PSA: Please don’t take Lenovo’s new SSD that looks like a grenade into an airport

lenovo grenade ssd
(Image credit: Future)

Love TSA? Well, if you take Lenovo’s brand new external SSD that looks just like a hand grenade with you to the airport, you’ll spend a lot more time with them! In fact, I’d prepare for airport security to get very familiar with you.

After completely fulfilling its crowdfunding goal, the Savior Tactical Mobile SSD — inspired by the recent Chinese war blockbuster Operation Dragon (you may know it as Operation Leviathan) — may not have the specs to be considered for our list of best external SSDs, but this explosive accessory definitely caught my attention (sorry, couldn’t resist).

It’s only available through Lenovo’s Chinese crowdfunding page (so you won’t be able to go beyond the landing page without using one of the best VPNs). But even if you do so, I cannot emphasize enough: do not take this to an airport or pull it out in public.

Pull the pin

So when you dig into the specs, you start to realize that there is substance to this questionable style. USB-C 3.2 connectivity gives it the compatibility and capability of high speeds, but at expected speeds of up to 1,050 MB/s, this is middle of the road in terms of speed. Not to say that’s a bad thing, though — you’re still getting decently quick loading speeds from a plug and play drive.

“Expected” is carrying a lot of weight here, as much as the expectation is for this to have 1TB of storage. Assumptions are being made here that this drive will use the same Lenovo Legion SSD tech we see here in the U.S.

Buy this instead

SanDisk Extreme 1TB Portable SSD

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

If you’d rather not have a brush-in with TSA, I’ve got just the thing for you.

It may be a little bit more than this 599 Yuan (roughly $80) drive, but with a supremely durable design that is definitely not going to get you on the wrong side of a physical screening process, SanDisk’s Extreme Pro Portable SSD is a far safer (and faster) alternative.

SanDisk  1TB Extreme Pro Portable SSD
SanDisk 1TB Extreme Pro Portable SSD: was $149 now $129 at Amazon

With blistering 2,000 MB/s read speeds, paired with 3-meter drop protection, IP65 water and dust resistance, full 256-bit AES encryption, a complimentary Memory Zone app that automatically frees up space, and a seriously small enclosure, this is a fantastic high speed drive.

🇬🇧 UK Pricing: £94.99 @ Amazon

This is the drive I use every day, and it’s a serious beast. Yes, I know that you could get the standard Extreme portable SSD for $97 (which has the same read speeds as Lenovo’s grenade), but future-proofing yourself for ever-increasing file sizes is more worthwhile!

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Jason England
Managing Editor — Computing

Jason brings a decade of tech and gaming journalism experience to his role as a Managing Editor of Computing at Tom's Guide. He has previously written for Laptop Mag, Tom's Hardware, Kotaku, Stuff and BBC Science Focus. In his spare time, you'll find Jason looking for good dogs to pet or thinking about eating pizza if he isn't already.

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