Review: Samsung X5 Thunderbolt 3 Portable SSD 

Sounds like a lot of people in the comments don't understand that the target consumer isn't your average person. This is meant for professionals. That's why it's so expensive. If you transfer 100gb+ frequently then it's a great product and the speed makes a significant difference. If you just need an SSD for transferring movies, storing a backup, playing games etc. then this product obviously isn't for you!

I've got a 500GB Samsung T5 and pretty damn happy with it's peformance and price for the more basic things I do. I had actually purchased it to use on the class PCs as part of my I.T. course I did and to help run Virtual Machines from an external drive so that I could take them home as well and an external SSD certainly handled that beautifully!!!

The price of this drive makes the internal storage upgrade of the MacBook Pro look equally affordable.

Excellent video and review!

Very nice review! My compliments! :)

Wow they already shipping that's dope I'm going to get one today

Awesome video sir! Thanks for uploading. By the way, what is the specs of your computer that it can handle this fast? I am just wondering because I only have 8g of imac base model 21.5 2017 and I want purchase this drive to hopefully help my speed of my editing workflow. Thanks!

Hi, thanks for the graph with 3 tests. The write speed differentials between the tests give us a better understanding of actual performance. Can you make it standard?

Excellent review. Wish it was smaller, but size is understandable. WIsh it was less expensive and I'll get one. I've basically purchased Samsungs 970 EVO Plus for $190 and got an enclosure for $50 and it runs very fast over USB3-C. Only problem is it has problems reading at high speed and typically will saturate ports and speeds drop and device cannot be read from any more unless it's unplugged. I using 970 EVO Plus & Enclosure for moving large files ( 150GB to 400GB ) around. Writes are fine, not problems, but have to use regular USB3 to read data off without it coming to stop...

Super cool!

A great video! I use an older iMac 27" mid 2011. Will the Samsung X5 Thunderbolt 3 portable work with my iMac Thunderbolt ports

When will you be announcing the winner of the MacBook Pro giveaway?

Other user(s) have noticed Final Cut Pro freezing up during the high-bitrate stressful operations because the drive thermal-throttles down. So you're right- better to spend the money on Apple storage when ordering- but most looking at this drive already have their MacBook and need more space , I would think.

Very nice video . What do you think: Is it a good deal to buy a 27 inch iMac with 3.7 GHz 2 TB Fusion drive 580x and use the Samsung x5 as the boot drive (thunderbolt)? The current price is with 2149 EUR for the iMac and 449 EUR for the x5 moderate. But I am worried that the external x5 could by worser (slower, latency?) then a internal SSD or some other issues can happed when Boot the OS . The internal fusion drive I could use as a extra storage (backup?). Thanks.

They designed that for MKBHD hahah

Can you connect this to say other Thunderbolts ⚡ports or USB C some how?

will it work with the same speeds if you ave a tunderbolt converter cable to a regular usb?

I was with you all the way to the price, then like “nope”.

Get the 500GB model and put in a 2TB drive. Very easy to open, peel off the sticker at the back and unscrew.

Is there an adapter that works with this to use w/ USB/USBC/HDMI/Thunderbolt 2? I'd like to use one with my 2014 MBP.

Will this work by inserting into the new 2018 iPad Pro? I'd like to watch videos on my iPad via this SSD Hard Drive.

If you find Thunderbolt external SSDs at price comparable to the affordable SSDs, is it worth purchasing if you do not need the fast speeds (do not conduct video or photo editing or large data tasks) and have computers without thunderbolt? I understand the samsung X4 is not compatible with other port types. only compatible with thunderbolt USB-C. If you need to put the SSD into a computer without thunderbolt, I would be in trouble. wouldn't I?

In US internal SSD upgrade may be the same price however, in Turkey, buying the same model from Apple starts with 20% higher price tag, if you add the upgrades it will be a fortune.. Apple's pricing is ridiculous here.. I wonder if it is possible installing Windows on that drive. It is expected to behave as if it is internal drive..

It is okay when you use external SSD for saving an application or running application from external SSD? Like running unity or something else?

even if you compared the SSD upgrade to the X5 at an earlier time and X5's price is ~$100 lower now, you forgot to consider that e.g. an upgrade to 500GB gives you only an end 500GB for $400 more. But buying this drive gives you an additional 500GB for it's price. Means you pay at Apple $400 for ~384GB not 500GB!

I'm not a tech guy by any means but will this Thunderbolt 3 cable device work on a laptop with only a Thunderbolt 4 with power sharing port?

it won't work at all with computer with a non-thunderbolt usb-c (usb4 or 3.1) port?

Wow $515.37 for a 500GB model. If it is a Thunderbolt product, than it is 4x so expensive. on Ebay you can buy a thunderbolt enclosure for fast M.2 Nvme SSD cards price US $188,- excluding SSD, a lot off money but much cheaper tan this Samsung X5. I made self a external USB3.1 Gen2 SSD 480GB 550MB/s for $60,00 fast enough. I made this for back-up purpose. On eBay I buy a enclosure for $16,- here in the Netherlands i buy a 480GB 2.5" SSD $44,50 total price $60,50 I'm very satisfied with it.

