Portable solid-state drives are great, offering lots of storage and faster speeds than a USB flash drive while in a still-portable package. People often use them to back up their PCs with backup software .

But portable SSDs aren’t just for backups. Even if you prefer using online backup software and don’t plan on backing up anything to a physical drive, there are lots of great reasons to have a compact, portable SSD on hand. (Our go-to recommendation? The Crucial X9 Pro , which tops our roundup of the best external drives ). Here are some especially useful uses to consider.

Bring media files to your media center

A portable SSD is an excellent and near-foolproof way to get media files (e.g., videos, music, and photos) from your PC to your home media center. It’s way faster than

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