Samsung T1 Portable SSD drive
Cloud storage is great. You can get access to a few gigabytes or even a full terabyte of storage for a monthly cost that is affordable. When pricing up traditional platter hard drives and their likely useful life versus the cost of cloud storage, usually the local storage solution is cheaper.
Cloud Drive Retrieval Is Often Slow
Another dirty little secret of cloud storage is that it is all very well for cloud providers to offer large amounts of storage but it you're paying by the megabyte for data transfer over a mobile network then the bandwidth costs will almost kill you. To use the cloud effectively you're really tied to a broadband Wi-Fi connection or you'll only be able to sync a few Word documents successfully and not much else. The transfer speeds are not always the greatest anyway, so getting the 500 MB of files back down from the cloud could literally take days or weeks if you don't run the calculations on it first before deleting those same files from your computer's hard drive.
File Not Always Stored Locally Due to Storage Constraints
For better or worse, cloud storage is also not so great when the internet is down. You can use features like Selective Sync to only sync certain files to your mobile device and keep the rest in the cloud to save local storage space on your smart phone or tablet, but the problem is when the net is down and you badly need to access that file that is only in the cloud. Then you're left scrambling to find a solution to that problem that you just created for yourself.
Local Storage Is Still An Excellent Option
Because of these reasons, cloud storage is not the end all and be all solution that cloud provides like Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and Box would have you think. There are times when local storage using external storage drives makes sense. It is truly portable. It can be plugged into any PC to access the files stored on the storage medium.
External USB Platter Hard Drives
The majority of external hard drives offering extra storage up to 4 Gbs need a USB 3.0 or USB 2.0 connection. This has to be a free port and not from a lower-powered USB hub to power the hard drive.
The drives are small, lightweight and are easy to travel with. The only issue with them is that traditional hard drives are inevitably fragile and travelling with all the bumps along the road can render them damaged at the other end of the journey. Enter the Samsung T1 SSD drive solution..
Samsung T1 500MB Portable SSD
Samsung has just released a cute little drive named Samsung T1 Portable SSD that is curved at either side, sleek clothed in black and plugs straight into your USB 3.0 port.
It is a solid state drive with a meaningful 500 MB capacity. Enough extra storage to fit a load of work files and other important documents, but not big file media.
3D Vertical NAND Technology
Samsung's own 3D Vertical NAND memory technology which stacks 32 cells on top of each other to remove previous interference delivers a 2.5-inch SATA SSD with up to 450 MB/s read and write times. This is competitive compared to other SSD drives and makes it the fastest portable drive available.
SATA to USB 3.0
There is a custom made SATA to USB 3.0 adapter card and a very short 11cm cable that lets the user plug directly from the their USB 3.0 port.
Measurements
The T1 500 MB model measures 71.0mm wide, 9.2mm thick and 53.2mm deep. The weight is not much more than a typical USB flash drive coming in at just 30 grams.
Mac and PC Compatible Out of the Box
The Samsung T1 will run with either a PC or a Mac computer due to using the cross-compatible exFAT file system rather than the typical NTFS Windows format that Mac users then have to reformat first before being able to use the drive.
Encryption Supported
Encryption is included as an option by using the supplied software. The AES 256-bit encryption is likely to be quite sufficient for almost all users. The drive can also be password protected before any access is possible which provides a double layer of security there.
Pricing
The Samsung T1 250 GB model retails for $180 with the 500 GB unit at $300. There is also a 1 TB version which is twice the cost at $600. A three year warranty is included with each drive which is okay for the smaller capacities but when laying down $600 for a 1 terabyte model it would have been nicer to have a longer guarantee than that.
Verdict
The Samsung T1 Portable SSD will be ideal for users who are road warriors, frequent travelers or digital nomads who would benefit from super fast additional storage on the road. A large capacity USB flash drive is another alternative but they do tend to go wrong suddenly with the loss of all data, pretty easy to leave behind in an internet cafe and can be misplaced all too easily too.
For people who want to storage large amount of media which won't suit cloud storage due to its size then the WD My Passport Ultra 2 GB portable hard drives are one of the best options currently and a good deal cheaper too. It just won't compare with the reading and writing file access speeds.
