At a Glance: Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch Review

At a Glance: Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch Review

Samsung’s Portable SSD T7 Touch is an unusual entry into the external SSD market. Samsung prioritized security with this drive by designing it with a fingerprint sensor. Let’s take a closer look.

Design

The Portable SSD T7 Touch looks nearly identical to Samsung’s older Portable SSD T5 drives. Measuring just 0.3 x 3.3 x 2.2 inches and weighing in at a meager two ounces, this drive is exceedingly small and easy to carry around in your pocket. The key difference is the aforementioned fingerprint sensor, which takes the form of a noticeable square on one side of the drive.

At a Glance: Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch Review

You can configure the fingerprint sensor using Samsung’s Portable SSD software, which comes pre-loaded onto the drive. This will enable you to register multiple fingerprints and it also gives you the option of setting a password to access the drive. Afterward, you won’t be able to access any data on the SSD without first unlocking it via one of these two methods.

At a Glance: Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch Review

Utilizing a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, the Portable SSD T7 Touch supports transferring data at speeds of up to 1,050MB/s.

Benchmarks

Our sister site PCMag tested one of these drives against many similar products in a few benchmark tests. Starting with PCMag’s custom folder transfer test, the Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch performed fairly well and landed in second place.

At a Glance: Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch Review

The Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch also comes in second when tested with the BlackMagic 3.1 software with a large lead over several of the other tested drives. But the T7 pales in comparison with Samsung’s Portable SSD X5, which outperformed all competing drives with more than a 2x performance lead.

At a Glance: Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch Review

Conclusion

Samsung lists the 500GB model of its Portable SSD T7 Touch for sale at $129.99, whereas the 1TB model retails for $229.99. These prices are roughly average, with several external SSDs selling for both higher and lower than the T7 Touch.

At a Glance: Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch Review

If you are interested in the extra security features, Samsung’s Portable SSD T7 Touch is a sensible external SSD for the price. But if you just want an external SSD with solid performance and a more appetizing price tag, then consider either Adata’s SE800 1TB for $189.99 or Crucial’s X8 1TB for $164.95. Both offer similar performance at a lower price, which makes them better options if you aren’t as concerned about security.

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