Any recommendation on external SSD drive?

idgat said:

I wish you'd've consulted before buying ...

- Too expensive for that sort of a device
- Thumb/flash drives (no matter how expensive) notoriously unreliable/unstable, compared with USB SSDs,

Good luck.

Tell me something that would make me change my mind about this purchase. I can always exchange it to something cheaper.

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Megahertz said:

Too much money for a 1T B external drive.

Hope you have a ultra fast USB 3.1 on your computer

A 2T 2.5" SSD would cost much less and would be much faster.

How do i check if i have 3.1 on my pc?

USB 3.0 = 5 Gbit/s (SuperSpeed)
USB 3.1 = 10 Gbit/s (SuperSpeed+)

USB 3.1 Gen 1 = USB 3.0 (5 Gbit/s) (SuperSpeed)
USB 3.1 Gen 2 = USB 3.1 (10 Gbit/s) (SuperSpeed+)

You can't tell by the connectors. Both the old USB-A connectors and new USB-C connectors could be either speeds.

You have to look at the computer motherboard specs to know for sure.

Ghot said:

Your motherboard manual will tell you.
If you don't have the manual, then the make/model of the motherboard or the make/model of the entire computer will help us find that information.

Most computers bought in the last year or three will have USB 3.1

Even the motherboard I bought 8 years ago, had USB 3.0. And the motherboard was probably manufactured a year or two before that.

Anything USB 3.0 or faster will be fine.



Lastly, you definitely want your backup and photos on an external drive. That way even if your computer gets stolen, or there's a fire, you can grab the external drive and you'll have everything.

Ok. I see that my computer is USB 2.0 https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03019166

Not a big deal honestly. I like this SSD drive that i got very compact.

there are some files inside. What should i do with these? Can i delete them?

Hi,

As long as your SSD is working

The 1st is a txt document for Android, safe to delete.

2nd is not applicable as it is for Macs, safe to delete.

3rd I believe is Samsung's Magician, basically a program that keeps your SSD in tiptop condition, You can install this or it is available off their web site, I have installed it, it's not bad, it does give basic information on the performance of your drive and a couple of other tools.

I note from the date, it is probably their latest version, so worth having.

Once installed you can delete it if you wish.

Or create a folder on the drive and put all 3 in there.

Edit, I note your PC Mobo is USB 2, no matter but you won't be able to utilize the speed of your new drive, however if your mobo has a PCI-E slot, buy a front USB 3 drive hub, connect it to the PCI-E slot, now you have USB 3, run your portable off that.

Ghot said:

Note: You absolutely want to have a USB 3.0 port for that SSD. That SSD is 9x faster than a USB 2.0 port.

To show that take the speeds for a typical 2.5-inch SATA SSD.
The maximum sequential read/write speed is about 550 Megabytes per seconds = 4.1 Gbps
That is a little bit less than the speed for USB 3.0.

In my own tests a SATA SSD is faster with USB 3.1 (10Gbs) but not twice as faster.
Its speed is limited by the SATA interface for the SSD.

These tests show how much faster USB 3.0 is than USB 2.0

Sandisk Ultra Flash Drive 128GB (USB 3.0)
Sequential Read/Write
External USB 2.0 = 38/18 MB/s
External USB 3.0 = 129/22 MB/s

These tests show the relative speeds for USB 3.0 and USB 3.1 compared to the drive being internal to the PC.

Micron 1100 256 GB SSD (M.2 SATA)
Sequential Read/Write:
External USB 3.0 = 422/344 MB/s
External USB 3.1 = 530/443 MB/s
Internal M.2 = 545/486 MB/s

Murat said:

How do i check if i have 3.1 on my pc?

To find out what you have, grab HWiNFO64 portable from here:
Free Download HWiNFO Sofware | Installer & Portable for Windows, DOS

Extraxt the HWiNFO64.exe file from the downloaded zipfile, and double-click on it to run:

As you can see in the above, my laptop has a USB 3.2 (Type C) Gen 2x1 port that can support up to 10Gb/s transfer speed.

I recently purchased a 1TB Crucial P2 SSD which I got for $79, and I paired it to a 10Gbps USB 3.2 enclosure for $21.99
Crucial P2 1TB NVMe drive in External USB 3.2 enclousure

This is what I got in my testing to my portable drive.


About 2x faster than an SSD connected to a SATA port on the motherboard. It's about 1/2 of what the drive could provide if that drive was plugged into an M2 slot on my motherboard.

All in all, for $100, I got an incredibly fast and small external SSD. Obviously you need either standard USB 3.x 10Gbps ports on your motherboard, or a 10Gbps USB-C connection to get these speeds. The drive is about 1/4 the size of my cell phone.