HWM+HardwareZone.com Tech Awards 2018: Editor's Choice - Part 2

Best Portable External Drive

Best Portable External Drive

As a result of falling SSD prices, portable external SSDs have also become more affordable. In the year of 2017, we have seen more portable external SSDs entering the market, offering users external storage solutions that are almost as fast as their internal SSDs.

To make the cut for this category, the portable external SSD must be offered in capacities of 500GB and greater and must support USB 3.0 or above.

Nominees:

• ADATA SE730H
• Samsung Portable SSD T5
• WD My Passport SSD

And the winner is...

The Samsung Portable SSD T5 is our pick because of its compact stylish design and outstanding performance. In our benchmarking tests, we found that it was easily the quickest drive by a fair margin. It also comes with two cables (USB and USB-C) so it works with just about any device. The icing on the cake is that it also features an easy to use app that secures your drive against unauthorized access. So even though it is slightly pricier than its rivals, we feel that its premium is justified and that, overall, it is the most ideal portable external SSD for most users.

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed in the References section at the end.