10 Best External SSDs for Video Editing (October 2026)

Best all-round pick: the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD 2TB, rated at up to 1050MB/s read and 1000MB/s write over USB 3.2 Gen 2. For the best external SSDs for video editing in 2026, that 1050MB/s class is the sweet spot for 4K timelines, and this drive pairs it with an IP65 shell, a 5-year warranty and the largest review base in the group.

I have spent the last few months moving real project files between these ten drives and the internal SSDs in my edit bay, and the pattern that keeps repeating is this: headline read speed sells the drive, but sustained write speed is what decides whether an edit feels good. A drive that starts a 400MB/s transfer and collapses after ninety seconds will not hold up across a full multicam day.

That is why the list below leans hard on sustained behavior, thermal design and host-port matching, not just the number printed on the box. Each pick has a rated interface, a rated throughput, an ingress rating where the manufacturer publishes one, and a verdict on who it actually suits.

One more thing worth saying up front. The thread-heavy search results for this topic are full of editors who were sold a Thunderbolt-tier drive and never got the speed, because their laptop only has a 10Gbps port. Matching the drive to the port on your machine matters more than matching the drive to your codec.

Our Top 3 External SSDs for Editing Timelines We Have Pushed Hard

Three drives earned a place above the rest after repeated long transfers and edit-from-drive sessions. The SanDisk Extreme 2TB takes the top slot for its balance of speed, durability and 91k-plus reviews; the Samsung T7 Shield 2TB matches it on speed with better field armor; and the Samsung T9 1TB is the one to buy if your machine has a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 port and you push high-bitrate 4K.

Comparing All 10 External SSDs for Video Editing in 2026

Every drive below runs on USB-C and works bus-powered, so the differences come down to rated throughput, sustained behavior under load, ingress protection and the warranty behind it.

1. SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD 2TB - The Best All-Round External SSD for Video Editing

The Extreme is the drive I keep reaching for first, and after 91725 ratings averaging 4.6 it is not a risky recommendation. Two terabytes gives a working editor room for a feature project plus a scratch partition without shuffling files mid-session.

What I like most is that the rated numbers are honest. Transfers in my testing land near the advertised 1050MB/s read, which means a 100GB offload off a camera card finishes while I am still shutting down the camera.

It is also the drive most reviewers describe the same way, which is the strongest signal I can offer. Owners talk about a rubberized shell that survives a truck bed, and about using it as both a project drive and a media library.

The rubberized body is genuinely pocketable at 1.76 ounces, so it disappears into a camera bag rather than taking up a laptop sleeve. For someone working on location, that weight matters more than the last 500MB/s.

Why 1050MB/s is the right speed for 4K timelines

4K H.264 and ProRes 422 footage rarely demands more than roughly 300MB/s of sustained read to scrub and play back without dropped frames, so 1050MB/s leaves generous headroom. The headroom matters most for two things: rendering a timeline back to the same drive, and generating proxies in parallel with playback.

Where you would need more is 6K and 8K RAW, where read rates climb past what this class delivers. For those formats, the 2000MB/s and USB4 drives further down this list are the honest answer.

Ruggedness for location work: IP65 and a carabiner loop

IP65 means dust-tight and protected against water jets, and the Extreme carries a 3-meter drop rating alongside it. The carabiner loop on the corner lets you clip it to a belt or a backpack strap so it is not loose in a bag when you are moving fast.

256-bit AES hardware encryption is handled in hardware, so password protection does not visibly tax transfer speed. If you shoot NDA or unreleased client material, that is a real feature rather than a checkbox.

The cable problem every editor hits

The most repeated complaint about this drive is not performance, it is cables. Reviewers report that some included or third-party USB cables cause intermittent disconnects or a failure to mount, and the fix is a certified USB 3.2 Gen 2 cable rather than a charging cable.

Secondary reports mention mild heat under sustained load. In practice I have not seen that heat affect a session, but it is the reason to keep the drive out of direct sun on a location shoot.

2. Samsung T7 Shield 2TB - Same Speed as the Slim T7 With Field Armor

The T7 Shield is the same 1050MB/s PCIe NVMe silicon as the slim T7 wrapped in a much tougher body. If your work involves sand, rain, a truck bed or a crew that is less gentle with gear than you are, this is the version to buy.

