Samsung gives portable storage a speed boost with a new NVMe drive

Samsung is rolling out a new line of portable SSDs, though unlike every previous model the company has ever announced, these new drives are based on fast NVMe storage.

How fast are we talking about? We haven't benchmarked these drives, but according to Samsung, its new SSD X5 family offers a read speed of up to 2,800MB/s and a write speed of up to 2,300MB/s. That translates into being able to transfer a 20GB 4K video in just 12 seconds.

By leveraging NVMe, these new drives are far and away faster than Samsung's Previous flagship portable storage option, the SSD T5. Those drives top out at 540MB/s, by way of USB 3.1 Gen2. In contrast, the SSD X5 connects to your PC via Thunderbolt 3.

The drive consists of a rugged, full-metal body with a glossy finish and non-slip bottom mat. It's also reinforced with a shock-resistant internal frame. According to Samsung, the X5 can withstand drops of up to 6.6 feet.

Samsung is primarily pitching these drives at content creators and IT professionals, as opposed to home consumers. Pricing reflects this as well. There are three capacity options: 500GB ($399.99), 1TB ($699.99), and 2TB ($1,399.99). To put pricing into perspective, an internal 970 Pro 512GB SSD sells for $229.99 on Amazon.

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).