Best External USB-C SSDs 2022

Samsung T7 Touch
Samsung T7 Touch (Image credit: Windows Central)

When it comes to storing a lot of files and backups that you can carry in your bag or pocket, a portable solid-state drive (SSD) is your best bet. You get a small size with big performance, with portable SSDs offering breakneck data transfer speeds while sometimes being the size of a credit card. For many, the best SSD is the one you can take anywhere.

Plenty of great choice

Even with cloud storage as ubiquitous as it is today, sometimes you simply can't substitute being able to carry data with you on a portable drive. An SSD is by far the best way to do this, and with the advancement of the USB-C standard, prices are beginning to fall. If we had to choose one we'd always lean towards, it would be the Samsung T7, for similar reasons to recommending the company's internal SSDs.

Like Samsung internal storage, the T7 is fast, reliable, good value and comes with a solid warranty. The T7, in particular, is insanely portable, sizing little more than a credit card. You really could carry it in a wallet.

There are plenty of other good choices out there as well with a special shout out for Sabrent, a brand you may not be familiar with, but that has been producing some good quality, high performing, affordable storage solutions recently. The Rocket Pro is another excellent choice.

And if you have a spare desktop drive gathering dust doing nothing, why not use something like the Satechi DIY enclosure to repurpose it as a portable, USB-C equipped SSD. It's affordable, high quality, and definitely better than tossing out your old drive!

Cale Hunt
Contributor

Cale Hunt brings to Windows Central more than eight years of experience writing about laptops, PCs, accessories, games, and beyond. If it runs Windows or in some way complements the hardware, there’s a good chance he knows about it, has written about it, or is already busy testing it.