Conventional hard disk drives use sensitive moving parts, but not SSDs, making them much less vulnerable to drops. With the aid of Transcend's bundled Elite software, the drive can be formatted for Windows or Mac, or you can connect it directly to an Android mobile device that supports USB On-The-Go. USB Type-C to Type-C, along with a Type-C to Type A cable are included to allow connection to desktop, laptop or phone.

The Extreme Portable SSD comes pre-formatted as an exFAT device which means that it can work on Windows and Mac out of the box. Reformattingit to NTFS will limit compatibility to Windows but will enable TRIM which will improve the longevity of the drive.For capacity, traditional hard drives (HDDs) offer a lot more options, but SSDs are generally able to house the same amount of storage in a smaller amount of space. Inside the toughened shell is a fast SSD which SanDisk claims can transfer data at up to 560MB/s - impressive stuff. The drive connects via an up-to-date USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C connection, though a Type-A converter is included to maintain compatibility with older computers. This is WD's latest version of its popular MyPassport SSD, not to be confused with the previous incarnation which is still on sale. The new version has a smoother, more rounded design, but while it looks different, it still goes by the exact same My Passport SSD name, just for that little extra confusion. The standout feature of this SSD is its ruggedized design that protects the drive against a 3-metre drop and 1000lb of crushing force, plus the exterior is IP67 rated to resist dust and moisture. Despite this extra exterior protection, the drive's 95mm x 50mm x 14.5mm dimensions are only marginally more bulky than the non-ruggedized WD My Passport SSD. But with square corners and an antiquated, two-tone design, the drive isn’t a looker. And it finished near the bottom of all of our performance tests.

We hooked up each external hard drive to a current-generation Dell XPS 17 laptop, using the best connection interface available to that drive, always in the same port, to minimize performance differentials. CrystalDiskMark gets things off to a good start with stunning peak sequential read/write speeds of 1440/726MB/s respectively, though this is some way short of OWC's claim of "up to 2800MB/s". Real world file transfers will always be slower than a synthetic benchmark test, but we still recorded a hugely impressive 995MB/s peak read speed when shifting one massive video file, though this figure did drop as the transfer progressed, leaving the final averaged video read speed at a more modest - though still very rapid - 645MB/s. An average 612MB/s read speed moving multiple image files is also superb, though write speeds take a significant performance hit, with an average 481MB/s when writing video and just 278MB/s when writing multiple images. That image write rate did peak at a healthier 413MB/s during the transfer, but the drive couldn't sustain this speed, hence the slower average figure. LaCie, Seagate, Glyph, WD, Lexar and G-Technology also have similar rugged and high capacity external SSDs, but none of them have a unique selling point that would make them stand out against the T5, the SE730H or the SanDisk.

Up to three-meter drop protection and IP65 water and dust resistance 5 mean this durable drive can take a beating. With high-performance transfers with up to 550MB/s read speeds 7, the SanDisk Extreme® Portable SSD lets you offload files in a snap.

From SanDisk, the brand professional photographers worldwide trust to handle their best shots and footage. We saw some good numbers here, with the caveat that the Type-C connector – not Type-A – was used. This little SanDisk product outperformed all non-Thunderbolt 3 drives we’ve tested with CrystalDiskMark, delivering nearly 560MBps in terms of read speed and just over 500MBps in write. A 100GB file was transferred in 294 seconds, which equates to a transfer rate of about 334MBps.Lexar is a brand usually associated with top-notch memory cards and card readers, but it also offers several portable SSDs. The SL200 is its latest offering, and measures an easily portable 86 x 60 x 9.5mm. Build quality feels reassuringly solid, and the matte silver finish looks the part next to most modern laptops. Some drives are pre-configured for either Mac or Windows. This can almost always be changed with the right software. Good things come in small sizes! The SanDisk Extreme® Portable SSD delivers high-performance and capacity in a drive that’s smaller than a smartphone.

Don’t expect even an SSD to transfer a large batch of image files as fast as it’ll shift a single video file of the same size. CrystalDiskMark 7.0.0 (8GB workloads, single-thread sequential read and write, queue depths of 1 and 8) The WD My Passport SSD with USB 3.2 doesn’t look like its travel-enabling namesake, the My Passport Go, but it’s all ready to go places. It’s small (3.9x 2.2x 0.4 inches) and attractive, with its shiny ridged surface and choice of five snazzy colors (blue, gold, gray, red, and silver).

This is not SanDisk's top-of-the-range portable SSD - that honour currently goes to the Extreme Pro Portable SSD V2 (above), but this cheaper non-Pro version is still very fast, and appreciable cheaper too. So it'd better have plenty of performance to compensate. Thankfully, with NVMe SSD technology and a Thunderbolt 3 connection promising a theoretical 40Gbps bandwidth (that's 4x faster than USB 3.1 Gen 2), the Envoy Pro EX has all the right ingredients for winning performance. There’s not much competition in this price range. The Samsung T5, which costs marginally less and is far more portable, is the only rival that is widely available. It is not IP-rated, though, and its metallic surface is likely to get scratched easily.