SanDisk Professional G-DRIVE 4TB Enterprise-Class Desktop Hard Drive, up to 250MB/s USB-C (5Gbps), USB 3.2 Gen 1

Product Information

The available capacities are 500GB, 1TB and 2TB, and all these are roughly the same size and weight irrespective of capacity. A reasonable assumption to make about these is that they connect the drive to the enclosure and that removing them might facilitate access inside the case.

WD says that its Red range has features such as NAS compatibility, increased reliability, error recovery controls as well as noise and vibration protection that make it a great choice for use cases that require better reliability than your run-of-the-mill hard disk drive. Apple users can use Time Machine, and Windows users can use whatever sync tools they have to hand, if any. That they don’t include a USB-A to USB-C cable is a disappointment at this price, although most customers will probably have this item if they need it. The milled aluminum and rubberized coating provide a sturdy home for the NAND module mounted inside the SanDisk Professional G-DRIVE SSD.As good as this sounds, the fastest drive in this range, the 22TB, has a maximum speed of 280MB/s, which doesn’t come close to exceeding the bandwidth of a Gen 1 interface. Making the Gen 2 interface a largely irrelevant change.

The two big selling points here are the quality of construction and the dramatic amount of capacity potentially on offer. 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.You do get a five year warranty with it but you will have to send the defective drive to Sandisk at your own expense. It is worth noting that if you use a data recovery service, you will not void an otherwise valid limited warranty as long as you get a written verification from the service provider. The competition We’re looking for 2TB superfast, extremely rugged, IP67+ rated external solid state drives. That disqualifies the likes of the popular Samsung T7 Touch which is not waterproof. The less optimistic AJA System test presented 881MB/s reads and 871MB/s writes using a 16GB test file. However, the problem with quoting those numbers is that the PRO will only sustain those, or specifically the write performance over a short sprint.