Get the Samsung T7 500GB for $59.50 with code EMCEYSB59 (was $100)
Katharine reviewed the touch version of the Samsung T7 last January, where she rated the drive highly in terms of performance and portability, but lambasted its fiddly fingerprint reader and high price. The touchless T7, as featured here, solves both of those problems rather nicely, especially at its new discounted price.
In testing, the T7 provided 866MB/s read speeds and 856MB/s write speeds over USB-C, pretty close to the advertised 1000MB/s maximums. (I also happened to take a look at the T7 for Digital Foundry, and saw read speeds of around 910MB/s - so clearly the equipment you’re running the test on will influence the results slightly.)
Random read and write speeds weren’t much better than a SATA SSD, like the cheaper Samsung T5, but then again that isn’t too surprising given how similarly SATA and NVMe SSDs perform in game load time testing. You’re really paying for the faster sequential speeds, which can be brilliant if you’re often transferring large files such as 4K video, game install directories and so on. (I tend to do this a lot for my work, and having a fast NVMe SSD has quickly become indispensable).
The sale ends on Sunday, so if you’re in the market for a fast external drive then you’d best make your move before then. Or don’t - I’m not the boss of you, I’m just a deals post.