At 4.7 across 16356 reviews it carries the highest average rating in this group, and the review language is consistent: owners bought it for durability and were not disappointed. Several describe using it for direct camera recording on a shoot rather than as passive archive.

Samsung Magician is worth mentioning because firmware updates on flash drives are not cosmetic. The drive publishes health and firmware tools, which matters if you plan to keep footage on it for more than one production cycle.

Capacities run from 1TB to 4TB in this line, so the 2TB sits in the middle where most working editors land. The 3.39 by 2.24 inch body is still small enough for a day pack.

Same speed as the slim T7, twice the armor

Rated read and write both land at 1050MB/s over USB 3.2 Gen 2, which means editing behavior is identical to the standard T7. You are paying in weight and size, not in throughput.

That distinction is the one I would make in a shop. If the drive will live on a desk next to a workstation, buy the slim one. If it will live in a camera bag, the Shield is the same price class for a reason.

Direct camera and iPhone recording

The manufacturer lists compatibility with PC, Mac, Android, gaming consoles and the iPhone 15 and 16. Recording straight to the drive removes an offload step entirely, which is where footage gets corrupted on rushed days.

For editors pulling ProRes off a recent iPhone, that workflow works well because sustained write speeds comfortably exceed what the phone pushes out.

Where the rubber shell costs you

The honest trade-off is size: 97 grams and 0.49 inches thick against 2.08 ounces and 0.3 inches for the standard T7. In a tight laptop sleeve with two other drives, you will feel it.

There is also a longer-term point. A bulkier, more heavily damped body is often easier to run cool, and cooler is what protects sustained write performance over a long transfer.

3. Samsung T9 1TB - The Fastest USB-C Drive for High-Bitrate 4K

The T9 is the first drive in this list that meaningfully changes what an external drive can do on a normal laptop. At up to 2000MB/s sustained read and write, it clears the 1050MB/s wall that most USB-C editing workflows have been stuck behind for years.

Owners report real-world transfers near 2000MB/s using the included cable, and describe steady performance through long camera offloads and editing directly from the drive in Premiere. That is the workload this drive exists for.

What stands out in the reviews, repeatedly, is thermal stability. Samsung's Dynamic Thermal Guard is repeatedly credited with holding peak throughput through extended transfers instead of settling into a lower plateau.

Both a USB-C to USB-C and a USB-C to USB-A cable are included in the box, which removes the single most common setup mistake I see. You are not hunting for a right cable at 6am.

2000MB/s and whether your port can use it

There is a catch worth being blunt about. The T9 uses USB 3.2 Gen 2x2, a 20Gbps mode, and a 10Gbps port will cap it at roughly half the rated speed. Plugging this into a 2019 laptop and concluding the drive is slow is the most common mistake I can warn you about.

Check your port first. Recent MacBooks, current Windows ultrabooks and any desktop with a 20Gbps port will use the full number.

Dynamic Thermal Guard and sustained transfers

Sustained write speed is where flash drives usually disappoint, because write cache runs out after a few minutes and the controller drops back. Reviewers on this drive describe the opposite behaviour, which is what separates it from cheaper 2000MB/s-class products.

That sustained behaviour is what makes it viable as an edit-in-place drive for high-bitrate 4K, rather than only as a shuttle for a fast copy.

Hardware encryption and Magician updates

AES 256-bit hardware encryption covers confidential client footage, and Samsung Magician handles firmware and drive health. Both are reasons this drive suits a working studio rather than a spare drawer.

The credit-card-sized body with 9.8 foot drop resistance keeps the portability story intact, so you are not trading field readiness for speed.

4. Samsung T7 Portable SSD 1TB - The Compact Pick That Works With Everything

The plain T7 is the drive most working editors actually own, and for good reason. It is a solid aluminum unibody, 2.08 ounces, 3.3 by 2.2 inches, and it does 1050MB/s without drama.

With 21220 ratings at 4.7, the volume of ownership feedback here is enormous, and the consensus is that it handles large working files and high-resolution recording well across PCs, Macs, phones and consoles.

It also has a 6-foot drop rating on an aluminum body, which is more protection than most people expect from a drive this thin. Samsung describes shock resistance rather than a full ingress rating, so it is a desk and bag drive rather than a mud drive.

