Whether you want to back up the data on your PC, transfer videos from your Mac or offload a few games from your PlayStation 5, a portable SSD is an easy way to expand your storage. These little bricks may cost more than traditional external hard drives, but they\u2019re significantly faster, lighter and more reliable. But figuring out the best portable SSD for you isn\u2019t as simple as just picking the one with the lowest price or the most space. (Well, it can<\/em> be, but that wouldn\u2019t be very efficient.) To help, we\u2019ve spent the last few months weeding through the portable SSD market, testing a bunch of contenders and sorting out which ones provide the most value. You can find our top picks, plus an overview of what to know before buying, below.<\/p>\n The first thing to figure out before buying a portable SSD is just how much storage space you need. Most of the drives we considered for this guide are available in capacities ranging from 1TB to 4TB, though plenty of smaller and larger options exist.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no hard-and-fast rule for which size is \u201cbest\u201d \u2014 that\u2019ll ultimately depend on your budget and what exactly you\u2019re looking to stash. But in general, it\u2019s better to overcompensate than underdo it. Nobody wants to be forced into buying a second drive because they filled the first one up too quickly. If you\u2019re backing up a PC, a good rule of thumb is to buy a portable SSD with twice as much space as your computer\u2019s internal storage. This way, you can save at least one full backup while also having room for additional data. If you want to store a bunch of PlayStation<\/a> or Xbox<\/a> games with huge install sizes, you may need more space. If you just want to back up a small collection of files, you may be better off saving your cash and just getting a smaller USB flash drive<\/a> instead, which aren\u2019t quite the same as the portable SSDs we tested for this guide.<\/p>\n In general, you get a better price-per-gigabyte ratio the further you go up the capacity ladder. As of this writing, the 1TB Samsung T9<\/a> is priced at $135, or $0.14 per gigabyte (GB), while the 4TB version<\/a> is available for $360, or $0.09 per GB. That technically makes the larger model a better \u201cvalue,\u201d but not everyone needs to pay that much more upfront.<\/p>\n SSDs in the same speed class tend to not vary too <\/em>wildly in terms of performance, so part of our decision-making for this guide came down to which ones are often the cheapest. But prices can fluctuate over time; if you see that one of our top picks is priced way higher than a comparable honorable mention, feel free to get the latter. At this point in time, costs are broadly trending upwards.<\/p>\n Just about all portable SSDs are significantly faster than mechanical hard drives, so you\u2019ll save time waiting for files to transfer and games to load no matter what. Within the market, however, there are distinct performance tiers. These are defined in large part by the USB interface a drive supports. While all of the SSDs we considered for this guide can connect over USB-C, some USB-C connections can supply faster transfer speeds than others. Sorting through this can get real confusing real fast, so we\u2019ll try to put it in simple terms.<\/p>\n Essentially, you can divide today\u2019s crop of portable SSDs into five segments. At the top are drives that utilize Thunderbolt 3 or 4 or the more recent USB4<\/a> spec, which have a theoretical maximum transfer rate of 40 gigabits per second (Gbps). Note that USB4 comes in two different variants, though, one of which is limited to 20 Gbps. Below that is USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, which also tops out at 20 Gbps. (Getting confused yet?) Then you have USB 3.2 Gen 2, which maxes at 10 Gbps. Next is USB 3.2 Gen 1, which is capped at 5 Gbps. Lastly, we\u2019ll bundle together SSDs that use older standards and aren\u2019t worth considering here.<\/p>\n For everyday folks, a good USB 3.2 Gen 2 drive is the sweet spot between fast enough performance and a cheap enough price, so those make up our chief recommendations below. If you work in a creative field or don\u2019t mind paying extra to shave seconds off your large file transfers, though, a \u201chigher-tier\u201d model would make sense. However, note that systems that utilize USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 aren\u2019t super common \u2014 no Mac supports it, for one \u2014 and the interface is effectively being replaced by USB4.