SanDisk Professional PRO-G40 SSD review

Western Digitial has divided up the branding of its merchandise into sub-brands, and SanDisk Skilled is the one particularly aimed toward supporting prospects with specialist wants.

On this grouping are exterior RAID enclosures, desktop G-Drive merchandise and numerous flash drive readers, together with the merchandise of curiosity right here, exterior SSDs.

Current SanDisk prospects can be conversant in its Excessive Professional moveable drives and the way they provide wonderful worth for cash for extraordinary customers. However the SanDisk Skilled PRO-G40 is a wholly totally different beast at an alternate value level.

Let’s see what SanDisk did to the PRO-G40 to justify its beginning value of $299.99/£414.99 over cheaper alternate options.

Design & Construct

• Trendy steel and rubber development
• Extremely-durable credentials
• Brief cable

For those who have dealt with a SanDisk Excessive drive, the PRO-G40 is one thing of a tradition shock, as the standard of development isn’t comparable. The PRO-G40 is a lot nicer.

The highest face of the drive is a finely detailed steel plate, and the again and sides are a agency rubberised compound that varieties a protecting defend across the drive.

4 small hexagon Torx screws maintain the enclosure collectively, though I resisted the temptation to take away them to look inside. The PRO-G40 IP68 is rated for duat and waterproofing, so opening it might most likely undermine these options.

It additionally has a 4000lb (approx 1800kg) crush resistance, and as much as 3m drop resistance, although I haven’t examined these.

Given the excessive value of this merchandise, it’s barely disappointing that it solely comes with a 20cm lengthy Thunderbolt USB-C cable and no USB Kind-A adapter. A carry pouch wouldn’t have gone amiss and will have saved and guarded the cable.

Subsequently, what the PRO-G40 represents is a high-quality machine designed for those who solely use Thunderbolt 3 or USB 3.2 Gen 2 with USB-C ports. Alongside that flexibility, SanDisk designed it to outlive being thrown in a images bag together with all method of different gear every day with out fear.

It’s additionally good to see a protracted five-year restricted guarantee included.

Specs & Options

• 1 or 2TB
• Pre-formatted for Mac
• Thunderbolt 3/4 and USB 3.2

The SanDisk Skilled PRO-G40 come solely in 1TB or 2TB of capability, and never the smaller 500GB or bigger 4TB choices that the Excessive collection drives supply. When you think about that the size of the PRO-G40 permits for it to carry a full 2280 M.2 drive, that’s a bit underwhelming so maybe different capacities will arrive later.

Fairly often, drive makers gained’t talk about what the inner gadgets are on exterior SSDs, since they may select to change them to streamline manufacturing or make value financial savings down the road.

However the PRO-G40 is an open e book on this respect as a result of the underlying SSD inside can’t assist however announce itself on the {hardware} IDs as an SN750E. It appears cheap to interpret this as a Western Digital Black SN750 SE or a variant of that NVMe drive.

It’s value noting that neither the unique SN750 nor SN750 SE supported {hardware} encryption, and it isn’t talked about within the SanDisk Career PRO-G40 flyer, so I assume it’s not right here both.

Once I first used the evaluate mannequin, I found that SanDisk assumes that the majority prospects can be utilizing this on an Apple Mac, as it’s pre-formatted for Mac OS. For Home windows PC customers, like your reviewer, because of this the drive must be reinitialised utilizing the Administration console earlier than it may be used, or it gained’t seem as a drive.

When related, a small white LED may be seen on the cable finish of the drive, and this flashes to indicate the drive is being accessed.

Mark Pickavance

The connection port is appropriate with each Thunderbolt 3 or 4 and USB 3.2, with Thunderbolt providing the easiest efficiency. That’s useful since even some Apple gear doesn’t embrace Thunderbolt, and most Home windows desktop customers gained’t have that port both.

For these taking a look at this drives web page on the WesternDigital web site, it seems that it doesn’t supply any particular software program or utilities for the PRO-G40, not even a utility to take care of the firmware. I even put in the most recent launch of the SanDisk Dashboard and it fails to recognise the drive.

There’s an argument that prospects gained’t purchase the PRO-G40 for its software program help or encryption however fairly the uncooked pace of this machine. That’s an assertion I’m completely satisfied to check.

Efficiency

• As much as 2700MB/s learn
• As much as 1900MB/s write
• Finest for Thunderbolt utilization

We’ve reviewed a number of exterior SSDs that help both Thunderbolt or USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, and the rise in bandwidth that these interfaces supply has a dramatic affect on the speeds of studying and writing.

