Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Computers & Peripherals => Topic started by: dseelig on August 23, 2020, 12:06:56 pm

Title: Need portable ssd 2 tb
Post by: dseelig on August 23, 2020, 12:06:56 pm

Need portable ssd 2 tb which brand  is best to use?

Title: Re: Need portable ssd 2 tb
Post by: Joe Towner on August 23, 2020, 01:00:17 pm

USB/USB-C or TB3?

USB/USB-C would be a SATA SSD, while a TB3 can be a NVMe SSD (faster).  If you're looking at 2.5" drives in a case, Crucial/Samsung/WD/SanDisk.  If you want to get the external models, Crucial/Samsung/SanDisk are all good. For TB3, the OWC Envoy models are good, and the new Express is a BYO NVMe drive.

I tend to prefer units that I can swap drives in & out of - I have a stack of 2.5" drives & carriers. If there's an issue I can pull the drive and use another reader.

Title: Re: Need portable ssd 2 tb
Post by: Eric Brody on August 27, 2020, 11:29:55 am

I have a couple of Samsung T-5 2TB drives and they have worked flawlessly. I use them for backup at home, they're fast, and when travelling, or at least when I used to travel. Simple and foolproof.

Title: Re: Need portable ssd 2 tb
Post by: MDL_SD on August 27, 2020, 12:07:08 pm

I also have two Samsung T5 drives that I have used for some time and really like.  The T5 has been replaced by the T7 (currently selling for essentially the same price as the old T5) which is faster if your computer supports the interface and is the same speed as the T5 if you have older ports.   

Title: Re: Need portable ssd 2 tb
Post by: FabienP on August 27, 2020, 06:23:15 pm

One thing that is rarely mentioned in the reviews of external disks is how long the SSD will operate at full speed before being throttled by heat dissipation issues. Depending on the intended usage pattern, I would avoid the very tiny disks made for travel. Most will only operate at full speed for as little as 20 minutes.

Same for write intensive workloads. Avoid drives which feature QLC NAND chips if using the drive as a scratch disk.

Cheers,
Fabien

Title: Re: Need portable ssd 2 tb
Post by: Jonathan Cross on September 14, 2020, 06:05:54 pm

I have Sandisk extreme portable ssds and am very happy.  They come formatted for pc and Mac and with connectors for both.

Jonathan

Title: Re: Need portable ssd 2 tb
Post by: Jeremy Roussak on September 15, 2020, 03:26:54 am

Quote from: Jonathan Cross on September 14, 2020, 06:05:54 pm

I have Sandisk extreme portable ssds and am very happy.  They come formatted for pc and Mac and with connectors for both.

I also have a couple of these (1TB only). They come formatted for PC, and although Macs are able to cope with the formatting, you're likely to get better performance on Macs if you reformat them. The only disadvantage of making them APFS is that they become unreadable on PCs. That doesn't matter to me, but it might to others.

Jeremy

Title: Re: Need portable ssd 2 tb
Post by: Manoli on September 15, 2020, 11:12:39 am

Quote from: Jeremy Roussak on September 15, 2020, 03:26:54 am

I also have a couple of these (1TB only). They come formatted for PC, and although Macs are able to cope with the formatting, you're likely to get better performance on Macs if you reformat them. The only disadvantage of making them APFS is that they become unreadable on PCs. That doesn't matter to me, but it might to others.

Paragon software removes that obstacle (as it can do for Macs needing to read Windows volumes).
https://www.paragon-software.com/home/apfs-windows/