Samsung - Geek Squad Certified Refurbished T7 500GB External USB 3.2 Gen 2 Portable SSD with Hardware Encryption - Indigo Blue

Great price for a great SSD. Why buy new when you can get a great quality used one guaranteed to work for a fraction of the cost. Just one issue but it’s not the fault of the SSD. I’ve ordered two of these at separate times. Both times they came in the box with everything included even all paperwork. They both looked practically new and in great condition. But I noticed that they were a slightly different color and the text on one was slightly bigger. Which was no big deal, just an interesting observation. Until I plug them in and go to format them. One has more formatting options than the other, including my preferred mac settings. So there I realized while they are both the T7, and same cost, they are slightly different generations/models. Granted, it still serves my purposes, but as one has slightly more reformat options, one would think that could’ve been reflected in the price. I’m sure it’s hard to sort their refurbished product when they are practically the same, but it’s still up in the air which you will receive when ordering. Great product and price but the lack of five stars is for that reason alone.

I was in the market for a portable SSD to accompany my laptop. This little guy works great. CrystalDiskInfo shows it has 1.03TB written. In terms of endurance, 1TB written means this drive is obviously used, however, that's still is pretty low. Samsung doesn't post endurance numbers for the T7 series, but if you look at their most basic 870QVO; their 1TB is rated at 360TBW. So assuming this uses a similar NAND flash, I would at least expect a life expectancy of at least 180TBW. Performance is also great, my USB-C 3.2 connection shows a read of ~985MBps and a Write speed of ~958MBps; very fast for an external drive. Also, keep in mind that this is a cache-less drive, so extended writing performance may suffer. But not bad. As for packaging, it came in the original retail packaging with manual, USB-C, and USB-A cables. all documentation was included. Upon connecting to my computer, it appears Geek Squad essentially deleted the partition with parted magic or something. That extended 1TB that was written may have been Best Buy's doing to ensure the drive was "wiped" so I couldn't see prior owner's data. That said, you'll need to initialize, partition, and format the disk using Disk Manager in Windows or Disk Utility in Mac OS before using it.

It is a great drive. I use mine for extra storage on my Xbox Series X to store and play the non- X/S titles. Its setup was quick and easy. I did test it briefly on my Windows Laptop and it worked just as flawlessly. The quality of the drive, along with a name brand I know and can trust is what makes this SDD a steal for the price. It is very small, think credit card size. The thickness is less than the thickness of a Nintendo Switch game case. It is very light weight and sturdy. There is a single LED on the end, but it is small and not distracting. This SSD has been used non-stop for over 6 months and I have had no issues. I don't travel with it, but I think it would be a great drive to carry along with you in a backpack.

This device transfers files at a stable 300 mb/s. I did need to format this device to make it useable. Windows only detects 460 GB but some software detects 500 GB of storage space but overall this is a great product.

Samsung - Geek Squad Certified Refurbished T7 500GB External USB 3.2 Gen 2 Portable SSD with Hardware Encryption - Indigo Blue, good value!