SL600 Portable SSD, 1 TB

Lexar SL600 Portable SSD — a carabiner-loop backup drive for footage on the move

The gist: A rugged, fast external SSD built to carry your entire trip's photo and video library in one pocket-sized drive without waiting forever for backups.

• Real-world speed: Rated up to 2,000 MB/s over USB-C 3.2 Gen 2x2; PCWorld measured sustained write speeds around 700 MB/s once the cache fills on long transfers — still fast enough to dump a full memory card between flights.
• Travel-ready durability: Aluminum shell with 256-bit AES encryption protects both the drive and your data if it goes missing from a daypack.
• Built-in carry loop: A carabiner loop lets you clip it to a bag strap or camera case instead of losing it loose in a packing cube.
• Cross-platform + cable flexibility: Works with Windows, Mac, and Android, and ships with both USB-C-to-C and USB-C-to-A cables so you're not stuck without the right port at a hostel.

PCWorld's Jon Jacobi gave the SL600 an Editor's Choice award, ranking it competitively among 20Gbps portable SSDs and noting it's backed by a five-year limited warranty.

Best for: traveling photographers and videographers who need to offload full memory cards on the road. Skip it if: you need sustained write speeds above 1GB/s for very long 4K/8K sessions — Jacobi found throughput drops to roughly 700 MB/s once the cache exhausts. Runs ~$130-235 depending on capacity — check the current price before buying.