SanDisk throws its hat in the USB4 ring with a new Extreme PRO model
30-second review
A tipping point has been reached where USB4 has suddenly become the connection technology for external SSDs, and a flood of new products are hitting shelves in this category.
Never a shrinking violet, SanDisk (aka Western Digital) has revamped its SanDisk Extreme PRO series with a new drive that adds “with USB4” to the end of what is already an excessively long name.
With the same styling as the previous Extreme Pro drives but scaled up, this USB-C connected external storage boasts 3800MB/s reads, and 3700MB/s writes when connected to a USB 4 compatible port. It will work with older USB standards, but the drive doesn’t come with a USB-A adapter, and the performance is significantly less if you use USB 3.2 or USB 2.0.
The specification is remarkably close to the Corsair EX400U that we reviewed recently, although this is physically bigger, and that size affords it more protection from being dropped.
Where it is less attractive than the Corsair drive is the price, which is great irrespective of where you buy this hardware.
The only mitigation for the additional expense is that SanDisk offers a five-year warranty, whereas most competitors only provide three years of coverage.
While the SanDisk Extreme PRO with USB4 might not be the fastest or the cheapest option in USB4 external storage, it’s certainly good enough to be included in our best portable SSD collection.SanDisk Extreme PRO with USB4: Pricing and availability
How much does it cost? Starts from £250.99/$279.99/€349,99
When is it out? Available now
Where can you get it? Sold through online retailers and also directly from SandDisk.
Typically, with external SSDs, I’d recommend shopping around for the best deal. However, SanDisk appears to have an iron grip on resellers, which results in the same pricing directly from the maker and online retailers.
Only available in 2TB and 4TB options, the smaller model is $279.99 in the USA, £250.99 in the UK, and €349,99 in Europe.
That’s much more expensive than the 2TB Corsair EX400U, where that drive sells for $189.99, £199.99 and €239.99, depending on where you are.
That’s disturbingly 47% more expensive than the EX400U in the USA.
The asking price for the 4TB model is $429.99 in the US, £ 384.99 in the UK and €534.99 in Europe, which is only 22% more expensive than the EX400U in the USA, 7% more in the UK and 26% more for Europeans.
Those numbers don’t reflect the exchange rates between the dollar, pound and euro, but to give you a flavour of that adjustment, the 4TB would cost $496 in the UK, and $579 in Europe.
However, when you look at this pricing overall, SanDisk has priced this product much closer to the Nextorage NX-PS1PRO than the Corsair EX400U.
Therefore, this isn’t a cheap option. The lack of an 8TB model makes the Ugreen 40gbps M.2 Enclosure a genuine and cost-effective alternative for those that need the larger capacity.
Value: 3.5 / 5SanDisk Extreme PRO with USB4: SpecsSanDisk Extreme PRO with USB4: Design
Large for external SSD
No USB-A adapter
Damage protection
Hardware encryption
Physically, this is easily one of the larger external SSDs I’ve seen, even making the chunky SanDisk PRO-G40 seem modest by comparison.