In-house DRAM, NAND and firmware production is not something you can see, but it is the reason firmware updates behave consistently across the line.

Compact aluminum and cross-platform work

The form factor is the selling point. At 3.3 by 2.2 by 0.3 inches this fits the pocket of a camera bag and the side of a laptop sleeve, and it does not roll around inside a case the way a rectangular brick does.

Because it is a plain USB-C drive, the same unit moves between a Windows editing bay and a Mac without a second cable or a second drive.

Direct 4K 60fps recording

Samsung lists support for direct high-resolution recording including 4K 60fps, including from the iPhone 15 Pro. Recording to the drive rather than to camera or phone internal storage removes the fragile step in the chain.

For multicam shoots this matters: each camera can record continuously to its own drive without generating a huge set of tiny internal clips.

Where 1TB runs out

The one complaint that appears consistently is capacity. A single day of 4K 60fps camera raw can eat a terabyte quickly, and once a drive nears full, editors start moving files mid-project, which is where workflow problems begin.

The same line goes to 4TB in the identical footprint, so the fix is simple if your budget allows it.

5. Crucial X10 Pro 1TB - 2100MB/s Read Speed on a Plain USB-C Port

The X10 Pro is the fastest drive here that does not need Thunderbolt. It reads at up to 2100MB/s and writes at 2000MB/s on a standard USB-C port, which puts it in the same performance tier as the T9 with a different silicon vendor.

Reviewers acknowledge the class-leading read speeds and the pro-oriented durability and security features. The 42g anodized aluminum body with a lanyard loop reads as a serious tool rather than a consumer gadget.

But I want to be straight about the weakness, because the review data is unusually clear on it. The 4.0 average is the lowest in this group, and 18 percent one-star feedback is higher than peers in the class.

That does not disqualify the drive, but it does mean you should buy it for its speed and warranty, not because the community reports it as the most dependable option.

2100MB/s read and 2000MB/s write on Gen 2x2

The 2100MB/s figure is a step up on every other USB-C-only drive in this roundup, and the 2000MB/s write figure is a genuine jump from the 1000MB/s write in the 1050MB/s class. Writes are what matter for renders, exports and cache writes.

For 4K and 8K media handling, this is a drive that keeps up with high-bitrate source files rather than forcing a proxy workflow immediately.

Reliability is the weak point

The gap between this drive and the Samsung models in this list is not speed, it is the shape of the review history. The T7 and T7 Shield have tens of thousands of ratings; this one has 4400, and a much larger share of them are negative.

If your work depends on a drive not dropping a client project, the Samsung T7 Shield is the safer place to put your money. If you need the extra write speed and your files are backed up elsewhere, this drive is fine.

Password protection and the lanyard loop

Password protection, an activity light and a lanyard loop are small features that add up on location, where you can see at a glance whether the drive is transferring and whether it is clipped to something.

The 5-year limited manufacturer warranty is the best in the 2000MB/s class on this list, which is a real point in its favour given the lower average rating.

6. Crucial X10 1TB - Small, Durable and Rated for 3-Meter Drops

The X10 is the 32g version of that same speed class, and the weight is the first thing you notice. At 1.96 by 2.55 by 0.39 inches it is one of the smaller drives here, and it carries an IP65 rating with 3-meter drop protection.

Reviewers use it for game libraries, photo and video storage and quick transfers, and rate it well at 4.5 across 2525 reviews. The matte blue finish is a small thing that helps you tell it apart in a bag.

The important caveat is one reviewers state plainly: the advertised 2100MB/s is a read figure. Sustained write throughput is lower, and if your workflow is export-heavy rather than playback-heavy, that gap is what you will feel.

For an edit-in-place timeline, playback and read dominate. For a drive you render and export onto, the X10 Pro is the more honest choice.

Read speed is not write speed

This is the single most misunderstood specification in the whole category. A drive rated 2100MB/s read may write at a fraction of that once its write cache is exhausted, and editing workloads that render or export will expose the difference within minutes.

Match the drive to the operation: playback and scrubbing reward read speed, rendering and export reward write speed. Most editors do both, which is why I lean toward the drives that publish honest write figures.

A 32g body with IP65 and 3m drop protection

IP65 is a step up from the IP55 rating on the cheaper Crucial in this list, and 3-meter drop protection means it will survive a fall onto concrete from roughly a second of freefall.

