Samsung T5 EVO 8TB Portable SSD, USB 3.2 Gen 1, 460 MB/s, AES 256-bit, 2m Drop, Black (MU-PH8T0S/EU)

???? First, a correction, because the part number misleads: this is a T5 EVO, not a T7 Shield. The MU-PH prefix belongs to the T5 EVO line. It is a different product from the T7, the T7 Shield and the T9, and the differences are large — see below.

???? It is a deliberately slow drive, and that is the trade for the capacity. The T5 EVO runs on USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) at 460 MB/s. For comparison, from our own range:
• T5 EVO (this drive): 460 MB/s, USB 3.2 Gen 1
• T7: 1,050 MB/s, USB 3.2 Gen 2
• T9: 2,000 MB/s, USB 3.2 Gen 2×2
So the T9 is more than four times faster. What the T5 EVO offers instead is 8 TB in the palm of your hand — twice the largest T9 and a capacity no other Samsung portable drive reaches. Buy it for the terabytes, not for the megabytes per second.

ℹ️ Is 460 MB/s enough? For archiving, backup, a photo or video library you are storing rather than editing from, and for moving large amounts of data overnight — comfortably. It is still roughly five times a portable hard drive, silent, and has no moving parts. For editing 4K video directly off the drive, or for anything where you are waiting on the transfer, the T7 or T9 is the right choice.

???? There is NO IP rating. Samsung publishes none for the T5 EVO. The IP65 rating belongs to the T7 Shield, a different product, and it is routinely misattributed. This drive has a 2 metre drop rating — impact protection, not water or dust protection.

⚠️ Only one cable is in the box. Samsung names a USB Type-C to Type-C cable and nothing else. The T7 and T9 both ship two cables, including a USB-C to USB-A for older ports. If your computer has only USB-A, you will need to buy a cable.

ℹ️ Dynamic Thermal Guard. Samsung names its thermal technology for this drive and publishes that it keeps skin temperature below 48 °C — a lower figure than the T9’s 60 °C, which follows from the lower interface speed.

⚠️ Samsung publishes very little about what is inside. No controller, no NAND type, no DRAM cache, no TBW or endurance rating, no MTBF, no random IOPS and no sustained write figure. On an 8 TB drive intended for archival storage, the absence of an endurance rating is worth knowing — though for backup use it is rarely the limiting factor.

✓ Archiving a photo or video library that has outgrown everything else

✓ Full-system backups where capacity matters more than speed

✓ Carrying an entire project archive rather than working from it

✓ Anyone who needs 8 TB in something that fits a coat pocket

Buy this drive for one reason: 8 TB. It is the largest portable SSD Samsung makes, twice the biggest T9, in a 102 g body you can carry in a coat pocket. Nothing else in the range gets close on capacity. What you give up is speed, and you give up a lot of it. At 460 MB/s on USB 3.2 Gen 1 this is roughly a quarter of a T9 and less than half a T7 — a deliberate choice, and the right one for the job it is built for. As an archive, a backup target, or a way to carry a photo and video library that has outgrown everything else, it is excellent and quiet and shock-resistant. As a drive you edit 4K video from, it is the wrong purchase; buy a T7 or T9. Two things people get wrong about it. The MU-PH prefix leads a lot of listings to call it a T7 Shield — it is not, and critically it has no IP rating at all, where the Shield has IP65. And the box contains one cable, USB-C to USB-C, where the T7 and T9 ship two; if your machine is USB-A, order a cable at the same time. Browse our external SSD range or our drive enclosures.

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