drives, this one features a metal case encased in a protective rubber sleeve. The design is interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly the size and form make it easy to clamp onto a video cage with a special mount, available separately, then the drive is ready to be used as an external recording device for compatible cameras, such as those from Blackmagic Designs.

The performance of the drive also means that it’s an ideal solution as a working drive that can be used on location and offer transfer speeds that are more than fast enough for all HD and 4K video editing.

If you feel extravagant, you could use it as a mass storage drive, but that would be expensive.

What marks the T7 Shield 4TB out is that USB Type-C connection and BUS power still enable these fast transfer speeds that far exceed most other BUS-powered portable hard drives. The speeds quoted by Samsung are a read speed of 1,050MB/s and write speed of 1,000MB/s.

Samsung SSD T7 Shield 4TB review

The Samsung SSD T7 Shield 4TB has been designed as a fast, large storage solution for all videographers who need a robust, compact storage solution.

Specification

Capacity : 4TB
Weight : 98g
Dimensions : 88 x 59 x 13mm
Connection type: USB Type-C
Max Transfer Speed : 1050MB/s
Max Read speed : 1050MB/s
Max Write Speed : 1000MB/s
Drop resistant: 3 Meters
Water/Dust resistance: IP65

Performance

The last time I tested the T7 Shield, I found that the drive’s speed exceeded any of the memory card readers I use. Today that issue is still present, and checking the transfer rates from CFExpress, and SD cards once again proved that the drive could keep up with the transfer demands without issue.

One point to note is that when the drive arrived, it was formatted in the ExFat format, which restricted the performance on the Mac. Maximum transfer rates in the ExFat format showed around 500MB/s. However, after reformatting in APFS, the performance instantly leapt.

Samsung SSD T7 Shield 4TB review

Checking the speed with AJA System Test and with a resolution of 4096×3112 4K-Full, 1GB, Canon RAW resulted in the following transfer rates:

Read: 884MB/s
Write: 738MB/s

As before, I set the same test running for 12 hours and again checked the result, which was as follows:

Read: 886MB/s
Write: 689MB/s

Again as with the T7 Shield 1TB, the heat generated by the drive was moderate, with a good warmth coming off the drive, but nothing unusual.

After the software test, I used the drive for a editing projects, and while the transfer rates were shown by the software to be slower than the MacPro’s internal SSD, when editing 4K video, the speed was more than enough to keep up with the edits and grading comfortably.

Final Thoughts

My thoughts about the Samsung SSD T7 Shield 4TB remain the same as they did for the T7 Shield I looked at last year. Again I love the size of the small drive, which makes it easy to clip to the side of a cageor dangles from your computer’s USB without straining the port, although not advised.

With the drive safely resting on a desk surface, the transfer rates when copying files across from memory cards were as fast as the card readers would allow. From the desktop to the drive, that was where the speed of transfer was really put to the test, but still the contents copied across quickly.

To put that speed into context, I copied 118.9GB of images, both JPG and RAW, from a Canon EOS R5 C and Sony A7 III from the MacBook hard drive to the T7 Shield 4TB in 2 minutes and 30 seconds, so around 811MB/s which is impressive.

What’s more, is that even though it’s not quite a year since I looked at the T7 Shield, the price of £395 seems a little more palatable even though its still expensive for 4TB of storage. The Samsung SSD T7 Shield 4TB feels a little more reasonable than the £134 for the 1TB version possibly because I feel that 4TB is that balancing point when that capacity becomes really useful, enough to store, backup and edit or film for the day without worrying about running out of storage. Samsung SSD T7 Shield 4TB review

Like the T7 Shield a year ago, the 4TB version works exceptionally well, but what makes it stand out is its robustness and reliability, essential traits for any storage solution I’m going to use out in the field.