Review: Samsung T7 Shield Portable SSD USB 3.2 Gen 2

Samsung’s highly portable T7 Shield SSD with USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) promises high transfer speeds in a robust housing, Kevin Carter takes a look.

What is it?

This small, highly portable bus-powered NVMe SSD with a USB-C 3.2 Gen2 (10Gbps) with read/write speeds of up to 1,050 MB/s and 1,000 MB/s respectively, is almost twice as fast as SATA-based SSDs  (and 10x that of HDDs). As such it is ideal for photographers and occasional videographers. It’s also a rugged (IP65 rated) drive that’s ideal for replacing any old hard-disk drive for sharing across multiple devices, such as direct-to cameras (mainly but not limited to the newer Panasonic, Sony and Fujifilm models) as well as the more typical laptop-to-desktop (short to long-term storage) scenario.

Starting at around £99.99 for 1TB, rising to £169.99 for 2TB and a not unreasonable £299.99 for 4TB (all prices inclusive of VAT) the Samsung T7 Shield is priced just above the standard T7 and a bit below the Gen 2×2 Samsung T9 (reviewed here).

While Samsung’s ‘flagship’ T9 looks promising with the quoted (20Gbps) read and write speeds it requires a PC/Mac that can fully support the standard. And while modern Macs do in theory, there is no enforceable requirement to support it up to full speed, so testing is necessary.

How durable is it?

SSDs have no moving parts, so they’re much more resilient to accidental knocks and even the occasional drop than HDDs. Indeed, the Samsung T7 Shield is said to be able to take a 3m drop and shrug it off.  However, as the T7 Shield is covered in a fairly thick silicone rubber casing, with pronounced ridges it’s unlikely to slip through your fingers anyway. It’s also IP65-rated, so it will take some exposure to dust in its stride but it’s not fully waterproof – it will likely stand up to an accidental spill but not complete immersion. Still, build quality is great and there’s a three-year warranty.

Why do you need it?

Drives like this are ideal for photographers moving to and from location to the studio. Weighing just 98g and measuring 88 x 59 x 13 mm, the T7 Shield is more or less the same size as the T9, easily fitting into a shirt pocket. Having a couple of them in your camera bag would take up no room at all.

It’s configured as ExFAT to use it across both Windows and Mac devices and the USB 3.2 Gen2 is fast enough to run all but the largest Capture One Sessions or Lightroom Catalogs without problems.

I tested the Samsung T7 Shield on a 2.9 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i9 15-inch MBP with 32GB of RAM and copied a 64GB Capture One Pro Session folder (consisting of 1756 items; a mix of RAW files and few JPEGs) to 1GB Samsung T7 Shield in a fraction less than 2mins 27 seconds. This was just a little slower than the Samsung T9 4TB using the same MBP, but that’s because this Mac doesn’t support the T9’s faster transfer speeds.

The Blackmagic Disk Test app revealed slightly slower transfer rates than the supplied Samsung Magician software, but read and write speeds are still good for various hi-res video work.

What’s it like to use?

Samsung ships the T7 Shield with two high-quality USB cables (type C to C and C to A). Both are around 40cm in length. Samsung also bundles decent software.

The Samsung Magician software (v8.0) provides several worthwhile features such as performance benchmarking complete with maintaining a history for each SSD used (useful if you’ve more than one SSD), plus security functions, data migration (OS and data), access to firmware updates and real-time temperature and health monitoring. Some features weren’t available for Mac users though.

Slightly better transfer rates were recorded with the Samsung Magician software, which was more in keeping with the results I had with the T9, though bear in mind the T9 could not benefit from the Gen 2×2 (20Gbps) on my test machine.

Overall

The Samsung T7 Shield is a hugely likeable and competitively priced offering for a portable NVMe SSD. It is fast, highly portable and supremely rugged. What’s more, if like me you’re running an older laptop (and taking it out on location) and don’t have support for the faster Gen 2×2 transfer rates with the lower price and vaunted IP rating, the Samsung T7 Shield arguably makes more sense than the Samsung T9. It’s hard not to like the T7 Shield. For all but the most high-end of applications, it’s the sensible choice.

Pros

Competitively priced
Fast transfer rates
Tough – can withstand a 3m drop
Tiny – shirt pocket size
3-year warranty
Useful support software (free to download)
Bundled with 2x USB C cables (Type C to C, and C to A)

Cons

None come to mind

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