Samsung's T9 is one of the fastest portable SSDs I've ever used

As someone who's amassed a vast collection of storage devices, from USB sticks to external hard drive over decades, there's no doubt about it - the Samsung T9 is one of the fastest portable SSDs I've ever used. It's one of my favorite rugged drives around.

And right now, the 1TB Samsung T9 has dropped to $180 (was $288) at Amazon. The drive works with Windows PCs, Macs, tablets, the iPhone 15 upwards, cameras, and even gaming consoles, so it's an useful addition to almost any setup and a great choice if you regularly switch between devices. In the UK, the price has also dropped on the Samsung T9 down to £199 (was £239) at Amazon.

For my money, this portable SSD is ideal for business and creative professionals, and students prepping for the back to school season thanks to read and write speeds of up to 2,000MB/s help reduce waiting around when moving large files or loading demanding applications.

Today's best Samsung portable SSD deal

Samsung says the T9 Portable SSD maintains those high transfer speeds even during longer file transfers.

Dynamic Thermal Guard helps control temperatures under heavy workloads, keeping performance consistent when you're copying hundreds of gigabytes in one go.

As you might expect, the rugged T9 can survive drops from up to 9.8ft, giving you extra peace of mind if you're carrying it between the office, classroom, studio, or client meetings.

In our review we praised the SSD's "great read speeds and its ability to sustain write performance," but did note, "Samsung didn’t attribute any IP-rated tests to the T9, and it isn’t water or dust-resistant."

AES 256-bit hardware encryption helps protect sensitive files, while Samsung's Magician Software keeps firmware updated, monitors drive health, and offers additional management tools to keep everything running as it should.

Samsung has long been one of the biggest names in flash storage, and the T9 combines speed, durability, broad compatibility, and useful security features in one pocket-sized drive.

Although 1TB will be plenty of room for documents, photos, videos, and creative projects, Samsung also sells 2TB and 4TB versions if you need even more capacity.

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Wayne Williams is a freelancer writing news for TechRadar Pro. He has been writing about computers, technology, and the web for 30 years. In that time he wrote for most of the UK’s PC magazines, and launched, edited and published a number of them too.