The latest trend in portable storage is stick SSDs; drives that look like regular USB drives, but house an internal SSD. Doing so gives these drives the ability to transfer content at 1,000MB/s — 10 times higher than normal drives. I used Teamgroup’s X1 Max over the last six months, and it transformed how easy it is to access large amounts of data on the go.
Seagate is now getting in on the action with the Ultra Compact SSD; as you can guess by the name, the SSD is designed to be portable, and it looks just like a regular flash drive — albeit a little taller than usual. It is available with 1TB of storage for just $84, and I’m using the 2TB model, which comes in at $149.
The SSD is considerably smaller than most regular external SSDs like Samsung’s T7 and Crucial X10 Pro, and the cable-free design makes it easy to use anywhere. The drive connects through USB-C, and I didn’t have any issues using it with the Vivo X200 Pro, Huawei Mate XT, Find X8 Ultra, and the iPad Pro M4. I also plugged it into my Windows machine to transfer data from the internal SSD, and I routinely saw transfers of 910MB/s.
The drive tends to get a little hot with extended transfers, but this hasn’t been a problem as such in the month I used it. Coming in at just 24g, it’s effortless to carry, and Seagate bundles a protective sleeve made out of silicone that does a good job safeguarding the drive itself and the USB-C connector. The drive gets IP54 dust and water resistance, but that’s only when you use the protective sleeve.
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There’s also a lanyard that lets you attach the drive to a keyring, and the diminutive size combined with great build quality makes this a strong contender if you need rugged portable storage. On that note, the chassis itself is made out of aluminum, with Seagate using 35% recycled materials in the construction.
The USB-C port is based on the USB 3.2 Gen 2 standard, and it has a 10Gbps bandwidth. You get a tiny LED that serves as the status indicator, and I didn’t have any problems with the drive in daily use. It showed up immediately on Windows, Android, iOS, and my iPads, and moving data was a breeze. The only issue is that there’s no password protection — that’s still an area where Samsung’s SSDs have an inherent advantage.
I find stick SSDs to be less of a hassle to use with phones than traditional external SSDs (no cables to go missing), and Seagate did a great job overall with the Ultra Compact. It is small enough to take anywhere, plugs into any USB-C device without a problem, and has ultra-fast transfers. So if you need to extend the storage of your phone or just want a reliable external SSD to back up data on the go, Seagate’s Ultra Compact is a terrific choice.
The Ultra Compact is smaller than other external SSDs, but you still get a durable design, and the same 1,000MB/s bandwidth when moving data.
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