Samsung has released the T7 Shield USB-C Portable SSD, which is said to have the same internal hardware as the T7, but with a more rugged design that makes it IP65 water and dust resistant. The grippy rubber coating inherently deflects wear and scratches better than the T7’s metal design, and it’s more resistant to drops, up to 9.8 feet. And, thanks to this rubber, Samsung says it can maintain high performance, transferring up to 2TB of data without triggering its Dynamic Thermal Protection feature, which throttles data transfer speeds to protect the hardware.
The T7 Shield is available starting today in 1TB and 2TB configurations for $143.99 and $260.99, respectively. It has the same transfer speeds as the T7 and T7 Touch (I review the latter here), offering sequential read speeds of up to 1,050MB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 1,000MB/s.
The T7 Shield is available in blue, black or beige.Image: Samsung
Available in black, beige, or blue, the T7 Shield each includes a USB-C to USB-C cable and a USB-C to USB-A cable. It is compatible with Windows PC and macOS as well as Android phones, game consoles and more.
Samsung sends a pre-production sample edge Putting it to the test, it performed as fast as the T7, although its USB-C cable showed a worrying tendency to wiggle out of the port with little provocation.Samsung spokesperson Courtney Camp and edge On the phone, this issue is limited to pre-production samples and does not imply that a similar issue will occur in retail builds.
As with previous Samsung USB-C SSDs, prices may drop soon. However, if the rubber coating isn’t important to you, you can get the standard T7 in a 1TB ($114.99) configuration for far less than the new version will cost when it’s released. Otherwise, the 2TB T7 is currently on sale for $229.99, and I think the IP65 protection is worth the extra $30.