Get extra peace of mind with a 5-year limited warranty 3 and a durable silicon shell that offers a premium feel and added protection to the drive’s exterior. The table below presents a comparative view of the specifications of the two portable SSDs covered in this review. Comparative Portable SSDs Configuration

For those purchasing the G-DRIVE SSD for their Apple Mac, all they need to do is connect it to a recent Apple Mac computer, as the drive is pre-formatted with APFS. From SanDisk, the brand professional photographers worldwide trust to handle their best shots and footage. The less optimistic AJA System test presented 881MB/s reads and 871MB/s writes using a 16GB test file. Up to three-meter drop protection and IP65 water and dust resistance 5 mean this durable drive can take a beating. One area it does shine is that the NVMe inside has the capability for 256-bit AES-XTS hardware encryption, enabling the contents of the drive to be secured effectively.The evaluation routine for direct-attached storage devices – portable SSDs, storage bridges (including RAID enclosures), and memory cards – all utilize the same testbed and have similar workloads with slight tweaks based on the end market for the product. Our testbeds have kept pace with the introduction of new external interfaces - Thunderbolt 2, Thunderbolt 3, and USB 3.2 Gen 2 via Type-C. In mid-2014, we prepared a custom desktop based on Haswell, which was then upgraded to Skylake in early 2016. A botched Thunderbolt 3 firmware upgrade on the Skylake machine meant that we had to shift to the Hades Canyon NUC starting in early 2019. This year, we have adopted the Quartz Canyon NUC (essentially, the Xeon / ECC version of the Ghost Canyon NUC) along with build components from ADATA Industrial - 2x 16GB DDR4-3200 ECC SODIMMs and a PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD - the IM2P33E8 1TB. For those wondering if the enclosure could be repurposed, there appears to be no obvious way inside. And, while it might be possible to dismantle, there are no guarantees that the NAND flash module inside uses a standard M.2 slot. Therefore, for those with USB 3.0 (USB 3.2 Gen 1) ports, there is little point in purchasing this drive over cheaper options because you will never see its actual performance. As a USB drive, these numbers are solid and equivalent to those that we’ve seen from the Crucial X8 and its like. There are faster USB drives that use the USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 standard, such as the PNY EliteX-PRO and Kingston XS2000. For those curious, Thunderbolt-connected SSDs can be three times these speeds, something to consider for those that have that port and can afford those drives. We know this because the performance here is at least twice that of a SATA SSD, at around 1,000MB/s.

What Western Digital also usually provides with its My Passport drives are some Windows software utilities that copy user files to the drive or install new firmware releases. To test SanDisk’s water resistance claims for the Pro-G40 SSD, I submerged it in a glass of water with the USB/Thunderbolt port facing upwards. After 30 minutes underwater, the drive was retrieved, dried, and allowed to rest for an additional hour to ensure no lingering water within the port. Post-drying, the drive reconnected seamlessly to a computer and functioned without issue. SanDisk Pro-G40: Verdict Admin said:WD says that it is readying a firmware fix for a frightening SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD sudden failure issue, but it only mentions ups for 4TB users. Why they didn’t use exFAT and a utility that runs on both platforms to reformat the drive for both groups is a mystery. Because that’s normally what Western Digital does, the overarching business that owns the SanDisk brand.Capacity: With a spacious 4TB capacity, you can stuff this speedy external SSD full of all your photos, videos, audio recordings, game captures, and important documents. The G-Drive SSD comes with none of these, regrettably. We can only conclude that those who designed the G-Drive SSD assumed that it would be mostly Apple macOS users purchasing this drive, and they have Time Machine and don’t need any other tools. The SanDisk Professional Pro-G40 SSD has a premium quality feel and its sturdy outer shell withstands flexing during heavy-handling. It also emerges unscathed after multiple drops onto a concrete surface. The port type is critical because USB 3.2 Gen 1 only offers 5Gbit/s of bandwidth, which equates to roughly 500MB/s, or the same speed as SATA SSDs can achieve.

In addition, I found that the 200 files from the Nikon Z7 II, which take up 9.74GB, transferred from the MacBook Air's desktop to the drive in approximately 5 seconds. Reversing the transfer direction took a similar amount of time. It means you’re not kept waiting around for your images to shift from one place to another. But we can say with some certainty that any attempt to open it would immediately invalidate the five-year limited warranty. But the same as that counterpart, SanDisk doesn’t provide a pouch or case to carry the drive and its cables, a niche that some third party will undoubtedly fill. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

TOPICS

While it will work with USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 (aka USB 3.1), to get the best transfer speeds from it requires a port with USB 3.2 Gen 2 10Gbit/s. While its cost might lean towards the higher end of the spectrum, its 5-year warranty and solid performance where it matters make it a worthwhile investment. WD's flagships and Crucial's mainstream X6 offerings represent two ends of the pricing spectrum. At the same capacity point, they present an interesting view of the tradeoffs involved in achieving a particular price point - performance, consistency, BOM features, and value additions. This review looks at the features of the SanDisk Extreme PRO v2 4TB and the Crucial X6 4TB portable SSDs, along with an analysis of their performance numbers and value propositions. Introduction and Product Impressions For those that own an Apple Mac, just connect the drive and then use it to manually copy files or configure it for Time Machine use.

Where this drive is better than the more expensive PRO-G40 is that it at least comes with both the USB cables most customers will need, and they are also a decent length.We devote hundreds of hours of rigorous testing to help make sure your drive is worthy of your best work — and so you know your precious files are in good hands.