Despite my phone's 128 gig of space, I have a problem. Photos and video that I shoot eats up tons of space and simply uploading all the files to the cloud just isn't an option while traveling. In the past, I've used an external SD card reader and SD card to back stuff up and offload it from my phone but the process was awkward and on more than one occasion I actually lost my SD card because it fell out the reader while sitting in the airplane seat pocket. With Samsung's new T5 Portable SSD though I can have up to 2TB of space to backup my files ... as well as carry other files with me to share such as movies, audio files, etc.

Samsung sent me their 500 GB unit to test and I was extremely impressed. It's fast, compact, and the included cable was pretty robust as well. The Samsung T5 comes in sizes including: 250GB, 500 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB with transfer speeds of up to 540 MB/s when connected to a compatible USB 3.1 port on your phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer.

Inside the shock-resistant metal case is a SSD - Solid State Drive, essentially the same technology that you find inside higher-end laptops and gaming PCs because of how fast and reliable it is. There are no moving parts so that means less chance to be corrupted compared to other portable hard drive solutions that I've used in the past.

While you can simply connect the device to the USB C or A port on your phone or laptop, there is additional management software available as well that allows you to password protect and encrypt the device as well.

Overall, this is a very cool device that far exceeded my expectations. Whereas previously I'd been cobbling together a solution for managing large files on the go, this device is exactly what I've been looking for ... without having to compromise.

You can find more information about it on Samsung T5 Portable SSD website, or on Amazon where it is available for sale, starting at MSRP $99.99 for the 500GB version and topping out at $479.99 for the 2 TB version.