We tested the T7 Shield, which is a more rugged model, wrapped in a sturdy rubber sleeve designed for outdoor use. The standard T7 is a compact, lightweight SSD that looks very similar to the old T5 – although it boasts higher performance, so make sure you check the model numbers before buying. There are actually three versions of the T7 available. The T5 is still available if you’re looking for an affordable SSD for your Mac, but Samsung recently updated its range of storage products with the new T7 model. It was super easy to do.Samsung’s T5 has been a regular fixture in our list of the best SSD drives for a few years now. If you just want the enclosure (TEKQ Cube), that's about $120, and you can add your own drive. You can get a TEKQ Rapide (enclosure w/drive) with an 1Tb SN550 in it from Amazon for about $245. The cheaper SN550 (blue) is marketed at 2600Mb/s, which is plenty fast and doesn't run as warm. That SN750 is supposed to be capable of 3400Mb/s, so like I said, it's overkill. Faster! I boot my iMac from the external drive, and it's so fast.

Now that TEKQ Cube/WD Black 1Tb with the same test is 1910Mb/s write and 2073Mb/s read. I have a 2Tb My Passport USB3 drive, and I get about 113Mb/s write and 116Mb/s read using the Aja disk performance test with a 16Gig file.

I would guess WD's less expensive Blue drive would work perfectly well, and still be super fast. It's capable of higher speeds than the TB3 bus and the enclosure can provide. I put a WD Black SN750 in one, and it screams. If money isn't much of a factor, try a TEKQ Cube Thunderbolt 3 enclosure with a 1Tb NVME drive.

Best mac external drives