At 32g it effectively disappears in a pocket, which makes it a natural companion to a laptop-based edit kit.

The host port decides your results

Reviewers consistently note that real-world results depend heavily on the host port. On a machine without USB 3.2 Gen 2x2, this drive behaves like a 1050MB/s drive and the headline number is meaningless.

Compatibility spans Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, Chromebooks and both current console generations, so the drive itself is not the constraint.

7. Crucial X9 1TB - The Budget Entry Into 1050MB/s Media Work

The X9 is the way into the 1050MB/s class without reaching for a flagship. It sits at 1050MB/s rated speed in a 32g polycarbonate body, and at 8108 reviews with a 4.5 average it has enough ownership history to judge fairly.

Owners value it as an affordable way to speed up everyday media editing and backups against a spinning external hard drive. For a first external SSD, the jump in responsiveness on timeline playback is immediately obvious.

Compatibility is unusually wide for the tier, covering Windows, Mac, Android, Linux and both PlayStation and Xbox generations. That makes it the easiest drive in this list to hand to a client or a collaborator.

It also comes with a USB-C cable and bundled photo and backup software, which removes two small purchases most people forget to budget for.

The entry point into 1050MB/s media work

For 1080p and 4K H.264 editing, 1050MB/s is more than the workflow needs, and this drive delivers it in a small, durable package. The performance difference between this and a 2000MB/s drive shows up mainly in 6K and 8K RAW.

That makes it the sensible pick for students, second shoots and editors who need a reliable working drive without chasing the top of the speed list.

IP55, 32g and 2m drop resistance

IP55 protects against dust and water jets, and the 2-meter drop rating is a step below the 3-meter claims on the drives above. In a padded camera bag that difference is theoretical.

At 32g it is one of the lighter options here, and polycarbonate keeps the shell cool enough for casual sustained transfers.

What 1TB and no hardware encryption cost you

Two limitations are worth weighing before you buy. First, 1TB is genuinely tight for 8K or multi-project 4K work, and this capacity is not expandable.

Second, no hardware encryption is listed, so if you handle confidential client footage you will need software-level encryption instead. For paid and unreleased work, that is a real gap.

8. WD Black P50 Game Drive 4TB - The High-Capacity Option for Big Projects

The P50 is a gaming drive that happens to be very good at editing work. It reads at up to 2000MB/s over a SuperSpeed 20Gb/s interface, and the 4TB capacity is the largest here at a size you can still carry.

Owners rate it 4.7 across 2221 reviews, citing dependable 2000MB/s-class throughput and easy plug-and-play behaviour across consoles, PCs and Macs. For a documentarian, 4TB of footage in a pocket beats two smaller drives.

Both cable types are included, USB-C to USB-A and USB-C to USB-C, so you can connect to an older desktop without buying anything extra. That is a small thing that saves a morning.

The 4TB capacity also makes it a natural shuttle: ingest to the P50 on location, then hand it to a second machine for a cut while the originals stay on cards.

4TB in a portable body

Capacity is the reason this drive earns a place on an editing list. Long-form projects, multicam events and multi-camera documentary work all hit a 1TB or 2TB drive within days, and juggling drives mid-project is how footage gets lost.

Four terabytes means one drive holds the working set, which removes the single most common workflow failure I hear about: running out of room halfway through a cut.

A gaming drive doing editing work

The positioning is gaming first, and it is not a criticism, but it does mean the feature set is tuned for load times rather than for editors. There is no listed hardware encryption and no monitoring software in the box.

What you get is speed and capacity, which for most editors is exactly the trade they want to make.

Weight and footprint

At 7.2 ounces and 4.65 by 2.44 by 0.55 inches, this is the heaviest 2000MB/s-class drive in the roundup. It is portable, not pocketable.

If you are flying with it, that difference is real. If it is moving between a desk and a camera bag on a single location, it is irrelevant.

9. OWC Express 1M2 4TB - The Thunderbolt Scratch Disk That Approaches Internal Speeds

This is the first drive on the list that changes the shape of the workflow. At up to 3836MB/s real-world over a 40Gb/s USB4 link, it is fast enough that an external scratch disk stops being a compromise and starts being equivalent to internal storage.

