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The plot thickens... It seems that Samsung Portable SSD T5 will be available in 12 days (by 3rd August 2017), CHEAPER in pc21 site (see below) than current T3 model. References created on 22nd July 2017; TTC: "Toutes taxes compris", which is French for all taxes included (use Google translate if required):

Samsung SSD 250GB T5 external SSD Blue
(Reference created on 22.07.17) SNG23037 MU-PA250B / EU
-15% = 124,76 € exc.; 149,71 € TTC
Current price for T3 on Amazon France including tax: EUR 132,89
Current price for T3 on pc21 France including tax: 177,00 €
http://www.pc21.fr/fiche/mu-pa250b-eu-samsung-ssd-250gb-t5-extrenal-ssd-blue-i2023276.html
https://translate.googleusercontent...6.html&usg=ALkJrhgw0oN38usOZ7bDoGng8LzKe0-OHw

Samsung SSD 500GB T5 external SSD Blue
SNG23039 MU-PA500B / EU
-15% = 187,98 € exc. VAT; 225,57 € TTC
Current price for T3 on Amazon France including tax: EUR 202,90
Current price for T3 on pc21 France including tax: 239,52 €
http://www.pc21.fr/fiche/mu-pa500b-eu-samsung-ssd-500gb-t5-extrenal-ssd-blue-i2023278.html
https://translate.googleusercontent...8.html&usg=ALkJrhj5BaSvXtn8cMFyLplyJAlpLfbEWg

Samsung SSD 1TB T5 external SSD Black
(Reference created on 22.07.17) SNG23036 MU-PA1T0B / EU
-16% = 370,15 € exc. VAT; 444,18 € TTC
Current price for T3 on Amazon France including tax: EUR 356,52
Current price for T3 on pc21 France including tax: 540,91 €
http://www.pc21.fr/fiche/mu-pa1t0b-eu-samsung-ssd-1tb-t5-extrenal-ssd-black-i2023275.html
https://translate.googleusercontent...5.html&usg=ALkJrhgR7ptNGn_wQmaNh3DS1gLPrzTUhQ

Samsung SSD 2TB T5 external SSD Black
(Reference created on 22.07.17) SNG23038 MU-PA2T0B / EU
-16% = 722,98 € exc. VAT; 867,57 € TTC
Current price for T3 on Amazon France including tax: EUR 776,99
Current price for T3 on pc21 France including tax: 948,69 €
http://www.pc21.fr/fiche/mu-pa2t0b-eu-samsung-ssd-2tb-t5-extrenal-ssd-black-i2023277.html
https://translate.googleusercontent...7.html&usg=ALkJrhis7oG6gl-ILRpLgaXI1HmH_lJSSA
 
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What's the difference between T3 and T5 other than size? Also is it possible to TRIM via software?
 
T5 is much better than T3. See previous messages on this thread.
 
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Any details on whether this is going to be a single SATA 6.0 Gbps drive, or if this is going to do something like the SanDisk Extreme 900 and stripe the data across two SSDs to really leverage what 3.1 gen 2 is capable of? I am guessing by the size it is going to be the former, but Samsung's done some amazing stuff with SSDs...
 
SanDisk Extreme 900 has RAID 0 inside, which increases failure probability more than twice, since if one of the two disks inside or the controller fails, all is lost. Curiously, SanDisk Extreme 900 product page does not mention such RAID 0 specification, which is suspicious and not good. Such critical thing should be fully disclosed. The potential buyer has the right to know what is purchasing. SanDisk, do not be evil!

RAID 0 may be good when speed is top priority, but not when data integrity is paramount, as when booting Mac and working from it all-day-long. Although SSD are more reliable than now-obsolete mechanical-rotational disks, the former do not usually warn before failing, as the latter may do (clicking noise, etc).

On the other hand, Samsung has state-of-the-art technology for V-NAND SSD, like 960 Pro (fortunately, no RAID 0 inside!), with outstanding sequential read/write speeds up to 3,500/2,100 MB/s and random R/W speeds up to 440/360K IOPS, respectively. But that is PCIe NVMe M.2 internal SSD (not external one). Companies like Sonnet and JMR will deliver such Samsung 960 Pro inside an external portable SSD for Mac. Here are their two previous related products to be updated soon:

Sonnet Fusion Thunderbolt 3 PCIe Flash Drive
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/fusiontb3pcieflashdrive.html?tab=4

JMR Lightning LTNG-XTD portable Thunderbolt SSD
http://jmr.com/product/jmr-lightningltng-xtd-portable-thunderbolt-ssd

Such new Thunderbolt 3 (not the ones on the links above) Sonnet and JMR external portable SSD to boot Mac and work from them all-day-long are overdue now, due to thermal throttling issues. Just check out the bizarre enclosing (designed to work as huge heat sinks) used by their former versions on the links above.
 
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Patience. Good things come to those who wait... It is expected in 11 days (see my post about pc21, above).
 
