SanDisk Desk Drive USB SSD review: High capacity, 10Gbps performance

Price When Reviewed

4TB: $380 I 8TB: $700

SanDisk’s new 10Gbps USB Desk Drive is all about capability. In truth, it ships solely in bigger 4TB and 8TB flavors, for $380 and $700 MSRP, respectively — demonstrating an actual dedication to a advertising and marketing technique that frames the product as a tough drive alternative.

The Desk Drive can be on the massive facet for an exterior SSD and requires exterior energy to operate, which whereas not unheard for an exterior USB drive of this capability is a bit uncommon for a drive that’s solely 10Gbps. Perhaps SanDisk is attempting to make laborious drive transitioners extra snug?

Further studying: See our roundup of the best external drives to find out about competing merchandise.

What are the Sandisk Desk Drive’s options?

I’ve already spilled among the beans on this topic — nonetheless, as to its dimension, the Desk Drive measures a reasonably strong 3.9-inches extensive and lengthy, and about 1.5-inches between the marginally concave prime and anti-skid backside. It’s coloured in SanDisk’s acquainted darkish grey, with orange piping encircling the unit close to the vertical mid-point of the enclosure.

The again of the Desk Drive has the Type-C USB port, AC adapter jack, and a Kensington lock port. And sure, the drive requires an exterior energy supply which the corporate offers. We did attempt to use the drive with out it, and no cube.

SanDisk apparently discovered from its personal Extreme Pro whose data-wiping points might have stemmed from an absence of energy, and Seagate’s FireCuda Gaming SSD 20Gbps SSD, which might solely carry out at 10Gbps on some programs, possible as a result of similar challenge (though thermal throttling might have been the wrongdoer). Note that I’ve examined many a 10Gbps and 20Gbps SSD that performs simply advantageous utilizing solely bus energy.

How a lot does the Desk Drive value?

Though I already coated pricing up prime, it’s useful to debate the Desk Drive’s value in relation to what it’s supposed to interchange — a tough drive. At the time of this writing you may discover a name brand external 8TB hard drive for $150 — round 21 % of the $700 (MSRP) 8TB Desk Drive. Of course, the laborious drive offers solely round 10 % of the efficiency.

So the equation stays roughly the identical on the subject of HDDs and SSDs: The former are considerably cheaper per gigabyte, whereas the latter are far sooner, much less delicate, and extra dependable. That mentioned, HDD reliability is significantly better than it was.

Buy in keeping with want. If your backup is firing off in the midst of the night time when velocity doesn’t matter as a lot, go HDD and get a pair for redundancy. If you’re continually banging in your exterior storage for work when seconds, minutes, or hours rely, pony up the additional bucks for an SSD.

How quick is the SanDisk Desk Drive?

As a 10Gbps USB SSD, the 8TB Desk Drive I examined is after all mild years sooner than a tough drive and held its personal in our testing in opposition to its 10Gbps rivals. That mentioned, it’s no match for 20Gbps or 40Gbps SSDs, which usually double the benchmark outcomes and halve the switch instances.

CrystalDiskMark 8 rated the Desk Drive as very facile in sequential transfers for a 10Gbps USB SSD as you may see beneath. It wasn’t the quickest in each take a look at, however general it carried out fairly effectively.

Jon L. Jacobi

Jon L. Jacobi

Jon L. Jacobi

The outcomes have been extra combined within the random 4K operations. The Desk Drive was quickest in two assessments and beneath common within the different two. As you might discover, this isn’t uncommon for exterior SSDs — a few the opposite drives are inconsistent as effectively.

The SanDisk Desk Drive is a hair behind the curve in 48GB transfers, however not sufficient to considerably influence your shopping for resolution.

Jon L. Jacobi

Jon L. Jacobi

Jon L. Jacobi

Being an 8TB drive, I wasn’t anticipating the Desk Drive to decelerate in any respect in in our 450GB write — it didn’t. Once I threw one other 2TB on the drive, efficiency wavered a bit — waffling between 250MBps and 900MBps. This was undoubtedly some good secondary caching occurring with various levels of success.

There’s little distinction performance-wise between the SanDisk Desk Drive and its rivals. This places the shopping for resolution down to cost and kind issue. All its rivals within the charts above are smaller and extra transportable.

Should you purchase the SanDisk Desk Drive?

If you’re on the lookout for high-capacity, high-speed improve from exterior laborious drives, then the Sandisk Desk Drive will do the job properly. It additionally seems to be good subsequent to your PC, for my part. That mentioned, there’s numerous competitors on the market, particularly on the 4TB capability. Shop fastidiously.

How we take a look at

Drive assessments at present make the most of Windows 11, 64-bit working on an X790 (PCIe 4.0/5.0) motherboard/i5-12400 CPU combo with two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 4800MHz modules (64GB of reminiscence whole). Both 20Gbps USB/Thunderbolt 4 are built-in to the again panel and Intel CPU/GPU graphics are used. The 48GB switch assessments make the most of an ImDisk RAM disk taking on 58GB of the 64GB of whole reminiscence. The 450GB file is transferred from a 2TB Samsung 990 Pro which additionally runs the OS.

Each take a look at is carried out on a newly NTFS-formatted and TRIM’d drive so the outcomes are optimum. Note that in regular use, as a drive fills up, efficiency might lower resulting from much less NAND for secondary caching, in addition to different components. This is much less of an element with the present crop of SSDs with their far sooner NAND.

Caveat: The efficiency numbers proven apply solely to the drive we have been shipped and to the capability examined. SSD efficiency can and can range by capability resulting from extra or fewer chips to shotgun reads/writes throughout and the quantity of NAND obtainable for secondary caching. Vendors additionally sometimes swap elements. If you ever discover a big discrepancy between the efficiency you expertise and that which we report, by all means, tell us.