Storage
Portable SSDs: when 1,000 MB/s is enough
A 2,000 MB/s drive on a 10 Gbps port runs at 1,000 MB/s. That is fine — for most work, it is invisible.
Portable SSD marketing quotes the drive's ceiling, not the cable's. A USB 3.2 Gen 2 port tops out around 1,000 MB/s after overhead; Gen 2×2 doubles it to about 2,000; Thunderbolt 3/4 goes higher again but you pay for it.
What the speed is actually for
- Photo catalogues — 1,000 MB/s is more than enough. Lightroom is doing small random reads, not sustained transfers.
- 4K video editing — you want sustained 1,000 MB/s or better for multicam; 2,000 gives headroom for proxies and cache.
- Time Machine / backups — any SSD is faster than the task. Buy capacity, not speed.
Thermals beat peak numbers
A small aluminium drive that holds 1,800 MB/s for a 20 GB copy and then drops to 700 MB/s is worse than one that holds 1,000 throughout. Look for reviews that measure the third minute, not the first ten seconds.
Capacity maths
Buy double what you think you need. A 2 TB drive formats to about 1.8 TB usable, and a 4K project folder fills that faster than a photo library does. Our Vault 2TB is the size most people should start at; the 1 TB saves $50 and costs you a year.
One cable rule
Keep one rated cable in the bag and never swap it. Half of "my drive is slow" support emails are a charge-only cable from a phone box.