SanDisk Extreme 900 has RAID 0 inside, which increases failure probability more than twice, since if one of the two disks inside or the controller fails, all is lost. Curiously, SanDisk Extreme 900 product page does not mention such RAID 0 specification, which is suspicious and not good. Such critical thing should be fully disclosed. The potential buyer has the right to know what is purchasing. SanDisk, do not be evil!

RAID 0 may be good when speed is top priority, but not when data integrity is paramount, as when booting Mac and working from it all-day-long. Although SSD are more reliable than now-obsolete mechanical-rotational disks, the former do not usually warn before failing, as the latter may do (clicking noise, etc).

On the other hand, Samsung has state-of-the-art technology for V-NAND SSD, like 960 Pro (fortunately, no RAID 0 inside!), with outstanding sequential read/write speeds up to 3,500/2,100 MB/s and random R/W speeds up to 440/360K IOPS, respectively. But that is PCIe NVMe M.2 internal SSD (not external one). Companies like Sonnet and JMR will deliver such Samsung 960 Pro inside an external portable SSD for Mac. Here are their two previous related products to be updated soon:

Sonnet Fusion Thunderbolt 3 PCIe Flash Drive
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/fusiontb3pcieflashdrive.html?tab=4

JMR Lightning LTNG-XTD portable Thunderbolt SSD
http://jmr.com/product/jmr-lightningltng-xtd-portable-thunderbolt-ssd

Such new Thunderbolt 3 (not the ones on the links above) Sonnet and JMR external portable SSD to boot Mac and work from them all-day-link are overdue now, due to thermal throttling issues. Just check out the bizarre enclosing (designed to work as huge heat sinks) used by their former versions on the links above.

SanDisk doesn't care about that one bit. If SanDisk cared about the consumer, they would disclose in which products they use MLC vs. TLC NAND (and 3D vs. planar, for that matter) rather than making it damned near impossible to find out without ripping open a drive (I really love how they actively block software that can normally detect this.) It's not as crappy of behavior as Kingston's and Silicon Power's MLC-TLC bait-and-switch, but it's still not nice. I wish Makers would be more forthcoming with a lot of info...

Those m.2 PCIe offerings are great, minus the lack of affordable pricing and capacity selection. I use ThunderBolt 2 quite a bit, but I'm still using SATA SSDs via eSATA partly due to pricing. I would love an external SSD that is capable of leveraging the capability of USB 3.1 gen 2 - but among consumer-level SSDs, I do not personally see any clear successor to SATA 6G in the short-term. I hope I am proven wrong.
 
What's the difference between T3 and T5 other than size?
Claims of energy efficiency and reliability. Move from 48- to 64-layer 256Gb V-NAND. Business products shipped months ago, nice products - consumer products are in the pipeline. Not new here to the T5, posted about it before this thread started. My storage vendor related a 3-6 week lead time for decent supplies, in part due to waiting until T3 inventory tanks.
https://news.samsung.com/global/sam...p-of-high-performance-flash-storage-solutions

SanDisk doesn't care about that one bit. If SanDisk cared about the consumer, they would disclose in which products they use MLC vs. TLC NAND
Old news - TLC. One of these in my office, not great for anything other than PS/FCPX project/scratch work. Cherry picked this one for you:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3046...review-10gbps-usb-31-performance-at-last.html

The Glyph Atom RAID in my office makes the Extreme 900 feel stupid slow.
 
Very interested in this. Just purchased a MacBook Pro and could use external SSD but it sounds like it would be worth being patient for the next 2 weeks to see if current prices go down or if the new model is preferable.
 
Old news - TLC. One of these in my office, not great for anything other than PS/FCPX project/scratch work. Cherry picked this one for you:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3046...review-10gbps-usb-31-performance-at-last.html

The Glyph Atom RAID in my office makes the Extreme 900 feel stupid slow.

It's old news because of independent reviewers - not because SanDisk openly disclosed that they were using TLC in the 900 or in which of their other consumer SSDs. The same goes for other SanDisk flash products as the company does not disclose this information. :(

The Atom RAID looks awesome.
 
It's old news because of independent reviewers - not because SanDisk openly disclosed that they were using TLC in the 900 or in which of their other consumer SSDs. The same goes for other SanDisk flash products as the company does not disclose this information. :(

The Atom RAID looks awesome.
The Atom RAID is pretty awesome, I'll likely be buying a few more when my next FY starts.

I do respectfully disagree with putting this on others for disclosures. SD puts out press releases for every product or platform they make, though they're not reviews or detailed spec sheets - and they have a CS telephone line that one can call for additional information or white papers. Granted, I refer to their business PR section for details but they do put out info for pretty much everything they make. Last year I wanted to check out their Z410 SSD (I ended up buying several EVO SSDs that my vendor sold me at a deep discount), but here's that link as an example:
https://www.sandisk.com/about/media...terabyte-ssd-optimized-for-everyday-computing

I called their CS number - 408-801-1000 - and they sent me the link. QED. I read it, asked for the white paper, got it emailed in under a minute. Cheers.
 
