Samsung Portable SSD T9 4TB Review

It's been a while since we've seen an external SSD from Samsung. There have been a few different options based on the previous drive, the T7, for example, the T7 Touch (built-in fingerprint recognition) and T7 Shield (added protection) but nothing to improve overall performance.

With the launch of the Portable SSD T9 all that changes as the drive eclipses the T7 in terms of headline speeds. The T7 was rated as up to 1,050MB/s for reads and up to 1,000MB/s for writes. Thanks to its USB 3.2 Gen 2 x2 (20Gbps) interface the  T9 is almost twice as fast for reads and twice as fast when it comes to writes as the T7.

The Portable SSD T9 range is made of three capacities; 1TB, 2TB and the 4TB flagship drive.  All three drives are officially rated as up to 2,000MB/s for reads. The 1TB and 2TB drives get a write rating of up to 1,950MB/s while the 4TB drive is rated as up to 2,000MB/s.

The official quoted transfer rates for the 4TB T9 are up to 2,000MB/s for both reads and writes. When tested with the ATTO benchmark, the review drive fell a little short of both of these maximums with a read figure at 1,900MB/s and writes at 1,810MB/s. Using CrystalDiskMark 8 default tests we could confirm the official read performance ratings with a Sequential read test result of 2,021MB/s but writes at 1,871MB/s, came up a little short of the official maximum.

The T9 uses Samsung's TurboWrite technology. This technology creates a high-performance write buffer that simulates SLC NAND. Data is written to this buffer at accelerated speeds and when the drive is idle the data is moved from the buffer to the primary storage area. The 4TB drive has a 180GB buffer.

The UK price for the 4TB version of the T9 is £362.79 (inc VAT).

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Pros

• Overall performance.
• Design.
• Capacity.

Cons

• Needs a USB 3.2 Gen 2 x2 interface to get the best out of it.

KitGuru says: Samsung's T7 was getting a little long in the tooth, and even with the refreshed versions of it, the speeds were still stuck at USB 3.2 Gen 2 x1 (10Gbps). The T9 ups the ante with its USB 3.2 Gen 2 x2 (20Gbps) interface bringing twice the performance of the T7 to the market.

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