What’s necessary to know is that extraordinary USB 3.2 Gen 2 solely helps a complete switch pace of 10Gbit/s, and Gen 1 solely half as a lot.

Mark Pickavance

The PRO-G40 doesn’t help USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, so the quickest that it could actually go when connected to a USB 3.2 Gen 2 port is round 1,000MB/s for each studying and writing. Because the underlying SSD know-how is the SN750 SE or related SSD, that machine is utilizing an M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 interface, and in a desktop M.2 slot can be able to going a lot quicker.

The related bandwidth of Thunderbolt 3 is as much as 20Gbit/s on the information channel and utilizing that interface on my take a look at system resulted in 2,788MB/s reads and a couple of,577MB/s writes, utilizing the 2TB mannequin and the extremely optimistic default mode of CrystalDiskMark 8.04.

These numbers had been supported by ATTO exams, and it was right down to AS SSD to ship extra sobering outcomes with 2,092MB/s reads, and 1,830MB/s writes.

Whichever of those numbers you want to imagine, that is nonetheless one of many quickest exterior drives we’ve ever examined and nearly an identical to the improbable OWC Envoy Professional FX moveable SSD.

SanDisk

When you have Thunderbolt, then it is a higher funding, because it reduces the time to switch recordsdata by half, however for these with solely USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, it definitely isn’t value it.

On USB, the very best speeds I attained had been round 1,000MB/s for each studying and writing.

Value & Availability

That cup of espresso, please put it down earlier than studying on.

The 1TB possibility is $299.99 and $449.99 for double that storage within the US. Nonetheless, within the UK, it’s priced at £414.99 and a whopping £654.99 respectively, making this drive round 30% costlier outdoors America.

For these within the UK that is likely to be questioning in the event that they’ve been singled out for unfair therapy, French costs are €471.99 and €741.99, making it barely cheaper within the EU, however not by a lot.

You should buy it from Western Digital, Amazon and Amazon UK.

You may additionally be excited about how that compares with the SN750 SE, which successfully appears to be contained in the PRO-G40.

The 1TB SN750 SE prices simply $95.99/£156.99/€178.99, relying on the place you’re, or about 33% of the price of the identical capability PRO-G40. Subsequently, the enclosure represents 66% of the associated fee, extremely. And, these ratios assume retail costs for the SN750 SE, because it’s the identical firm SanDisk gained’t pay that for them.

One other head-scratching element is that the OWC Envoy Professional FX moveable SSD has an identical American pricing for 1- and 2TB fashions, however OWC additionally provides 240GB, 480GB and 4TB capacities. Within the UK, the 1TB model of the Envoy Professional FX may be purchased for round £320 and the 2TB for £535, making it noticeably cheaper.

These out there for a Thunderbolt exterior drive must also take a look at the Plugable vary of gadgets for extra reasonably priced choices. With the value of NAND reminiscence falling like a brick presently, how Western Digital justifies this pricing, particularly outdoors the USA, is unfathomable.

See extra choices in our greatest moveable SSD chart.

SanDisk

Verdict

In a single product, we hardly ever see get the nice, unhealthy and downright ugly concurrently.

On the constructive finish of this equation, SanDisk has created a gorgeously crafted exterior drive that may take knocks and even publicity to grime and water with out batting an eyelid.

The preliminary good impression is additional enhanced by the superb efficiency on supply over Thunderbolt and acceptable speeds over USB 3.2 Gen 2.

There is no such thing as a pouch or USB Kind-A adapter, it comes unhelpfully formatted for a Mac, and there are not any software program utilities for it, however I might forgive these errata if it was priced proper.

Sadly, the pricing of the PRO-G40 is completely bonkers, and because the worth of NAND continues to fall, it would look more and more ridiculous. For these pondering that the USA will get a greater deal, they do, however to not the purpose the place even these costs are justifiable given the underlying know-how and its value.

Anticipate these to not promote in quantity after which endure a large value drop when SanDisk realises that taking an affordable NVMe drive and placing it in a pleasant case doesn’t triple its worth proposition. When that occurs, it’ll make for a fantastic buy.

Specs

• Interface: Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.2 Gen 2
• Pace: 2700MB/s learn and 1900MB/s write (TB3)
• Capacities: 1TB and 2TB
• Casing materials: Metallic and TPU
• Working temperature: 5-35C
• Appropriate with: macOS 10.13+ (Time Machine appropriate), Home windows 10+ (through reformat)
• Dimensions: 111 x 58 x 12 mm
• Weight: 122.3 g
• Guarantee/help: restricted 5-year guarantee with free technical help