Different nuances, one winner Crucial's X10 series offers a good ratio of speed, size and price for the 20 Gbit/s SSD class. Samsung's T9 is built to a high standard and delivers decent performance; the T7 Shield may be robust, but is too slow for the price at the time of going to press...

Eight external SSDs were at the starting line of our comparison test; eight made it to the finish line - there was no total failure to report. First of all: The fact that the currently fastest USB SSDs according to USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 do not deliver their speed advantage on a Mac, at least at present, is not due to the manufacturers of the SSDs...

The Samsung Portable SSD T9 impresses with very high overall transfer rates, a robust housing and an attractive GByte price.

Eight external SSDs were at the starting line of our comparison test; eight made it to the finish line - there was no total failure to report. First of all: The fact that the currently fastest USB SSDs according to USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 do not deliver their speed advantage on a Mac, at least at present, is not due to the manufacturers of the SSDs...

In the speed test, the Samsung T9 was surprisingly beaten by its two competitors, albeit only by a small margin. In addition to its robustness and reliability, it scores with its good scope of delivery, including programmes for Windows and Apple macOS.

Fast SSDs have become affordable. For most users, SSDs with USB 3.2 Gen2 and 1 or 2 TB of storage space are the best choice. Here, the SK Hynix Beetle X31 Portable (1 TB, 100 euros) and the Emtec X210 (2 TB, 140 euros) were the best in the test. The Kingston XS1000 (80 euros) was the price-performance winner among the 1 TB models...