The Best Portable SSDs of 2026

Planning to go somewhere off the beaten track? The LaCie Rugged can handle it. This soap-bar-sized (3.9 inches long, and 0.7 inches thick) external SSD is wrapped in a tough plastic cover that the manufacturer claims is water-resistant, can stand drops from up to ten feet, and can even shrug off being run over by a two-ton truck. We didn’t test these ambitious claims, but the bright orange plastic case certainly feels pretty tough.

We found that this SSD offers strong performance to back up its rugged good looks: our 2.7GB test file copied to the drive in just 6.1 seconds—1.5 seconds slower than the fastest SSD we tested.

LaCie is owned by Seagate now, so this drive comes with their Seagate Secure software, available for Mac and Windows, which can password protect some or all of the drive. And, should the road prove too rough, you also get one included use of Seagate’s data recovery service which will attempt to recover data from a damaged drive.

Our only two minor complaints about the hardware are the lack of a cover over the USB-C port and the ridiculously short USB-C cable it comes with: only 5.5 inches from port to port. That’s too short to put the drive behind your laptop, so it usually ends up hanging off the laptop, held in place by the tension of the cable. That’s not a great idea if you happen to be hanging halfway off a mountain at the time.

The Sandisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD, just 0.4 inches thick and 4.3 inches long, is one tough little drive. It has an IP55 rating, meaning you can cover it in dirt and dust and then rinse it off under a running tap, for up to three minutes, to no ill effect. Its case is made using a rubberized coating over an aluminum body that’s designed to dissipate heat when the drive is in use. It comes with a USB-C cable and a USB-C to USB 3 adapter, making it suitable for use with most modern computers.

During testing, our 2.7GB test file copied to this SSD over its included USB-C cable in just over 5.1 seconds. This, along with our other tests, showed that it was one of the faster drives in this guide.

The Extreme Pro is a neat little drive with a carabiner clip on one side, but it isn’t particularly fast: we found its speed to be average. One thing to note here: many sites are selling an older version of this drive under the same name, which is cheaper, but significantly slower. Look for the 2nd generation name and the access speed of up to 2000 Mb/s.

At just 0.4 inches thick and 3.1 by 3.7 inches wide and tall, The Seagate BarraCuda is a compact external SSD that offers a lot of performance. There's a single USB-C port on the side of its enclosure and a recessed green LED on the top of the drive that blinks when it’s in use. To make use of the BarraCuda’s USB-Connection, Seagate ships the drive with both USB-C and USB 3 cables.

Unfortunately, the BarraCuda doesn’t quite live up to its speedy fish moniker when it comes to data access: we found that it took 8.2 seconds to copy our 2.7GB test file onto the drive. That’s nearly twice as long as the transfer speed of the fastest external SSD in this guide.

The LaCie Portable SSD, so far as we can tell, is a rebranded Seagate BarraCuda SSD, being sold, at the time that this guide was written, at a higher price point—a common practice for products from two brands that are owned by the same parent company. The two drives are identical in form and function.

This being the case, unless you prefer to own the LaCie iteration for the prestige associated with the brand, we suggest buying whichever of the two drives can be found for less money.

The prize for the smallest SSD drive on our roundup goes to the AData SE800. This matchbook-sized drive weighs just 1.4oz and is only 2.8 inches long. It’s also pretty tough: AData claims it is water, dust, and shockproof, with an IP68 rating that means it can survive 30 minutes immersion in water 10 feet deep and against dust and drops from a few feet. This requires that the plastic cover over the USB-C port is in place, though, and that cover could be easily torn off from the single piece of plastic that holds it in place. Cables for both USB-C and USB 3 are both included.

In our performance tests, we found that it was a decent performer, copying our 2.7GB test file in 5.5 seconds. That’s average, and means it should be fairly quick to copy files to or from the drive, which is important when it can hold up to 2TB of data. The drive does get a little warm to the touch when in use as the heat is dissipated through the aluminum case.

Stack three credit cards together, and you’ll get an idea of the size of the Samsung T7. It’s a sleek little drive with an aluminum case that’s available in a grey, red or blue finish. We tested the 500GB version of the drive. It can also be had in 1TB and 2TB capacities. A version with a fingerprint sensor is also available. The T7 sports a single USB-C port and comes with cables for both USB-C and USB 3, as well as security and administration software compatible with both Windows and Mac systems.

Sadly, the T7’s performance disappointed us. Our 2.7GB test file took just under six seconds to copy to the drive. This lack of speed won’t make much difference if you’re shuttling around small files, but if you want to back up a complete PC, expect things to move a little slow.

At just 2.5 inches tall, 2.25 inches wide, and just under a half-inch thick, the PNY Pro Elite can easily fit into a pocket or small bag. It is available in capacities of up to 1TB, which is the version we tested.

This small drive comes equipped with a USB-C port and ships with both USB-C and USB 3 cables. During our tests, we were underwhelmed: it took 9.3 seconds to copy our 2.7GB test file.. That might not be a problem if you are only carrying a few files around with you, but you may as well leave it to transfer files from your computer overnight if you plan on filling it to its 1TB capacity.

Most of the SSDs that we tested for this roundup are designed to connect to desktop or laptop computers. The My Passport Wireless SSD, as the name implies, goes a bit further. This battery-powered SSD can act as a wireless access point, allowing any wireless device in range to read or write data to it. For photographers, it also offers another neat feature: insert an SD Card and press a button, and it will automatically copy the photos from the card to the SSD.

Both of these features worked very well in our tests: we could copy data to and from the device with laptops and smartphones, and the process of copying photos from SD Cards was simple: just plug in, press the button and go. The device itself is also tough: a robust rubber sleeve around the drive makes it proof against drops and bumps.

However, the downside is that the SSD inside the device is slow. When plugged into a PC with the included USB 3 cable, we found that it took 9.7 seconds to copy our 2.7GB test file to the drive: the longest time in our tests. The same thing was true in our other tests of reading data from the drive and writing to it: it was much slower than the other SSDs.