Customer Ratings & Reviews

I’ve been a fan of the Samsung T-series external hard drives for some time now…they’re commonly regarded as among the fastest portable SSDs you can buy, and while the price is not trivial, they’ve been in the space for some time and have demonstrated decent reliability. The T7 Shield is another portable SSD from Samsung with a sort of “encrypt” function which optionally locks down the hard drive (provided you install the Samsung software) with a password. It is cross platform capable, supported on Windows, Mac (although not iOS, sort of) and Android. Without the software, it is just an external hard drive. It has a rugged, rubberized design and comes with two USB-C cables (one A to C and one C to C). As such, without the software, it can be used on virtually any platform supporting external storage (including iOS). With the software, and assuming the drive is locked down, only the read-only partition shows up on iOS devices. The only way to unlock the drive is with the software and the password, and without the password any stored data is inaccessible (it would be a pain if you forget the password, so make sure you store it in a vault or can remember it). When connecting the drive while it is “locked,” without unlocking it your computer will show a read-only partition with the installation media…so you won’t have to worry about being in front of a computer without the software installed. The software is super basic - allowing you to name the drive (although that doesn’t show up in the naming of the partition), and to turn on and off the drive lock. It’s a relatively simple installation unless you use a modern Mac. On a Mac, you need to boot to system security settings (something that I would bet most casual Mac users have never done) and adjust what kind of software is permitted for installation on your computer. It’s fine that it has to happen that way, but I really think the instructions for this should be included with the device. Other than the somewhat irregular installation requirements for Mac users, there isn’t a lot to complain about here. The price at $239 is in line with what I’d expect to pay for Samsung’s drives (considering their speed capabilities) currently, and having added functionality allowing locking down access to the drive is a nice bonus.

Fast , reliable ,compact, easy to use lightweight and durable

I have used several different external drives over the years and this is fastest yet! With this being a solid state drive, it gets super fast speeds which is great. This external drive is very light and compact and is surrounded by a protector that feels great to hold and is sturdy. This drive is really solid and well-built, so it should hold up great in any situation thrown at it. In the box, you get a USB C to USB C cable as well as a USB C to USB A cable so you can connect this to any computer. I have used various different solid state drives over the years and have always been impressed with Samsung’s drives. They make great solid state drives (both internal and external) and I definitely consider them to be a leader in this space. This drive does not disappoint and lives up to Samsung’s record for making reliable, fast, and great quality solid state drives. The only downside to this drive is the cost. Solid state drives get very expensive for storing a lot of files, so if you need storage space beyond 2 TB, it becomes less practical to solely use solid state storage. But for situations where you need or want fast file transfer, you really cannot beat this drive. This is an excellent external solid state drive that I would definitely recommend to anyone looking for fast external solid state storage! The sturdiness and rugged features (drop resistance and IP65 water resistance) are also a great added bonus to have!

This ssd would only allow 2.2 tb of memory to be used out of 4tb and also wont connect to tesla even after formatting

Fast, easy to use and durable. When it comes to drives I always use samsung

The packaging is minimal and includes the drive and usb c to c and c to a cables. The drive is smaller than others I have, 2.5” x 3.5” x .5”. The rubber like enclosure is one of the best features. I don’t have to worry about scratching it and can put in my bag without worry. The surface has a wavy texture to it, it is easy to grab and more importantly it stays put. Too many slick metal drives slide around, and this one will not. It also provides dust, water, and drop resistance. The material is also supposed to help with heat dissipation. Performance has been great. Running a test in Linux resulted in avg reads of 1GB/s and writes of 980 MB/s. However, the important thing here is that it feels very fast in every day use. Copying large files to and from the drive is really quick and doesn’t interrupt my workflow. There is software included on the drive to install on Mac and Windows, and a link to install the app on Android devices. This allows you to install updates and set a password for the drive. It comes in 3 colors. I have the black, but the blue and beige also look nice. The large 2TB capacity is also great to have. Overall, Samsung is a very trusted name in storage. This drive lives up to that and the rugged materials make it practical for everyday and travel use.

Slow to do anything. Do not believe what is written on the package

Slowest SSD I've owned, only 40Mb/s at best despite advertised 1,000 Mb/s

Ruggedly durable, the SSD T7 Shield is built to survive along with your data. The IP65 rating for Dust and Water resistance means you worry less about data integrity failure due to dust and water intrusion. In addition to toughness combined with a shock absorbing, breathable Dynamic Thermal Guard elastomer covering that controls heat to maintain steady performance (no throttling), this SSD is very fast, and quite compact.  I have transferred extremely large files in seconds and am able to carry all of my gaming or photo / video editing files with me when going to a meetup with friends or out in the field. On my system with USB 3.2 Gen 2 and PCIe® NVMe™ (10Gbps) it has sequential read/write speeds twice as fast as my older SSDs - your milage may very. I have used it on Windows, MacOS and iOS and it should work on basically all of the common platforms, and comes with USB Type C-to-C and Type C-to-A cables allowing USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 functionality. You may have to reformat the drives for your system. I got the black 2TB version and love the way it looks! The included Samsung Portable SSD 1.06
Samsung Magician Software is great for benchmarking. It also has AES 256-bit hardware encryption for security. It is small enough to carry in a shirt pocket. I love it!

