At a lookSkilled’s Score
Professionals
- Good efficiency
- Textured, sculpted floor supplies an excellent grip
- 5-year guarantee
Cons
- Dear
- Floor tends to seize mud and detritus
- No IP ranking
Our Verdict
As soon as the worth drops a bit, this high-quality, luxurious-feeling, good-performing, exterior 20Gbps USB SSD will little question be one in all our favorites.
Value When Reviewed
1TB: $140 I 2TB: $240 I 4TB: $440
The newest in a collection of fantastic transportable SSDs that began round eight years in the past with the T1, Samsung’s T9 is the primary to convey SuperSpeed USB 20Gbps efficiency to the desk.
When you’re blessed with such a port (nee USB 3.2 2×2), it can practically double the sustained throughput of the older T7. (Solely odd numbers are utilized in Samsung’s numbering for the collection.)
Alas, in comparison with different 20Gbps drives, the T9 is merely a middle-of-the-pack performer. However it additionally supplies probably the most luxe tactile expertise of the pack with its textured floor and sculpted traces.
Additional studying: See our roundup of the perfect transportable exhausting drives and SSDs to find out about competing merchandise.
Design & Options
The Samsung T9 is a 20Gbps USB SSD that makes use of NVMe internals, and sports activities a USB Sort C port for connectivity. Samsung supplies each Sort-A to Sort-C and Sort-C to Sort-C cables.
The SSD measures 3.46-inches lengthy by 2.36-inches vast, and 0.55-inches thick. It weighs in at a mere 4.3 ounces. The internals are positively NVMe-based as SATA might by no means surpass 550MBps, not to mention obtain the practically 2GBps that the T9 is able to.
Samsung was mum in regards to the controller and precise drive inside, but when I needed to guess, I’d go 970 Evo Plus or an replace on that given the worth and efficiency, which you’ll be able to examine under.
A cross-platform utility is offered by the corporate to show password safety on and off. The utility is required to entry the drive when password safety is enabled.
Whereas not the quickest exterior USB SSD on the market, the T9 isn’t any slouch, and we actually like its 48GB switch occasions.
As for the T9’s textured, sculpted countenance (see the lead photograph), it makes the drive really feel very good and supplies a positive grip each within the hand and whereas rested on a clean floor. The down aspect to the texturing, nonetheless, is that the drive collects mud, lint, and different schmutz at a close to file tempo. Tidying it up for the photographs was a little bit of a chore.
It’s drop examined to 3 meters however carries no IP ranking for mud and waterproofing.
The T9 is warrantied for 5 years, although no TBW rankings (terabytes which may be written) have been offered. In our expertise, given cheap utilization, distributors will honor the guarantee time interval regardless.
Efficiency
The T9 is a efficiency leap past the 10Gbps Samsung T7 Contact and T7 Protect we’ve reviewed. However it’s not near the quickest 20Gbps SSD we’ve examined. That might be the mighty Essential X10 Professional.
As you may see under, the 2TB T9 we examined turned in good, if not stellar CrystalDiskMark 8 scores. Sequential efficiency was a bit up and down, however fairly good general.
The T9 was once more a combined bag with CrystalDiskMark 8 4K efficiency. It was aces on the 32-queue learn, however the single-queue learn and 32-queue write have been noticeably missing in oomph.
The place the T9 dominated over the Kingston XS2000 and Teamgroup M200 was in our 48GB transfers. Shaving nearly 100 seconds off these drives’ occasions within the combination.
The T9 took third place amongst 20Gbps drives within the 450GB write. Its time of 8 minutes and 23 seconds wasn’t nice, however it wasn’t as tragic because the Kingston XS2000’s efficiency. The T9 turned in an honest sufficient rating reflecting an general write charge of round 900MBps.
Whereas not the quickest exterior USB SSD on the market, the T9 isn’t any slouch, and we actually like its 48GB switch occasions.
Samsung touts the T9’s low energy utilization and thermal output. Whereas the drive was heat after our testing, it was by no means uncomfortable to the touch — one other plus for the silicon sleeve.
Value
The T9 will probably be accessible in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities for $140/£176, $240/£269, and $440/£481, respectively, on the time of this writing. You should purchase it from Amazon.
These are the MSRP’s offered by the corporate. You might even see totally different costs on-line. Be aware that some unscrupulous on-line sellers will attempt to cost significantly extra when drives are model new and in demand.
Must you purchase the Samsung T9?
We recognize Samsung’s historical past of delivering quick, dependable exterior USB SSDs. We’ve come to treat these drives as one thing of a regular. Nonetheless, on the time of this writing, Essential’s 4TB X10 Professional is simply $290, making the T9 appear overpriced.
This will likely change quickly. Regardless, for those who go for the T9, it can get the job finished, and in luxe style.
How we check
Drive exams presently make the most of Home windows 11 (22H2) 64-bit working on an X790 (PCIe 5.0) motherboard/i5-12400 CPU combo with two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 modules (64GB of reminiscence complete). Intel built-in graphics are used. The 48GB switch exams make the most of an ImDisk RAM disk taking over 58GB of the 64GB complete reminiscence. The 450GB file is transferred from a Samsung 990 Professional 2TB, which additionally incorporates the working system. For exterior drives, the motherboard’s devoted Thunderbolt 4 and 20Gbps USB ports on the rear panel are used.
Every check is carried out on a newly formatted and TRIM’d drive so the outcomes are optimum. Be aware that as any drive fills up, efficiency will lower as a consequence of much less NAND for secondary caching, and different elements.
The efficiency numbers proven apply solely to the drive we have been shipped in addition to the capability examined. SSD efficiency can fluctuate by capability as a consequence of extra or fewer chips to learn/write throughout and the quantity of NAND accessible for secondary caching (writing TLC/QLC as SLC). Distributors additionally often swap elements.
When you ever discover a big discrepancy between the efficiency you expertise and that which we report (techniques being roughly equal), by all means—tell us.
