Review: Samsung T7 Shield Portable SSD

Four things are important to me in a portable hard drive; Read/write speed, size/weight, secure connectivity, and durability. So when I was given a Samsung T7 Shield to try, I was really interested as (based on the first the criteria), I’ve been using both their T5 and T7’s for a while now, but always wanted a ‘tougher’ version.

Designed to have compatibility with a range of host devices (e.g. Macs, PCs and gaming consoles) the T7 Shield comes in two size options, 1TB or 2TB, and three colour options, beige, black and blue. With a single USB-C port, in the box you’ll find a USB-C-to-USB-C and USB-C-to-USB-A cable, and pre-installed on the drive Samsung’s management software, allowing you to set a password for AES 256-bit hardware encryption, and also get the latest firmware updates. It also comes with a three-year warranty.

Now if you don’t want to read any further, and already know about the T7 Portable's specifications, in summary, the T7 Shield takes the original T7 formula, and it improves its physical endurance - that’s how shock, water and dust resistant it is - all for a slight increase in size and weight.

Size/weight

Made from an aluminium body covered with grippy rubber to help protect against drops and also scratches, the T7 has external dimensions of 88mm x 59mm x 13mm, and weighing 98gms. Compared to the T7 Portable, the T7 Shield isn’t much longer (+4mm) nor wider (+2mm) that the T7 Portable, but it is noticeably thicker (+5mm) and heavier (+40g). Having said that, it is still very very small, light and transportable.

	T7 Portable	T7 Shield	Difference
Length (mm)	80	88	4
Width (mm)	57	59	2
Depth (mm)	8	13	5
Weight (gm)	58	98	40

Read/write speed

Like the T7 Portable, the T7 Shield supports USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface protocol, which offers speeds up to 10GBps.

With stated sequential read /write speed of 1,050MB/s and 1,000MB/s, running the Blackmagic Design benchmark on my MacBook Air M1, repartitioned to GUID Partition Map APFS, I saw speeds of 679 and 672 MB/s respectively.

This is over 30% slower than the top speed reported by Samsung, but, speeds do vary, and do depend upon factors like computer configuration, so that raw speed didn’t bother me. What’s more important is what did such speeds allow?

Well, I could transfer 100GBs in a little over 2 minutes, and with my cinematography hat on, as this is where such SSD storage drives for me are practically put to the test, it checked (and indeed exceeded) every relevant important benchmark.

I think it’s also useful to note that when working hard, Samsung have added a feature they call ‘Dynamic Thermal Guard’. This adjusts the drive's performance to ensure that the casing remains below 57C (the international standard being 60C). It's not painfully hot to touch, but still able to consistently write at 900MB/s - enough for 8K video recording in H.265, and really, way faster than the average person will probably ever need.

	T7 Portable	T7 Shield
Storage Capacity	500MB, 1TB or 2TB	1TB or 2TB
Connection	1 x USB 3.2 / USB 3.1 Gen 2 (USB Type-C)	1 x USB 3.2 / USB 3.1 Gen 2 (USB Type-C)
Read/Write Speed	Sequential: 1050 / 1000 MB/s	Sequential: 1050 / 1000 MB/s

Durability (i.e shock and ingress protection)

Ok, so this is where we see a noticeable improvement.

Firstly, the T7 Shield has been tested to survive a free fall from three metres onto a metal plate. I don’t see a situation where I’d ever drop a portable hard drive from more than table height, but as always, the tougher the better.

More importantly to me is its Ingress Protection (IP) score 65 (i.e IP65). This rating means that the T7 Shield is impressively: i) totally dust tight (that’s what the ‘6’ stands for) and also safe against low-pressure jets (6.3mm) of water directed from any angle (that’s what the ‘5’ stands for). So basically, unless you do something crazy like point a high-pressure water jet at it, or dunk it in water, you’ll be good to go after most dust or aquatic mishaps.

And before you ask, “Do I really need such water resistance at all?”, well if you use a portable external hard drive, portably, I’d suggest yes. A personal case in point was recently when working on a plane, tray table down, and a passing passenger knocked over my cup of tea.

I of course went for lifting up my laptop first, which left the end of the external hard drive and touching the table, getting wet in the process.

Secure laptop connectivity

What I mean by ‘secure laptop connectivity’ here is how well a drive maintains both its physical and functional connection, when it, or the computer are moved/wiggled, or the computer is picked up and the external hard drive is left to dangle: Remember I had to quickly pick up my computer on the plane leaving one to dangle recently?

On this, one thing I’ve always liked about the T5 and T7 was how well they maintained connectivity. I’d even walk around the house from one desk to another, inadvisably letting them hang with no problem. The 1st T7 Shield I received however had an issue in that even a small movement would result in a connection failure, followed by the dreaded “disk not properly ejected” message.

Being a bit heavier, I get that maybe there is a bit more tension if dangling, but this happened when simply sliding the hard drive just a few cms on the table. Something was clearly wrong and letting Samsung know, they promptly swapped it out for a new one.

The replacement worked fine. So I’m not sure how to objectively judge this - a strange one-off most likely….but I haven’t read anywhere else that this is an issue, so will give Samsung the benefit of the doubt, but maybe just check for this, if you do get one.

Green credentials

Finally, I have a view that where ever we spend our money, we are in effect saying to the supplier, ‘Hey, I agree with what you do so much, I’m going to give you my money to encourage you to keep doing it’.

So with this in mind, wonderfully Samsung have made an effort to reduce waste on its whole T7 range, utilising eco-friendly pulp material and one-third less tray packaging than prior generations.

For this, they have received a Product Carbon Footprint label from the Carbon Trust and although I’d like to companies (not just products) be totally carbon negative (as we have moved passed neutral being OK), this is a good step and should be acknowledged.

The wrap-up: Should you buy the Samsung T7 Shield?

If you don’t travel or there is no risk of dust or spillage onto your external SSD (and is that ever really the case? Think knocking your morning coffee over), then you probably don’t need the T7 Shield as you’re getting in effect the same read/write speeds if you go the T7 Portable.

But if you do travel, or you are on the market for a compact Samsung SSD with fast read/write speeds, with a RRP of $239 for the 1TB, and $459 for the 2TB, given they are about $30 and $40 more expensive respectively than the T7 Portable, in my mind, why wouldn’t you?

More info: samsung.com.au