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I have ordered T3 1 GB from Amazon for 370 EUR. I'm trying to find any significant differences between T3 and T5 - from this Romanian website it seems there will be no much of a difference - 540 Mb/s is not big performance boost. I just wonder whether price of T3 will drop?
 
Besides a very significant read/write speed increase of 20% (450 to 540 MB/s), a critical advantage of T5 over previous models (T3 and T1) is higher reliability, if you value your data. This is a new generation 4 V-NAND with 64 layers (instead of 48 layers of previous one for T3). T5 comes also with two USB cables (Type C - C and Type C - A) instead of just one as T3 does (Type C - A).

For me, all that is a huge difference. Prices will be similar between T5 and T3, and it is not expected a reduction of previous model prices, as happened with T1 when T3 was released. Of course, it is expected a drop of all prices over time, as usually happens with electronics.
 
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Besides a very significant read/write speed increase of 20% (450 to 540 MB/s), a critical advantage of T5 over previous models (T3 and T1) is higher reliability, if you value your data. This is a new generation 4 V-NAND with 64 layers (instead of 48 layers of previous one for T3). T5 comes also with two USB cables (Type C - C and Type C - A) instead of just one as T3 does (Type C - A).

For me, all that is a huge difference. Prices will be similar between T5 and T3, and it is not expected a reduction of previous model prices, as happened with T1 when T3 was released. Of course, it is expected a drop of all prices over time, as usually happens with electronics.
Very interesting- when do you reckon it will be available in Europe to buy. I am planning to cancel my t3 order just now.
 
I would wait for T5. It is expected in days. It says seven days for 2TB model (other sizes range from 12 to 14 days) at
http://www.pc21.fr
Note that all these are expected dates. It may arrive sooner (probably not) or later (maybe), albeit it is not expected much latter if delayed.

Note: although such site above is not cheap, some T5 sizes are significantly cheaper than same T3 sizes, which is great. I do not know if such price reduction will hold true for cheaper sites. Time will tell.
 
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Finally things are really starting to move with this drive! I've been waiting for the T3 successor to go with my new iMac.

I did hope that they would up the size from 500 to 750 at the same price but I guess that was just a distant dream. It's a bit weird though that you can't get blue color with any size. I like it much better than the black, and looks are of course very important with a drive hidden out of sight behind a computer :D good thing it's available at the 500 GB that fits within my budget.
 
Samsung Portable SSD T5 listed at Prodimex (Switzerland):

I28G09 - SSD externe 250GB - SAMSUNG Portable SSD T5 USB3.1 [MU-PA250B/EU]
https://www.prodimex.ch/pInfos.aspx...SAMSUNG+Portable+SSD+T5+USB3+1++MU+PA250B+EU+
--
I28G11 - SSD externe 500GB - SAMSUNG Portable SSD T5 USB3.1 [MU-PA500B/EU]
https://www.prodimex.ch/pInfos.aspx...SAMSUNG+Portable+SSD+T5+USB3+1++MU+PA500B+EU+
--
I28G08 - SSD externe 1.0To (1000GB) - SAMSUNG Portable SSD T5 USB3.1 [MU-PA1T0B/EU]
https://www.prodimex.ch/pInfos.aspx...SAMSUNG+Portable+SSD+T5+USB3+1++MU+PA1T0B+EU+
--
I28G10 - SSD externe 2.0To (2000GB) - SAMSUNG Portable SSD T5 USB3.1 [MU-PA2T0B/EU]
https://www.prodimex.ch/pInfos.aspx...SAMSUNG+Portable+SSD+T5+USB3+1++MU+PA2T0B+EU+
 
A bit off-topic, but these "Samsung USB Type-C/USB 3.1 Flash Drives" are already available and have similar design (color) than "Samsung Portable SSD T5":

USB Type-C/USB 3.1 Flash Drive 64GB
http://www.samsung.com/us/computing...-type-c-usb-3-1-flash-drive-64gb-muf-64da1-ww
--
Samsung MUF-64DA1/WW USB Type-C 3.1 Flash Drive, 64 GB, Blue
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-MUF-128DA2-WW-Type-C-Flash/dp/B06XXJ1K2Z
---
USB Type-C/USB 3.1 Flash Drive 128GB
http://www.samsung.com/us/computing...ype-c-usb-3-1-flash-drive-128gb-muf-128da2-ww
--
Samsung MUF-128DA2/WW USB Type-C 3.1 Flash Drive, 128 GB, Black
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-MUF-128DA2-WW-Type-C-Flash/dp/B06XXQKRMZ
 
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Samsung Portable SSD T5 on Morisoft (Belgium) in Dutch:

Samsung Samsung Portable SSD T5 500GB AES 256-bit
http://shop.morisoft.be/?products_details&products_id/349938/cPath/1170

Now in Google cache as it appeared on 11 Jul 2017 with 38 days delivery time (18th August). For instance:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:eek:j9FCPbnVw8J:shop.morisoft.be/%3Fproducts_details%26products_id/349938

Google translated:
https://webcache.googleusercontent....&products_id/349938/cPath/1170/language/en_US
 
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