Rugged portable storage drives have been a huge breakthrough for photographers, videographers, travelers and outdoors types of all kinds. No more worries about running out of space on their mini or micro SD cards or their notebook hard drive. Portable storage drives allow you to quickly and easily backup your important files and free up room on your devices.
In recent years SSD drives are quickly replacing traditional hard drives in desktops and notebook computers and that trend continues in the niche of portable storage drives. SSD drives offer higher speeds, smaller size, and are naturally more resistance to impacts thanks to their lack of moving parts compared to a traditional drive. That means your files are more safe and secure.
With the price of SSD drives coming down, there are now many excellent options for portable SSD drives that won’t break the bank, and the addition of IP67/IP68 ratings mean that drives featuring those ratings are also shock, dust, and waterproof (to a point, per their rating).
Here are 3 of the best current choices for rugged portable SSD drives for anyone that needs to protect their files on the go.
G-Technology G-DRIVE mobile SSD
+ IP67 water and dust resistant rating
+ Up to 560 MB/s transfer speeds
+ Drop tested up to 3 meters
+ 1,000lb crush resistance
+ Compact size
+ 500GB, 1TB, 2TB sizes
+ USB-C, USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt 3 compatibility
– Can get warm during high usage
GNARBOX 2.0 SSD
+ MIL-SPEC design is water, dust and drop resistant
+ Up to 390 MB/s transfer speeds
+ Designed for outdoors content creators
+ Included mobile device app, and 1 touch backup for SD cards
+ 256GB, 512GB, 1TB sizes
+ 2 x USB-C, SD and Micro HDMI ports (great for photographers/videographers)
– Very expensive, targeted for content creators
Adata SE800 External SSD
+ IP68 water and dust resistant rating
+ Up to 1,000 MB/s transfer speeds
+ MIL-STD-810G 516.6 impact resistance
+ Super compact size
+ 500GB, 1TB sizes
+ USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C
– Only 2 color choices blue or black