This review will not show up as verified as I purchased it from a major online retailer, that has their own delivery vans, and has for no reason at all banned me from reviewing. So I'm reviewing it here. Let the little guys get some business too! I have used a 500GB Samsung T5 drive for many years, and I have quite liked it. However, the 500GB drive is no longer big enough for today's file sizes, so I decided to upgrade when the T7 Shields were on sale. Please note that I have abused the T5 a lot, dropped it, accidentally tripped on the cable, carried it with me on travels into the wilderness, and photo shoots so I know Samsung makes an extremely good portable SSD. I got 2 of the T7 shields as upgrades, a 2 TB one and a 4 TB one. I got the shield version for more protection against drops and abuse since I'm pretty rough of my electronics, and I go into the wilderness a lot with my photography. The drives have a silicone jacket on it, which also puffs it up a little bigger than the T5 I have. These drives according to H2TestW (if my memory serves me correctly) was around 437MB/s read and write, while plugged into my USB 3.0 port on my computer. Unfortunately my computers don't have faster ports, but I'm sure this drive would go faster on those. This is plenty fast, and I think on par with my old Samsung T5 drive. With the overhead in the USB 3.0 protocol, I think I maxed out the ports on my desktop PC. I do have some complaints about the product however. It would appear some bean counter at Samsung decided to skip on the 2 cable ties that original came with the T5 drive. I wonder how much money they are saving, but I'm not totally satisfied, and stuff like this leaves a horrible taste in my mouth. Also the silicone surface makes it impossible to stick a label with your name and contact info on it, which I do on my old drive.

This device is simple to use. I also didn't think it was going to be as small as it was. I have Apples ecosystem of technology and use the devices in every day life and they all perform some type of task differently. My point being... Apple implemented a new feature for the iPhone 16 pro max camera and now you can record in 4k 120/60 FPS. You cannot record on iPhone storage so you will need an external ssd like this ssd that'll plug into the phone to use that feature. As follows: Plug into iPhone. Enable 4k 120/60 recording in camera settings on iPhone. After you get done recording, it automatically stores photos/videos directly to the ssd. In the camera app with the iPhone still plugged into the ssd, you will see the external storage icon that you can click and then have the option to manually send items to your usual iPhone photos storage location. Plug it into the MacBook Pro and open ssd and the footage came through perfectly. It's the easiest thing I've used in a while that works! 2 TB oughta be enough for me! They didn't have 4 TB in stock... Just remember that before you unplug the ssd from your computer, click the "eject" button to avoid possible file corruption.

Terrible! Had to return as it wouldn’t power up reliably.

I need to return this item since only 1 port works.

This backup drive is easy to use, fast, and most importantly for me, it works right.

Small, portable, fast. Great storage device. Highly recommend

Great piece of equipment. Fast. Easy to access. Reliable.

Nice design looks great on my desk. HD speed and capabilities are as advertised

Works great, fast and reliable. It's also nice and small.

I've owned a few Samsung SSDs in the past, and they've never disappointed. This new generation continues that legacy of great performance, with the added bonus of a new rugged build. It's slightly "rubberized" (though I'm not sure what the material is technically called), and it gives me great confidence when handling the drive. I've used this drive for multiple applications so far, and it's passed each test with flying colors. GENERAL STORAGE This is use case that almost everyone will go with, and it performs exactly as it should. Read/write speeds are quite fast, the 2TB capacity is more than enough, and with the connection port being USB-C, it interfaces with essentially any device. I've been able to move my data between my Mac, my PC, my Android tablet, and my Linux desktop with no issues. DUAL BOOTING Speaking of my Linux desktop, as someone who distro-hops as a hobby, I've experimented with a disk partition on this drive holding a Linux distribution (Mint) and the read/write speeds were so fast that if you told me I was running the OS on an external drive instead of an internal one, I wouldn't have believed you. STEAM STORAGE This is the ultimate destination of the drive for me - my PC laptop only has a 250GB internal drive, and that's not nearly enough for my Steam library. With a few clicks of the mouse, I've been able to install my entire Steam library to this T7 and game performance has been smooth and fast. In summary - Samsung SSD = good. The new T7 Shield continues that legacy.

Fast, clean, waterproof and very durable and portable