The Samsung SSD T7 Shield is the latest portable drive from the electronics giant. In the past, we’ve been impressed by the build and performance of the T drives, and this latest version looks set to far exceed any drive that has come before.
We were lucky enough to test out the Samsung SSD T7 prior to today’s release and put it through its paces, using it as a storage drive for the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema 6K and a working drive editing video on the latest MacBook Pro M1 Pro.
You can read the Samsung SSD T7 Shield review.
The T7 drive is directly aimed at video professionals with two capacity options, either 1 or 2TB. The price difference between the two in the UK is steep, with the 1TB going on sale for £134 while the 2TB version £250.
For a drive aimed directly at the professional user, it’s nice to see a bit of choice in colour, with a Black, Beige and Blue option available.
What makes the drive stand out is the ultra-compact form. This drive weighs in at just 98.5g and measures 13 x 88.15. 59mm. Unlike other small portable drives, Samsung has looked at the protection and durability of the drive, so rather than the usual hard-cased rectangular drive, a tough rubber sleeve surrounds the metal case. The shape is also contoured, and this design is all to help with the drive cooling, even when under load.
Samsung has managed to keep the drive small by using the NVMe drive, an ultrafast variant of SSD that enables transfer rates through a USB 3.2 Gen2 Interface (Type-C) up to 10Gbps.
This means that the drive can perform impressive read speeds of up to 1,050MB/s and write Speeds of up to 1,000MB/s. This transfer rate is 1.9 times faster than SSDs and 9.5 times faster than HDDs.
As already mentioned, the style of the drive is designed for heavy and continual tasks, which means that those transfer speeds remain much the same over long periods of use, whereas often, a drive’s performance will drop as the components get hot.
This cool-running will especially interest those videographers who use external drives to store their footage while filming.
As the new Samsung SSD T7 is designed to be used in the field, the company has invested heavily in the durability of the drive. Enhanced strength and durability see the drive meet IP65 certification, and it can withstand drops from up to 3 meters.
As larger drives can be power-hungry, the T7 features power-efficient USB power specifications, which are ideal for high sustained write performance required for 8 and 12K video.
Along with the drive, Samsung has included two software solutions. The first is Samsung Portable SSD software 1.0, designed to protect your data. This software is available for PC, Mac and Android and enables you to lock the drive with a password securely.
Samsung Magician Software is designed to provide information about the drive, name, health, temperature, capacity, security and firmware updates, and this software is only available for windows.
The Samsung SSD T7 Shield 1TB version will go on sale for £134, while the 2TB version will be £250.