Best Portable Storage in Australia (2026)

This slot used to hold a SanDisk Extreme, and it is worth being direct about why it no longer does: that drive is a 2020 design from the Extreme and Extreme Pro V2 generation, the one behind years of sudden total-failure reports, a firmware fix that reduced rather than eliminated the problem, and a US class action. Six years on, it is not a drive to recommend to anyone who cares about the data on it. The Samsung T9 is the straightforward answer. It runs USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 at up to 2,000MB/s sequential read, roughly double the SanDisk's 1,050MB/s, which is the difference between waiting on a card dump and not thinking about it. You need a Gen 2x2 port to see the full figure - on a standard 10Gbps port it settles around 1,000MB/s, still perfectly quick - and Samsung's Dynamic Thermal Guard keeps speeds from collapsing partway through a long transfer, which is where cheaper drives fall apart. The rubberised shell survives a 3m drop, hardware AES 256-bit encryption is built in, and Samsung Magician handles firmware and health monitoring properly. It is not rugged in the IP-rated sense, so if you need dust and water sealing the T7 Shield above it is the better fit, and 1TB at this price is not the cheapest per gigabyte on the list. For reliable everyday speed, though, this is the one to buy.

The Samsung T7 Shield is arguably the best all-rounder on this list for most Aussies. It won't match the T9 on raw speed - you're looking at 1,050MB/s via USB 3.2 Gen 2 - but honestly, that's still fast enough to transfer a 50GB folder in under a minute. Where the T7 Shield really shines is durability. The IP65 rating means it's properly dust-tight and can handle water jets, and the rubber exterior absorbs drops from up to 3 metres. It's noticeably more compact and lighter than the T9 too, making it a better everyday carry. For 1TB of properly rugged storage, the value proposition is excellent. Samsung Magician handles encryption and monitoring, and the drive comes with both USB-C to C and USB-C to A cables in the box. If you don't need 2TB or bleeding-edge 2,000MB/s speeds, this is the one to get.

The X10 Pro is what the plain X10 becomes when you stop caring about the last thirty dollars. It runs USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 at 2,100MB/s read and 2,000MB/s write, which is double the 1,050MB/s ceiling that the older SanDisk Extreme generation was stuck behind, and it is the difference between a card of 4K footage copying over during a coffee and copying over during lunch. It is built to be carried, too. IP55 sealing handles dust and splashes, it is rated for a 2-metre drop, and the aluminium shell doubles as a heatsink, which matters more than the spec sheet suggests - cheap Gen 2x2 drives routinely hit their headline number for thirty seconds and then throttle hard. The X10 Pro holds its speed through a sustained write, which is the only number that counts when you are offloading a shoot. It works straight out of the box with a Mac, a PC, a PS5 or a recent iPhone, and 256-bit AES hardware encryption is included. Worth being clear about where it sits. To hit those speeds your host needs a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 port - plug it into an ordinary Gen 2 laptop port and you are back to about 1,000MB/s, at which point the cheaper X10 at rank 5 does the same job for less. Buy this one if your machine can feed it.