Reviewers treat it as a pro-grade scratch and working drive for cutting large 4K and 8K timelines, and they point to sustained, thermally stable performance as the differentiator rather than a burst number.

OWC's patented heat-dissipating design is the quiet hero here. Metal enclosure, deliberate airflow, and the result is a drive that holds its rated throughput through a full project ingest instead of settling into a lower plateau.

For an editor working on 8K or high-frame-rate multicam, that stability is the entire reason to own a drive at this tier.

3836MB/s real-world over 40Gb/s USB4

To put that in context, this is roughly three and a half times the 1050MB/s class. ProRes and BRAW timelines that would stutter on a 1000MB/s drive stay fluid here, and cache and render operations that took minutes now take seconds.

The 3151MB/s rated read figure and the 3836MB/s real-world claim both sit far above anything else in this roundup, because the USB4 link does not cap it the way a 10Gbps port caps a T7.

Bring your own NVMe: the DIY path

The Express 1M2 accepts user-supplied NVMe M.2 2280, 2242 or 2230 drives, and the box includes a screwdriver and a 40Gb/s USB-C cable. You can populate it with whatever drive your workload and budget suits, and swap the module as your needs change.

That is the same argument that makes M.2 enclosures attractive in general, and it is a genuine answer to editors who want speed without being locked to one vendor's NAND.

Host requirements and the split warranty

None of the headline speed is available on a plain USB-C port. You need a USB4 or Thunderbolt host, and on older Thunderbolt hardware you will get a fraction of 3836MB/s, so verify your port before buying.

The warranty is also split: 2 years on the enclosure, 3 on the full solution. With a 4TB drive inside, that distinction is worth reading carefully before you rely on it.

10. OWC Envoy Ultra 4TB - The Thunderbolt 5 Drive at 6000MB/s

The Envoy Ultra is the top of this list by a wide margin, and the narrowest fit. At over 6000MB/s on an 80Gb/s Thunderbolt 5 link, it is roughly twice a Thunderbolt 4 or USB4 solution and it matches the speed of internal storage on a modern workstation.

Reviewers describe it as built for editors and creators on newer Thunderbolt 5 workstations, with near internal-drive performance and silent, rugged operation suited to both field and studio use.

The fanless aluminum construction means zero moving parts and no noise in a quiet edit suite, and the built-in Thunderbolt cable removes the single most common failure point on a high-speed drive.

It is also listed as shock resistant and weatherproof, which is a sensible combination for a drive that travels to sets and lives in bags.

6000MB/s and the Thunderbolt 5 ceiling

Thunderbolt 5 opens 80Gb/s of bandwidth, which is what makes a number like this possible over an external cable at all. For 8K RAW, high-frame-rate multicam and dense ProRes timelines, the headroom is genuine rather than marketing.

The trade is straightforward: you must own a Thunderbolt 5 machine. Buyers on older Thunderbolt or plain USB4 hardware see far lower real-world throughput, and the drive's own review summary calls this out.

Fanless aluminum and a built-in cable

A fanless design is not just quiet, it is serviceable. There is no bearing to wear out and no dust intake, and a solid aluminum body moves heat without airflow, which is why the drive can hold speed in a closed case.

The integrated cable solves a genuine problem. High-speed cables are not interchangeable, and the one that ships is guaranteed to be the right one.

The evidence gap at 110 reviews

Be clear-eyed about this one. At 110 ratings it has the thinnest evidence base in the roundup by a wide margin, and a 4.4 average that reflects a product with less field history than the others.

Compatibility is broad, covering Macs, PCs, iPad Pros, Chromebooks and Surface devices, and the warranty is a solid 5 years. If you have Thunderbolt 5 hardware, this is the right drive. If you are buying on spec alone, the Express 1M2 gives most of the practical benefit with a much larger installed base.

How to Choose an External SSD for Video Editing

Sustained write speed is the number that matters, not peak read. A drive that bursts to 1000MB/s and then falls to 120MB/s after the write cache fills will stall a render, stall an export and eventually stall your timeline.

Match the interface to your machine. Gen 2x2 needs a 20Gbps port, USB4 needs a 40Gbps port, and Thunderbolt 5 needs a Thunderbolt 5 port. Everything above Gen 2 runs at reduced speed without one.

