Samsung is giving its portable SSD lineup a serious speed upgrade. The company has introduced the new P9 and P7 external drives with USB4 connectivity, positioning the P9 as a high-performance option for demanding creative work and the P7 as a more approachable all-purpose drive for everyday storage, gaming, and travel.

Unveiled at Gamescom 2026 in Cologne, Germany, the new P Series arrives at a moment when external storage is being asked to do more than simply hold backups. Massive game installs, high-resolution video, RAW photo libraries, and AI-assisted creative workflows have made fast portable drives far more useful – and, increasingly, more necessary.

The flagship Samsung P9 is the headline product. It supports sequential read speeds up to 4,000MB/s and write speeds up to 3,800MB/s through USB4, which Samsung says is roughly twice the performance of its previous-generation portable SSD. For perspective, Samsung’s 4TB T9, which uses USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, is rated for up to 2,000MB/s reads and writes.

That does not mean every computer will automatically see 4,000MB/s. External-drive performance still depends heavily on the port in the laptop, desktop, tablet, or other connected device, as well as the cable and the workload itself. But USB4 matters because it gives the P9 a more modern interface than the increasingly awkward USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 standard, which has not been widely implemented across many mainstream computers. For users with a USB4-equipped PC or compatible Thunderbolt-era hardware, the P9 is designed to make large file transfers feel noticeably less like waiting around.

Samsung is pitching the P9 directly at creators who work with especially data-heavy media. The company says the drive has enough sustained write performance to support 12K direct recording, along with storage and editing of large RAW image files and ultra-high-resolution video. That is a niche use case today, but it also signals where the portable SSD market is heading: toward drives that can stay attached to a camera rig, laptop, or production setup rather than being pulled out only when it is time to archive a project.

Capacity is another part of the P9 story. Samsung plans to offer it in 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB versions, and calls the 8TB model the world’s first USB4 portable SSD with speeds up to 4,000MB/s. An 8TB pocketable drive is still a premium purchase, but it can make practical sense for a video editor, photographer, developer, or frequent traveler who wants one fast workspace instead of constantly juggling smaller drives.

The P7 takes a slightly different approach. It also uses USB4, but Samsung describes it as a versatile drive built for a broader mix of work, entertainment, mobile storage, cameras, consoles, and computers. That makes it the more interesting model for buyers who do not need a professional-grade external scratch disk but still want something that feels fast, current, and flexible across several devices.

Samsung has also emphasized durability on the P7, rating it for drops from up to 6.6 feet, or two meters, while noting that it has undergone shock and vibration testing. Those specifications are never a substitute for keeping important data backed up in more than one place, but they are useful reassurance for a drive likely to spend time in backpacks, camera bags, hotel rooms, and shared workspaces.

The timing is notable for gamers as well. Gamescom is an obvious venue for an SSD announcement, since modern game libraries can balloon quickly and players increasingly move games, captures, mods, and media files between systems. The caveat is that console support is not the same thing as being able to run every current-generation game directly from an external drive. Buyers should check the storage rules for their particular PlayStation, Xbox, handheld, or PC setup before treating any portable SSD as a guaranteed game-launch drive.

Samsung says the P Series will begin its global rollout in September, although capacities may vary by market and some versions could arrive later than others. In the United States, the P9 is priced at $339.99 for 1TB, $649.99 for 2TB, $1,349.99 for 4TB, and $2,699.99 for 8TB. The P7 starts at $289.99 for 1TB, rising to $549.99 for 2TB, $1,149.99 for 4TB, and $2,289.99 for 8TB.

Those are ambitious prices, particularly when internal NVMe storage remains much cheaper on a per-terabyte basis. But Samsung is not selling bare capacity here. It is selling a compact, ready-to-use drive with USB4 performance, cross-device convenience, and the kind of speed that can genuinely change a workflow when moving hundreds of gigabytes at a time.

For most people, the P7 looks like the sensible option if pricing settles below MSRP after launch. The P9, meanwhile, is aimed at people who can put its extra performance to work: filmmakers recording externally, editors handling large projects, photographers managing enormous shoots, and professionals who want desktop-like transfer speeds in something that can disappear into a pocket. Either way, Samsung’s move to USB4 suggests that portable SSDs are finally catching up with the faster ports already appearing on newer computers.