Samsung T7 vs Crucial X9: Samsung T7 wins for speed and encryption, Crucial X9 wins for price

The Samsung T7 is the default for a reason — it’s fast (1050MB/s), tiny, silent, and doesn’t get hot, plus it has built-in hardware encryption. The Crucial X9 is a cheaper alternative that’s almost as good but slightly slower and half the price per gig. For Time Machine on a MacBook Air, either works fine with USB-C, but skip Thunderbolt 3 unless you move huge files daily.