Best external SSD drive 2022 - Samsung, SanDisk, Seagate or Western Digital?

If you need a very thin drive, then you should look towards the Samsung product. The thickness of this portable SSD is less than 8mm. It's like a tiny stack of bank cards! At the same time, this means that the product should be handled with the utmost care. There is a risk that such a drive will bend. Especially if you throw it in your back pocket and then decide to sit somewhere. The metal case in this case will not save.

From the table above, you can see that the rest of the models are not much thicker. And for A-Data, this parameter differs only due to the fact that the manufacturer decided to reduce the width, eventually making the drive as similar as possible to a USB flash drive. And I must say that it is much more convenient to store such a device in your pocket.

Curiously, SanDisk is different from all other brothers. Firstly, its plastic case has a rough surface, thanks to which the product does not slip at all when it lies on a table. Secondly, in one of the corners of the drive there is a hole that plays the role of a carabiner.It allows you to tie a portable SSD to a backpack strap or even use it as a keychain.

It's not without reason that SanDisk has at its disposal a hole for attaching to a key ring or a backpack strap. This SSD is designed for outdoor use. In particular, it can be useful for copying video shot with an action camera. If the drive accidentally falls on a hard surface, then nothing terrible will happen - it is able to boast of a shock-resistant case. There is also moisture protection here, but very conditional - SSD is not afraid only of splashes.

If you're worried about tipping your SSD into the water, then you need a product from A-Data. This is one of the few external SSDs that can boast of moisture protection implemented according to the IP68 standard. Of course, the device is not afraid of falling onto a hard surface.

All models included in this comparison use USB Type-C as a connector. This means that the speed of data transfer and recording does not depend on the interface at all. It is influenced exclusively by the technology by which the memory itself is made.

As you can see from the accompanying table, four out of five SSDs offer about the same speed. At the same time, it cannot be said that it squeezes absolutely all the juice out of the connector. Those in the know will confirm that faster SSDs exist. However, their cost is too high (if we are talking about options with a volume of one terabyte), and therefore we decided not to consider them in our comparison.

Alas, Seagate is significantly inferior to its competitors. Data from this drive is read at a speed of no more than 400 MB / s. Of course, this is also much faster than the parameters inherent in USB flash drives or hard drives, but still I would like more.

Many buyers are still afraid that their portable SSD will quickly fail. Even now, people believe that hard drives are more reliable in this regard. Manufacturers try to convince such consumers that they impose a long-term warranty on their products.

Now you can exchange a failed solid-state drive for at least three years. If you read the reviews, you quickly realize that the SSD will definitely work out this period without any problems. And even for something to happen to him a little later, you need to overwrite the data almost daily. The longest warranties are provided by Western Digital and SanDisk. These manufacturers allow you not to be afraid of failure for five years.

Above, we already mentioned that there are even faster external SSD drives. However, their cost, if we talk about capacious models, is absolutely prohibitive. We settled on relatively affordable drives. Even SanDisk, designed for use in extreme conditions, costs no more than 15 thousand rubles (one terabyte model).

Seagate is asking for the least amount of money from a buyer. However, it seems to us that the savings are not worth it. The fact is that this drive is much inferior to its competitors in terms of reading and writing information. But if you are going to use it rarely enough, then it is possible that you will not even notice this drawback.

In favor of which external SSD should you choose? It is rather difficult to answer this question. We already mentioned that Seagate looks like the least interesting option. But there are four more! At the same time, even a waterproof SSD from A-Data is found among them. This drive is recommended for anyone who is going to take it somewhere with them almost every day, as it is ready to withstand even rain or falling into a puddle. Not surprisingly, this particular model won the highest average rating.

Finally, we note that the Samsung product has the optimal price-quality ratio. This company has been manufacturing solid-state drives for several years.Experts believe that its technology is now both reliable and relatively inexpensive. In a word, the SSD of this company can definitely be taken for home use - it is not suitable only for some kind of hiking conditions.