Samsung external drive: small size for a lot of storage

Do you need more storage for your Mac? The Portable SSD T9 from Samsung is a great choice! We tested it for you.

Portable SSD T9 from Samsung

An external drive has actually become indispensable. You can store all your photos, videos and other files on it, so you can be sure that they are well preserved. It is also best to save backups of your laptop, iPhone or iPad on an external drive. This way you won’t lose them if your device breaks down or you no longer have access to your iCloud account. Samsung has now released an external drive that works with the Mac and the iPhone 15.

The device is extremely small, making it easy to fit in your bag or even in your pocket. Handy if you work outside the home a lot and regularly have to take an external drive with you. Additionally, the iPhone 15 has a feature that only works with an external storage device. You already have the Samsung external drive 139 euros at home. Curious how good the Portable SSD T9 is? We have tested the Samsung external drive for you!

Compact and sturdy design

The design of the device is immediately noticeable as soon as you open the box. Samsung describes it as “similar to a regular credit card” and that is absolutely correct (but a big credit card). We really like that the Samsung external drive is so small, because it makes it much quicker and easier to take with you. A big advantage is the weight of only 122 grams, which you will barely feel in your bag or pocket.

So it is a pretty compact external drive, but Samsung has also thought about the housing of the device. It is made of rough material, so we are not likely to drop it. Does that happen anyway? Then that’s no problem, because the external drive is drop-resistant up to three meters high. We once dropped the device from the table and (fortunately) found no scratches.

Connect to the Mac

Connecting it to our MacBook was very easy. All you have to do is connect the Samsung external drive to your Mac with the supplied USB-C cable. In the box of the device you get a USB-C to USB-C cable and a USB-C to USB-A cable. The external drive itself has a USB-C port, so we could simply use the charging cable from our Mac to connect it.

Logically, we did not achieve the same charging speeds as with the cable that Samsung supplies. In our opinion, this is a disadvantage of the device, because the external drive does not support Thunderbolt. As a result, the device does not work optimally with your Mac, but downloading files will take a little longer. In practice we hardly noticed this, only when transferring really large files.

Use Samsung external drive

After connecting, we could immediately get started with the Samsung drive. In the Finder of our Mac it was immediately possible to drag files to the device. These then appeared when saving the drive.

Transferring larger files or videos was also very fast in our tests. That was to be expected, because according to Samsung the external drive has read and write speeds of up to 2,000 MB/s. You must use the correct cable for this. A version with no less than 4TB was used for this review, which was more than sufficient for us. Especially if you also have an iCloud subscription, 1TB or 2TB of storage space is more than enough.

A Samsung program could also be found on the disk. This software is mainly intended for setting a password or using utilities. Installing this program was quite complicated and you had to adjust quite a few system settings on your Mac.

Record videos with iPhone 15

The big advantage of the external drive is that the device also works with the iPhone 15 Pro (Max). These phones are equipped with a USB-C port and can therefore be connected to the drive without any problems. In fact, that is also the intention if you want to use certain functions. Recording ProRes videos in 4K at 60 frames per second is only possible on your iPhone if you have an external storage device connected. Otherwise, your phone will display the error message below.

In our opinion, Samsung’s external drive is perfect for this, because the device is easy to carry. Connecting the device to your iPhone is easy, all you have to do is use the cable. We could then immediately start making the videos in high quality, no external app was needed.

Recording ProRes videos in 4K at 60 fps is a great feature, especially if you are traveling and want to make the most beautiful videos. However, we found that we don’t use the feature very often, so it’s not the main reason to purchase this Samsung external drive. Do you travel a lot or make a lot of (commercial) videos that you want to edit later? Then of course the function has added value.

Conclusion

The Portable SSD T9 from Samsung is an extremely good external storage device. For just 139 euros you can already have 1TB of extra storage space at home. We immediately noticed the design of the Samsung external drive: it is a compact and, above all, sturdy device. The rough housing means you won’t easily let the drive fall out of your hands. If that does happen, fortunately the device can withstand a knock.

The drive is easy to connect to your Mac and iPhone, a big advantage in our opinion. Setting a password is difficult, but Samsung may be able to solve this with an update. Please note that the Portable SSD T9 does not support Thunderbolt, so you will not achieve the highest loading speeds on your Mac. You won’t notice much of that, because it is still an incredibly fast device.

Finally, a useful feature is recording ProRes videos with your iPhone 15 Pro (Max). This is only possible with an external storage device, which the Samsung drive is ideal for. The device is easy to take with you, which is useful if you want to record videos in the best quality while traveling or on the road. This makes it an excellent drive for both your Mac and your iPhone!