Samsung T5 EVO 8TB External SSD Review - When capacity is king

TweakTown's Rating: 90%

The Bottom Line

With double the capacity of anything in its class, Samsung's 8TB T5 EVO might be exactly what you have been looking for.

Pros

• + Rugged
• + Capacious
• + Portability

Cons

• - SATA limitations

Should you buy it?

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Buy at Amazon

Buy at Newegg

Introduction & Drive Details

As we've stated on many occasions, there comes a point when user experience is not just a question of performance, but capacity can also come into play to the point where it is more important for some than raw performance. This is exactly what the portable SSD we have in hand today is all about.

It is, at minimum, twice the capacity of anything ultra-portable we've come across to date. Additionally, and just as important, this is the first of its capacity stature where heat is not a lurking issue. Samsung's T5 EVO is not going to break any speed records with its SATA interfaced limitations of 460 MB/s throughput, but it can hold double the data of anything else in its class.

If you need an ultra-high-capacity, ultra-portable, portable solid-state storage device, this is one that deserves a close look. There really is nothing else like it from a capacity or portability standpoint. This is where, for many, capacity is indeed king.

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The T5 EVO sports an ergonomic design in a slender rectangle with a black body while maintaining compact and light features. It is designed with a strong metal exterior with a rubberized surface that provides extra durability against external shocks, including drops of up to two meters. For convenience when storing the T5 EVO, the drive has an integrated metal ring designed to easily be secured to any bag or piece of luggage.

With its 8TB T5 EVO, Samsung is targeting console gamers and casual content creators who run out of storage space on host devices due to increasing file sizes of photos, videos, and video games.

Drive Details

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The T5 EVO features what we will describe as another brilliantly designed enclosure. The device is again a silicon rubber-encased metal enclosure providing a confident, satisfying in-hand feel. Samsung provides a Type-C to C cable.

Samsung T5 EVO 8TB Portable SSD

	Today	Yesterday	7 days ago	30 days ago
	$599.99	$542.77	$599.99	$551.78	Buy
	$619.99	$619.99	$599.99	$599.99	Buy
* Prices last scanned on 5/8/2024 at 2:04 pm CDT - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission.

Synthetic Benchmarks: CDM, ATTO & Blackmagic

CrystalDiskMark

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The T5 EVO delivers as advertised. Performance is pretty on point for a QLC-arrayed SATA device. For a bit of perspective, this device will deliver for you performance that is about equivalent to that of a typical 2.5" internal SATA SSD.

ATTO

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ATTO demonstrates the T5 EVO favors file transfer sizes of 512KB or more when writing data and 1MB or more when reading to the host.

Blackmagic

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While not performant enough for professional content creators, it is quite capable of satisfying the content creation needs of the typical consumer.

Real-World Testing: PCMark 10, 3DMark SSD Gaming & Transfer Rates

PCMark 10 Data Drive Benchmark

The Data Drive Benchmark is designed to test drives that are used for storing files rather than applications. You can also use this test with NAS drives, USB sticks, memory cards, and other external storage devices.

The Data Drive Benchmark uses 3 traces, running 3 passes with each trace as follows:

• Copying 339 JPEG files, 2.37 GB in total,?into?the target drive (write test).
• Making a copy of the JPEG files (read-write test).
• Copying the JPEG files to another drive (read test).

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Excellent result here. This is exactly where we envision the 8TB T5 EVO playing a competent role - as an ultra-portable extended data device.

3DMark SSD Gaming Test

UL's newest 3DMark SSD Gaming Test is the most comprehensive SSD gaming test ever devised. We consider it superior to testing against games themselves because, as a trace, it is much more consistent than variations that will occur between runs on the actual game itself. This test is the same as running the actual game, just without the inconsistencies inherent to application testing. In short, we believe that this is the world's best way to test an SSD's gaming prowess and accurately compare it against competing SSDs. The 3DMark SSD Gaming Test measures and scores the following:

• Loading Battlefield V from launch to the main menu.
• Loading Call of Duty Black Ops 4 from launch to the main menu.
• Loading Overwatch from launch to the main menu.
• Recording a 1080p gameplay video at 60 FPS with OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) while playing Overwatch.
• Installing The Outer Worlds from the Epic Games Launcher.
• Saving game progress in The Outer Worlds.
• Copying the Steam folder for Counter-Strike Global Offensive from an external SSD to the system drive.

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Gaming is a performance metric that matters to the majority of DIY consumers, especially to the enthusiast crowd that TweakTown caters to. We are now including gaming performance as a part of our external SSD reviews, as using portable storage for gaming duties is very popular among avid gamers.

Even though our test subject is bringing up the rear in terms of score, it is still plenty agile enough to serve as a great portable gaming device for PC or console. This is again another instance of where its capacity potentially offers a superior user experience than performance alone will.

DiskBench - Transfer Rates

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We brutalize our test subjects with our extremely hard-to-swallow 100GB data block. This data block is the same one we use for our internal SSD testing and is composed of more than 62K files. As we see it, 100GB is probably right at the upper limit for a single transfer, so again, as we see it, this is a much more realistic test than a sustained filling of the entire drive.

Our test subject delivers as expected for a SATA-interfaced device. Good enough.

Final Thoughts

At first glance, the T5 EVO can come across as a "but why?" kind of device. We also get that as a first thought, but only for capacity points less than 8TB. At 8TB, the T5 EVO comes into its own. There is really nothing else like it. It's the only 8TB device of its kind that we know of, as in USB bus-powered and cool running.

Additionally, when we keep in mind that it delivers, in terms of performance, a user experience roughly equivalent to that of an internal SATA SSD, we find it to be plenty fast enough for the average consumer. So yes, we like it very much.

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Where pocket-friendly portable capacity is king, the 8TB T5 EVO reigns supreme.