Tested: Hands-on with SanDisk’s latest USB4 Extreme PRO portable SSD

I’ve been on the hunt for a new portable SSD solution and, despite some of the issues its drives have had in past years, SanDisk’s Extreme lineup has been a reliable one for me so opted to test out the latest SanDisk Extreme PRO with USB4. While data transfer speed rates have been spotty at times without modern Thunderbolt 5 ports, it has otherwise been a reliable solution worth considering for all but the most hardcore professionals out there. Let’s dive in.

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Hands-on: SanDisk Extreme PRO with USB4

The SanDisk Extreme PRO with USB4 we are testing out today is the 2TB model you can score on Amazon for $279.99 shipped.

Features at a glance:

• USB4 w/ read speeds of up to 3800 MB/s and write speeds of up to 3700 MB/s
• Backwards compatible with USB 3.2 and USB 2.0 devices
• Thunderbolt 4 support
• Rugged silicone shell and forged aluminum chassis
• 5-year limited warranty

9to5Toys’ Take

Before we dive into performance and speed and what not, let’s talk build. 

Anyone who has owned or held one of the previous-generation SanDisk Extreme portable SSDs will have a general idea of what they are in for here. This Extreme PRO model with USB4 is longer, but is still relatively thin compared to models I have tested out previously. All-in-all it’s just as portable as it has always been and while, a touch longer, is perhaps an even more sleek and modern-looking and feeling-package. 

SanDisk is once again opting for the sort of dark gray (almost midnight navy in some light) vibes paired with hits of metal orange accents. The entire face and back of the unit features that sort of rubbery feel that doubles down on grip and protection and, despite being a little bit more of a dust magnet than I would like, makes for a premium looking product that isn’t quite as aggressive an offender in the dust department as we have seen from other brands. 

The combination of a rubberized shell wrapped around a forged aluminum chassis with an IP65 water resistance rating should help to keep your data safe – it has been able to handle lengthy trips in my EDC kit and even some quick exposure to light rain on location in my testing. A couple nervous drops from about 5-feet up onto hardwood floors hasn’t been able to damage or lose any of my data either. 

I really like the shiny hits of orange metal trimming the edge of the unit, surrounding the USB-C port, and especially lining the inside of the cutout along the top. I’m not the type to be hanging a portable SSD off a bag or anything like that, but I guess this loop attachment point can come in handy with on location recording/shooting rigs or on one of those carabiner-style attachment points inside of your gear bag. 

Now, it is likely no surprise to folks who have been using and researching SanDisk Extreme portable drives over the last few years that there was some issues with previous iterations – folks were losing data out of nowhere. While this never happened to my SanDisk Extreme drives, it was clearly a problem and didn’t do any favors for what was otherwise a celebrated storage brand. 

I have done everything I can in the last month to try and lose data on this thing – loading it up almost all the way to the brim of its 2TB capacity, unloading it, and loading it back up again, unplugging from various Macs without ejecting it properly, and otherwise abusing it physically (within reason). I have not been able to have this drive fail on me. While this sort of issue can pop up over time, and I have only had a little over month or so to really work it out, so far so good. 

Now let’s talk speeds. This sort of thing with these drives can be a tough one to discuss – everyone’s system and cables are different and all of these things will have an effect on the sort of results you can achieve, as you likely already know. With this in mind I decided to sort of split the difference and make use of a previous-generation Mac mini and a high quality Thunderbolt cable to give folks more of an average of what they can expect on their setup – if you have modern blazing fast Thunderbolt 5 ports, you’ll likely see better speeds, for example. 

The first real-world test we have here is a 24GB+ folder full of all sorts of different files – audio, images, video, and documents. It took just under 4 minutes to copy it from a Mac mini’s drive to the SanDisk Extreme PRO. 

And for those intersted there’s a look at the Black Magic Speed Test (using the same system and setup). 

So far the speeds are much higher than just any of the drives I have in my office here that were released over the last couple years or so, but it’s not quite as fast as some of the other newer USB4 drives out there in most of the conditions I tested it. Connect to a proper M4 Mac with a Thunderbolt 5 cable, it is capable of hitting the max rated 40Gbps, but under no other condition could I replicate these results – you’re going to need this sort of completely high-end data chain to achieve these results it would appear, as I was only able to achieve something closer to 10Gbps with a Thunderbolt 4 port, and sometimes less than that. 

I really don’t need anything faster than what this drive offers, and if you do, you’re likely going to have to spend more than what you can score this one for (using the system you have) or have a completely modern setup to tap into this drive’s max capabilities.  

As of right now, and unless this thing totally fails on me out of nowhere at some point in the future, the SanDisk Extreme PRO Portable SSD is an easy recommendation for folks looking for that USB4 action with, at least, relatively modern machines to use it with. If your a serious pro that demands the 40Gbps, or a casual user with previous-generation gear to use it on, you might want to look elsewhere in the market. 

Buy the SanDisk 2TB Extreme PRO Portable SSD

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