<\/p>\n In general, your chain is only as strong as its weakest link: If your computer only has USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, for example, you could still use <\/em>a Thunderbolt SSD, but you won\u2019t get beyond Gen 2 speeds. Make sure you know what you\u2019re working with before you buy.<\/p>\n As a refresher, storage devices are broadly measured in terms of read and write speeds. The former refers to how long it takes to access something from the drive; the latter, how long it takes to save something to it. From there, you can break these metrics into sequential and random performance. Sequential speeds tend to matter more with portable SSDs, since most people use them to save or access long, constant streams of data such as a bunch of high-res photos. Random speeds would be important if you want to run video games off the drive, since that\u2019d involve reading and writing smaller, more scattered files. Either way, how well an SSD can sustain its performance with extended use is also critical.<\/p>\n A modern portable SSD\u2019s speeds aren\u2019t just about its USB interface, though. Its performance can also depend on how advanced its controller<\/a> is, whether it has a native USB flash controller or a separate bridge chip to communicate with a host device, the kind and quality of NAND flash memory it uses, whether it has a DRAM<\/a> cache or it\u2019s DRAM-less, and more.<\/p>\n We\u2019re simplifying things, but here are some quick tips: Drives with triple-level cell (TLC) memory aren\u2019t as cheap as quad-level cell (QLC) SSDs, but they\u2019re generally more reliable and they offer better write performance. Having a dedicated DRAM cache helps if you plan to hit your drive with more intense, sustained workloads, but may not be worth the extra cost for most people. Some models with native flash controllers may not perform as well as those with a bridging chip, depending on the SSD inside, but they typically draw less heat and are physically smaller. All of this is to say that a portable SSD\u2019s speeds aren\u2019t quite as straightforward as what the manufacturer chooses to advertise on the box.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also worth remembering that you can turn an \u201cinternal\u201d SSD into a portable solution with a good enclosure<\/a>. If you have a spare drive and don\u2019t mind going the DIY route, this can be a cheaper and more flexible solution, though we\u2019ve stuck to pre-built models for this guide for the sake of simplicity.<\/p>\n Most portable SSDs are impressively small and light, so they won\u2019t be difficult to tuck in a bag (or even a pocket) and take on the go. We note below if any drive is bulkier than usual.<\/p>\n Nothing we\u2019re talking about matters if your drive can\u2019t last in the long term. It\u2019s hard to definitively say which portable SSDs are the most reliable, but we scoured through user reviews and feedback while researching this guide to ensure none of our picks show a pattern of catastrophic errors. If there was too much smoke around a particular model, we steered clear. We ruled out certain drives from SanDisk and WD, for instance, after reports from Ars Technica<\/em><\/a> and The Verge<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/em>noted an issue that led to data loss (and lawsuits<\/a>) in 2023.<\/p>\n That said, one of the big reasons you\u2019d buy an SSD in general is its superior durability. Because it has no moving mechanical parts inside, a portable SSD has far fewer avenues to failure than an external hard drive. You still don\u2019t want to be careless with them, but an accidental drop shouldn\u2019t be the end of the world.<\/p>\n Some portable SSDs build on this inherent ruggedness with plastic or rubberized casings and more robust waterproofing. These aren\u2019t necessary for everyone, but if you\u2019re a frequent traveler or someone who often works outdoors, there are options for you.<\/p>\n Still, all drives can fail. If you have any sort of data you\u2019d be distraught to lose, you should back it up regularly, then make a second backup, ideally with a cloud service. Along those protective lines, we also took note of the warranty policy for each drive we tested. Just about all of them are backed for either three or five years; of course, longer is better.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not uncommon to store sensitive data on a portable SSD, so some models offer extra security features like hardware-based encryption<\/a> \u2014 i.e., direct scrambling of data stored on the drive itself \u2014 built-in keypads and fingerprint readers to protect against unauthorized access if the drive is lost or stolen. While not top requirements, perks like these are certainly good to have. Some SSDs also come with companion software to further manage the drive. The best of those can be handy to have around, but we wouldn\u2019t call them essential.