Samsung T5 EVO Portable SSD Review: QLC Sets Sane Expectations, Insane Pricing

The market for portable SSDs (PSSDs) has seen rapid growth over the past decade. Samsung is one of the active tier-one flash vendors in the space, with their popular T-series PSSDs servicing a range of target markets in terms of performance and price. Today, the company is introducing a new category in PSSDs - high-capacity flash storage limited to entry-level speeds. The company is using QLC flash for this purpose. While this is not the first PSSD in the market to use QLC flash (and it will definitely not be the last), the company is not repeating the mistakes of its predecessors by promising the moon. Instead, the company's first product in this category - the T5 EVO Portable SSD - is limited to USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) speeds. Making up for this entry-level speed specification, Samsung is launching three different capacity points for the T5 EVO PSSD - 2 TB, 4 TB, and 8 TB. Can limiting QLC PSSDs to 5 Gbps deliver a better user experience? Read on for an analysis of the performance and value proposition of the 8 TB variant of the T5 EVO PSSD for direct-attached storage workloads.