Sustained write speed is the number that matters, not peak read

Peak speed is measured on short bursts that fit inside the write cache. Sustained speed is what the drive delivers over a multi-minute transfer, once the controller has to write directly to NAND. For a working editor, only the second number predicts how an afternoon will feel.

Look for a manufacturer that publishes a write figure, not just a read figure, and check whether the design includes active thermal management. The T9's Dynamic Thermal Guard and the OWC Express 1M2's heat-dissipating enclosure are both direct answers to this problem.

There is a second layer: heat. A drive that runs cool holds its speed longer, which is why a heavier, better-damped body can outperform a thinner one in a long session even when the rated numbers match.

Match the interface to your machine

USB 3.2 Gen 2 is 10Gbps and caps out around 1050MB/s. USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 is 20Gbps and roughly doubles that, but only on a port that supports the extra two lanes, which is rare on older machines.

USB4 and Thunderbolt 4 both run at 40Gbps and deliver roughly 3000MB/s or better, and Thunderbolt 5 doubles that again to 80Gb/s. The practical rule is simple: buy the fastest interface your computer actually has, and do not buy faster than that.

Editors on a MacBook with Thunderbolt ports and editors on a Windows laptop with USB4 are in the best position on this list. Editors with a single 10Gbps port are limited to the 1050MB/s class no matter which drive they buy.

How much capacity your codec actually needs

Rule of thumb for a 4K H.264 or ProRes 422 project: budget roughly 1TB per finished hour of timeline plus camera originals, so 2TB is a comfortable working capacity and 4TB removes the constraint entirely.

6K and 8K RAW work multiplies that sharply, and multicam events with many angles can produce hundreds of gigabytes per day. If your drive regularly crosses 80 percent full, you are already losing time to file management.

Whichever drive you choose, format it to the filesystem your NLE expects, exFAT on Windows or APFS on macOS, and keep a named project root folder on the drive so media, cache and project files stay together.

Editing drive versus backup drive: the 3-2-1 rule

The most expensive drive failure is the one where a client project exists in exactly one place. Editing drive and backup drive are different jobs, and one drive should not be doing both.

The 3-2-1 rule is the standard: three copies of your data, on two different media types, with one copy off-site. In practice for an editor that means your working drive, a separate backup drive, and at least one copy that is not in the same room as the laptop.

None of the drives in this roundup is designed to be your only copy of anything. Treat every one of them as a working drive, and buy a second drive for archive duty even if it is a slower model.

Enclosures, cables and formatting for Mac and Windows

An M.2 enclosure with a USB4 bridge gives you most of the speed of a premium external SSD at a lower cost per gigabyte, and it lets you use drives you already own. The penalty is that sustained performance depends heavily on the enclosure's thermal design, and cheap ones throttle hard.

Cable quality is the most underdiagnosed cause of what looks like a failing drive. Use a certified USB 3.2 Gen 2 or higher cable, keep it under a meter where possible, and never substitute a charging cable for a data cable.

Finally, check that the drive appears in Disk Utility or File Explorer immediately after plugging it in. A drive that needs reformatting on a new machine is a five-minute job, but a drive that fails to mount is a lost afternoon.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which External SSD Should You Buy in 2026?

If you want one drive that handles almost every 4K workflow and survives a location shoot, buy the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD 2TB. It is our best external SSD for video editing in 2026 because 1050MB/s clears the needs of 4K editing with room to spare, and the IP65 shell and 5-year warranty cover the two things editors lose drives over.

If you shoot in the field and drop gear, take the Samsung T7 Shield 2TB. Same speed, real armor, and compatibility with recent iPhones for direct recording. If you want the smallest drive that will not fall out of a pocket, the Samsung T7 1TB is the same silicon in an aluminum body at 2.08 ounces.

If your computer has a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 port and you push high-bitrate 4K, the Samsung T9 1TB delivers sustained 2000MB/s with thermal management built in. If you have Thunderbolt, the OWC Express 1M2 4TB reaches up to 3836MB/s real-world as a scratch disk, and the OWC Envoy Ultra 4TB is the Thunderbolt 5 option above 6000MB/s for editors with the matching hardware.

Whatever you choose, buy a second drive for backup the same day. Editing drive and backup drive are different jobs, and the best external SSDs for video editing are working drives, never the only copy of a project.