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, we did not have access to a device that can make full use of USB 3.2 Gen 2, USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 and Thunderbolt 4\/USB4 speeds interchangeably, so we had to split our testing across multiple devices, including an M1 Pro MacBook Pro and an Alienware gaming PC running Windows 11. Because of this, we primarily compared the portable SSDs within each \u201cclass\u201d against one another. Before switching OSes, we reformatted each drive to each platform\u2019s standard file system format: APFS for macOS and NTFS for Windows.<\/p>\n After researching which SSDs had enough positive feedback to be worth testing in the first place, we put 13 drives through a range of synthetic and \u201creal-world\u201d benchmark tests. On Windows, these included CrystalDiskMark<\/a>, PCMark 10<\/a>\u2019s Data Drive Benchmark and 3DMark<\/a>\u2019s gaming-focused Storage Benchmark. On macOS, we used AmorphousDiskMark<\/a> (effectively a Mac version of CrystalDiskMark), BlackMagic Disk Speed Test<\/a> and ATTO Disk Benchmark<\/a>.<\/p>\n We also timed how long it took for each drive to read and write a custom 70GB folder filled with roughly 11,500 different files, including photos, videos, music files, PDFs and other large and small data types scattered across numerous subfolders. We performed multiple passes for each test to avoid irregularities, and we kept track of each SSD\u2019s heat levels over the course of the whole suite. Our process wasn’t a perfect science, but it gave us a general sense of how each drive compares to other models in its price and performance range.<\/p>\n Photo by Jeff Dunn \/ Engadget<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Capacities<\/strong>: 1TB, 2TB, 4TB | Size<\/strong>: 2.56 x 1.97 x 0.39 inches | Weight<\/strong>: 1.34 ounces | USB interface<\/strong>: USB 3.2 Gen 2 | Controller\/bridge chip<\/strong>: Silicon Motion SM2320 | NAND type<\/strong>: TLC | Rated maximum sequential speeds<\/strong>: 1,050 MB\/s read, 1,050 MB\/s write | Warranty<\/strong>: Five years<\/p>\n The Crucial X9 Pro<\/a> finished at or just under the top in each of our benchmarks relative to its speed class, and it stayed noticeably cooler than most of the other drives we tested after extended use. It\u2019s a USB 3.2 Gen 2 model, so it\u2019s slower than alternatives based on Thunderbolt, USB4 or USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, but it costs less, and it\u2019s still quick enough for the non-professional tasks most people do with a portable SSD. Ports that can actually utilize USB 3.2 Gen 2 speeds tend to be more ubiquitous on mainstream computers, too. This isn\u2019t the cheapest 10 Gbps drive around, but it\u2019s in the same ballpark as its peers and isn\u2019t too expensive. As of this writing, a 1TB model is available for $95, though we\u2019ve seen it fall as low as $60 in the past. 2TB and 4TB versions are also available.<\/p>\n Besides its relatively speedy performance, the X9 Pro stands out for being so tiny. Its aluminum case is shorter than a credit card and easy to fit in a pocket, weighing in at just 1.34 ounces. The whole thing is IP55-rated<\/a>, so it\u2019ll survive dust and water splashes, and it\u2019s backed with a five-year warranty, which is a couple years longer than some alternatives.<\/p>\n Our only real complaints are that the included USB-C cable is small and there\u2019s no adapter for USB-A ports in the box. And though the X9 Pro can <\/em>utilize 256-bit hardware-based encryption, Micron (Crucial\u2019s parent company) has yet to release a promised password protection tool to take advantage of it. We\u2019ll also note that there\u2019s a cheaper non-\u201dPro\u201d X9, but that one uses QLC flash, so it\u2019s not as durable or fast (especially with sustained writes). The X9 Pro is the better buy.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nWhat to consider before buying a portable SSD<\/h2>\n
Capacity<\/h3>\n
Price<\/h3>\n
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Speed and USB interface<\/h3>\n
Other performance factors and enclosures<\/h3>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Size, durability, endurance and warranty<\/h3>\n
Encryption and software<\/h3>\n
How we test portable SSDs<\/h2>\n
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