Why would they cannibalise X5 sales (which are horrendously more expensive than the T5) with a faster T-series unit?
because they are different market segments and samsung have the drives on hand to clear out.
the X5 is a thunderbolt 3 to M.2 NVMe adapter
M.2 being the modern standard it will be around for a while and thus the x5 will only come down in price or you can diy a better option cheaper
the T3 and T5 are USB to mSATA adapters
mSATA was a older now mostly deprecated standard so they need some way to get rid off the leftover mSATA drives that is more profitable than clearance sales.
the only difference between the T3 and T5 is the USB controller.
its USB 3.1 Gen 1 (Speed up to 5Gbps) in the T3 and USB 3.1 Gen 2 (Speed up to 10Gbps) in the T5
the mSATA drives are identical samsung ones on each so that usb controller is the differentiator.
sidenote the T3 and T5 have one awesome thing
they sell the mythical 2tb samsung mSATA drive that you can't buy standalone and no other ssd manufacturer seems to make
(great upgrade opportunity for people with 2012 rMBPs that want more internal storage
)
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]do you think we will see a T7 anytime next year or will Samsung stop developing that line?
my guess is stop selling the line or at most it will be a cosmetic upgrade.
reason for my thoughts:
eventually, they will not need to clear out mSATA drives and most if not all manufacturing at this point has moved to M.2
the T5 is already USB 3.1 Gen 2 (Speed up to 10Gbps) and the only usb spec higher than that is USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 - SuperSpeed+ (Speed up to 20Gbps)
sure they could choose the slower USB 3.2 Gen 2×1 - SuperSpeed+ (Speed up to 10Gbps)
but since thats the same speed as the current t5 the only benefit is the slightly less protocol overhead with USB 3.2 vs USB 3.1 Gen 2
both these options require USB 3.2 PCs to take advantage of the speed or better overhead and there are none yet and by the time there are the supply of mSATA drives will be further depleted