Hi...i own macbook pro retina 15-2014 and it have thunderbolt 2...will this HDD works with it? thank you

Can it be used for a Windows 10 boot drive on a Mac?

Can you install Windows 10 in that X5?

Kinda looks like an expensive car’s key fob, at 1.5x the size. It looks nice though.

Next Video: Installing and running OS on Samsung X5

Anyone have any recommendations for a HD or SSD for the Nvidia Shield? Going to be using it for games

Would this work on win 10 with USB 3.0?

ha, one year after this video and these drives are half the price. Tempting speeds, but for what I need, I'll go with the Crucial 1TB X8 drive @ 900MB/s Writes and 930 Reads. Plus it's compatible with regular USB computers and ipad Pro. Plus it's A LOT smaller and seems just as rugged. Imagine a year later this 1TB X8 will be half the price as well. :)

Is it backwards compatible with usb-c ?

Hi Jeff. I heard of people having issues with this drive and mac OS Catalina. Is this true does anybody know if this is true? Thanks.

I really want to see the internal.

Have you tested it with a USB-C cable? I really, really need to know if this drive will connect to a USB computer. Also, the reason the drive is so big, is because it is an M2 drive stuffed into an enclosure. It's the same method those WD external SSDs use (which use SanDisk X400 SSDs, I voided my warranty so you don't have to! It also makes sense since WD now owns the company.). Same method, but a different layout. In the WD, the USB board is essentially stacked on top of the SSD itself, and the SSD being used is single sided, so it can be mounted flush with that board, since both boards are single sided on one side. At least this is how I remember it. Also, feeling the device is absolutely, positively, not an indicator of how hot it is actually getting. If there is no heatsink and no thermal interface material (either paste or pads), a drive may feel nice and cool and low-power to the touch, when in reality it's nearly on fire. If you could use one of the many Mac (or Windows) hard drive SMART diagnostics programs, it will tell you - SSDs run SMART, too. Even some high end flash drives run SMART, because they're also SSDs on a stick! I'd love to know if you're able to get back to us about this. It will be really interesting to see the thermals of this drive. SSDs are nowhere near as sensitive to temperature as hard drives are, and even hard drives aren't as sensitive as people think they are, so it's not critical - but there's no such thing as too much data in a review. It is crucial to know if USB works *at all* though. I know it'll be at a reduced rate, I'm not an idiot, but if it has a chip that can do it, that'd be awesome. Thanks, guys! Like the reviews, keep them coming. Long time website reader, but like the videos too.

Have you tried to use 3rd party adapter USB 3.1 for this drive. Will it work? Or only for thunderbolt 3?

I hate to be that guy, but would this work with my hp pavilion x360??

The real question is: How does this differ from a 960 EVO Nvme drive plugged into an Nvme to Thunderbolt enclosure? It's the same speed with a much cheaper price ! Anyone can mention a difference?

If one is on location and drops the drive at least that red backing should help one find it. I would almost bet that the thing is weighted in such a way as to cause it to land with its back up more often than not. Just a thought​...

Anyone use this as a bootcamp windows 10 boot up drive? Thinking this might be a way to run windows on my 2017 iMac

скажите пожалуйста работает ли это с macbook air 2020 intel?

Could someone explain me why Thunderbolt 3 and not USB 3.1 which allow 5-10 Gbs / s which is enough for a 2 Gb/s ssd ?

Could you tell me please, will it work through a simple type c (not thunderbolt) port?

Hope they just sell the enclosure

Reupload?

Will this work with the 4th gen iPad Pro (2020)?

This is way overkill, but thanks!

It’s come way down in price. More worth it now.

Have you tested the X5 as a boot disk with MacOs?

There's a problem, most PC motherboard doesn't have thunderbolt 3.

6K and 8K yep use it all day and 99 procent of the world :-)

Could you guys at least enable auto-captions? Why is it that so many creators, websites, and publications ignore deaf people?

Can’t run on usb c?

wrong mic setting.

Why does it have to be so huge?

$1400 for a 2TB... hell no

$2199 Australian dollars for the 2 TB.... Me thinks NO WAY IN HELL>....

The performance is beyond impressive, but the design aesthetic that's "inspired by race cars" is just bad. Fast cars look like they do for aerodynamics, not to look cool. Samsung, take cue from the T5's beautiful functional design that sits well on a surface. And research on Dieter Rams. P.S: your race car inspired design looks like a coffin

This wont be worth buying for like at least another 2 years for the average consumer, cant justify the price even for the speeds. You can get any type/c thunderbolt enclosure for an nvme and just combine smaller drives.

Too expensive

its not compatible with Mac. I have it on a Mac mini 2018 as an external main boot up drive. It runs fast and then SLOWS DOWN to 150mb per second, and goes back up. it is NOT compatible.

Lovely but price wise terrible

The price is a joke.

P

Lol 400$ no thank you

JUST PURCHASED ONE 500 SAMSUNG. COM

Yeah well this one is external, while apple decided to be complete assholes and solder the storage to the motherboard. If I would buy a new Mac mini, it will only be with this type of external drive because I will refuse to use internal chips.

First

First!

who cares if it is bigger than the t5 the t5 sucks !