Best Music Laptop

Best Portable SSD For Music Production

Best Portable SSD For Music Production

Best Portable SSD For Music ProductionSo you’ve got your music production laptop, microphone, and a whole lot of other music production equipment. But once you start creating music, you’ll need somewhere to store is all.

Obviously you can store some tracks on your laptop itself, but even if your laptop has lots of storage built in, you’re inevitably going to run out of space sooner or later.  And if your laptop only has a few hundred gigabytes of storage, it will be starting to fill up just with all the software you need before you even start producing music. 

So sooner or later you’re going to need to get an external SSD (Solid State Drive). You’ll want to make sure you get a solid state drive and not a hard disk drive (HDD). As solid state drives have a much faster read/write speed than hard disk drives.

A hard disk drive might be okay if you want to just occasionally store some old files but when you’re working with large audio files, a solid state drive will be a much better option.

What To Look For In An External SSD

When you’re choosing an SSD for music production, there are some things you’ll want to check to make sure you get one that’s going to fit your needs.

SSD Not HDD

You’ll want to make sure it’s a solid state drive not a hard disk drive for the reasons mentioned above.

Storage Size

If you’re going to buy an SSD to get more storage space, you’ll obviously want to make sure it has plenty of space. I’d recommend getting one with at least 1 Terabyte. It can be a bit more expensive, but there’s no point in getting one that won’t fit all your music.

Read/Write Speed

Read/Write speed is essentially how fast you can transfer data to and from the storage device. The read/write speed isn’t extremely important if you are just using the drive to store your completed projects. But if you plan to actually work with the files on the SSD, you’ll want to make sure you choose one with a very high read/write speed.

Connectivity

What port does it connect to? In order to have a decent read/write speed, the port it uses will be either USB A 3.0 (or higher) or USB Type C. Which port it uses isn’t too important because you can always use an adapter.

But if your computer doesn’t have a USB-C port, you should probably find one that can plug into a USB A 3.0 port. On the flip side, USB-C is the port of the future so if your computer does have a USB-C port, you might want to consider getting one that plugs into USB-C.

So without further ado, here are my top 5 recommendations for the best portable SSD for music production.

Best SSD For Music Production

Image Name Read/Write Speed Connectivity Storage Size Read Our Review
Samsung T5 Portable SSD
R 540 MB/s -
W 520 MB/s
USB Type C and Type A
500GB, 1TB, or 2TB

SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD
R 550 MB/s -
W 411 MB/s
USB Type C and Type A
250GB, 500GB, 1TB, or 2TB

Seagate Barracuda Fast SSD
540MB/s
USB Type C and Type A
500GB, 1TB, or 2TB

Glyph Atom SSD
560 MB/s
USB Type C and Type A
1TB

LaCie Portable SSD
540 MB/s
USB Type C and Type A
500GB, 1TB, or 2TB
The Good
The Bad

The Samsung T5 Portable SSD is one of the most popular portable solid state drives on the market.

With read speeds of up to 540 MB/s and write speeds of up to 520 MB/s, it’s not the fastest on this list. But it’s more than fast enough for music production.

Without running a proper speed test, you probably couldn’t tell the difference between this one and one of the slightly faster SSDs on this list.

For connectivity it comes with two different cables, one is USB Type C to USB Type C, and the other is USB Type C to USB Type A. This gives you the future proofing of USB – C, while also still giving you the convenience of USB – A if your current computer doesn’t have a USB – C port.

It’s also small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, shock resistant which gives you peace of mind if you’re a bit clumsy and has optional password protection with AES 256-bit hardware encryption.

As for storage capacity, you have the choice between 500GB, 1TB, or 2TB. I’d recommend getting at least the 1TB option as 500GB can start to fill up fairly quickly.

So overall, with all these features and the added peace of mind knowing it’s a very popular option from a well trusted brand. This could be the one for you.

Want to Buy The Samsung T5 Portable SSD?

On Amazon.com

The Good
The Bad

The Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD is another very popular external storage device, and at the time of writing this article it is Amazon’s Choice for “external ssd”.

With a read speed of up to 550 MB/s and a write speed of up to 411 MB/s, you can expect some really fast transfer speeds.

The read speed is slightly faster than the Samsung T5, while the write speed is a little bit slower. But as I said above, without buying both of them and running a speed test, you really aren’t going to notice a difference through normal use.

For connectivity, it has a future proof USB – C connection, but it also comes with a USB – C to USB – A adapter so there’s no need to worry if your computer doesn’t have a USB – C port.

It has an IP55 water and dust resistance rating which is very good for a storage device. You still wouldn’t want to go swimming with it, but if it gets a little spray of water on it now and then you don’t have to worry too much.

As for storage capacity, you can choose from 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, or 2TB. But as I mentioned above, I would recommend going with at least 1TB for music production.

So overall, it’s a really nice SSD with some great features and at the time of writing this article, it’s even a little bit cheaper than the Samsung. 

Want to Buy The Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD?

On Amazon.com

The Good
The Bad


The Seagate Barracuda is another great option, it doesn’t really have any standout features, but it’s a very fast and reliable storage device.

It has a transfer speed of up to 540 MB/s which is not the fastest on this list.

But without running a speed test, you won’t be able to tell the difference between this one and one of the faster options on this list.

For connectivity, it comes with a future proof USB – C to USB -C cable, and a USB – C to USB A cable in case your current computer doesn’t have a USB – C port.

It has 3 different storage size options, you can choose between 500GB, 1TB, or 2TB. But for music production, you’re probably going to want to go with either the 1TB or 2TB options.

So overall it’s a nice portable SSD with fast transfer speeds for a good price and could be the one for you.

Want to Buy The Seagate Barracuda Fast SSD?

On Amazon.com

The Good
The Bad

The Glyph Atom is the fastest SSD on this list!

With a transfer speed of up to 560 MB/s, it’s not drastically faster than the others. But it’s the one to choose if you want the ultimate performance.

For connectivity, it comes with a future proof USB – C to USB – C cable, and a USB – C to USB – A cable in case your computer doesn’t have any USB – C ports.

The Glyph Atom doesn’t have different storage size options. But the 1TB of storage it comes with is the size I usually recommend for music producers anyway so that’s not a big deal.

It comes with a nice shock resistant non-slip cover which gives you some extra peace of mind.

One thing to note is that it comes formatted for a Mac computer. This doesn’t mean you can’t use it on Windows, but you will have to go through a simple reformatting process.

So overall, it’s a great, super fast, little storage device, and if you use a Mac or don’t mind reformatting it for Windows it could be the one for you.

Want to Buy The Glyph Atom SSD?

On Amazon.com

The Good
The Bad

Last but not least, is the LaCie Portable SSD. There’s nothing extremely unique about it, but it’s still a very good option.

With transfer speeds of up to 540 MB/s, it’s not the fastest option on this list but it’s still very fast and without running a speed test you’re probably not going to notice the difference between this and one of the faster options.

For connectivity it comes with two different cables, one future proof USB – C to USB – C cable, and one USB – C to USB – A for if your computer doesn’t have a USB – C port.

For storage space, you can choose between 500GB, 1TB, or 2TB. But for music production, I’d recommend going with either the 1TB or 2TB variations.

It also comes with a free 3-year Data Recovery service to help you try and recover your files if something happens to them.

Want to Buy The LaCie Portable SSD?

On Amazon.com

So there you have it. With all these different portable SSDs to choose from, you’re bound to find one that suits your needs.

But don’t spend too much time deliberating which one to buy. Just get one that suits your needs and then you can put your time and energy into what really matters, your music.

Be sure to let us know which one you chose and why in the comments section down below.

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