Honestly, it is pretty disappointing how many big brands are cutting corners lately. I stayed away from the SanDisk Extreme after those data loss reports started flooding in, and unfortunately, the standard Samsung T7 really does throttle hard once the cache fills up during those massive 500GB transfers you are planning. It is not as good as the marketing makes it look for heavy users. If you want something that actually holds its speed without melting, here is what I would grab with that 130 pound budget before your trip:

• Crucial X9 Pro 2TB Portable SSD
• This is my current go-to. It is tiny, way more thermally stable than the Samsung, and usually sits right around 120 pounds on Amazon UK. Much better sustained performance for moving a whole backlog.
• WD_BLACK P40 Game Drive 2TB SSD
• A bit more expensive usually, but it is built like a tank and specifically designed for consoles. It handles the heat better than the slim consumer drives.
• Samsung T7 Shield 2TB Portable SSD
• If you must go Samsung, get the Shield version. It has a rubberized shell that actually helps with heat dissipation compared to the standard T7, and it doesnt throttle nearly as fast. Just remember that you can only play PS4 games directly from these. You can store PS5 games on them to save space, but you will have to copy them back to the internal console storage to actually hit play. If you wanted to play PS5 games directly, you would need an internal Western Digital WD_BLACK SN850X 2TB NVMe with a heatsink instead, but for a PS4 backlog, the external options above are much more practical.

I've spent way too much time obsessing over this stuff lately and honestly... the specs on the box are almost always a total lie. When I finally got my console, I went through a couple of drives that were supposed to be top-tier, but they were such a letdown. I remember trying to move my entire backlog—about 400GB of stuff—and it started fast then just crawled. It dropped to like 50MB/s after ten minutes because the cache was full. It was honestly embarrassing to watch for something that cost that much. The biggest thing I learned is that you cant trust the up to 1050MB/s marketing. If you want the truth, you gotta look at sites like RTINGS or the deep-dive threads on r/PS5 where people actually post their sustained write graphs. Most of these external drives use plastic housings that act like little ovens... its just bad design. My current setup is basically just a high-quality internal drive I slapped into a cheap third-party aluminum enclosure. It was way more affordable and actually stays cool because the metal dissipates the heat properly. Definitely look into the thermal performance specifically before you buy anything, otherwise you're gonna be staring at a progress bar for your entire staycation. Its really disappointing how the big manufacturers focus on burst speeds for marketing but then the drives choke during actual heavy use cases like moving a whole library.