Samsung’s Thunderbolt 3 X5 external SSD can shovel 20 GB of data in 12s
Samsung’s brand-new portable SSD, the X5, will certainly be of interest to content creators – including musicians and producers. It lets you haul around up to 2TB terabytes of audio (the most expensive model, at least) and other data, transferred from your computer over Thunderbolt 3 (no USB, sorry!) with blazing speeds of up to 2,800MB/s read and 2,300MB/s write (that’s 2,1000MB/s for the 500GB variant).
Samsung claims 20 GB of data take only 12 seconds to transfer, which is pretty great. You’ll no longer have to wait so long until those 96kHz sessions are copied while you are pushed for time! However, the omission of USB3.1 is fairly jarring if you ask me. The difference in bandwidth is significant between USB3 and Thunderbolt 3, but USB3 would still have been up there with Toshiba’s racecar-like NVMe drive.
Regardless, the X5 is feather-light at 150 grams and is constructed with a shock-resistant interior frame and a chassis designed to stop overheating. There’s also 256-bit hardware encryption support, so if it ever gets stolen from you, your tracks aren’t leaking on the internet.
Price and availability
Samsung is selling this thing now, starting at USD 400 for the 500GB variant and escalating to USD 1400 for the 2TB version. The drive comes with a three-year limited warranty.
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