Sandisk Extreme Pro SSD with USB4 review: Good performance, when it connects at full speed

Price When Reviewed

$280 for 2TB, $430 for 4TB

Best Prices Today: Sandisk Extreme Pro SSD with USB4

The Sandisk Extreme Pro SSD with USB4 is a good-looking, rugged, comparatively inexpensive exterior SSD with 40Gbps aspirations. I say aspirations as a result of a number of occasions it linked at solely 10Gbps or 5Gbps on our check mattress. Even when linked at 40Gbps, it was slower than the competitors.

Read on to be taught extra, then see our roundup of the best external drives for comparability.

What are the Sandisk Extreme Pro SSD with USB4’s options?

The Sandisk Extreme Pro SSD with USB4 is noticeably bigger than the older Extreme Pro SSDs, although it mimics them completely in form, type, and coloration. The drive is a quite hefty 5.4–inches lengthy, by 2.2–inches large, by 0.45-inches thick, and weighs round 5.4 ounces. Lest you mistake my intent, I like stable and hefty in an exterior SSD.

As you’ll be able to see beneath, it’s Sandisk’s favourite darkish grey with copper highlighting within the further massive lanyard opening. It’s largely overlaying in textured silicone, which gives a pleasant, snug grip.

Obviously, the Sandisk Extreme Pro SSD with USB4 makes use of the USB4 protocol and it’s of the high-end 40Gbps selection. USB4 does permit 20Gbps implementations, although we haven’t seen any drives utilizing it. USB4 v2 will implement 80Gbps like Thunderbolt 5, however SSDs that includes which are a methods off. Thunderbolt 5 SSDs may be counted with the fingers on one hand in the intervening time.

Sandisk warranties the Extreme Pro SSD with USB4 for a full 5 years, although that’s little question mitigated by its TBW ranking. Sandisk didn’t say that explicitly, but it surely’s normal to situation the guarantee on a most variety of terabytes that may written to the drive, together with cheap dealing with similar to not dropping it from a skyscraper, splitting it with an axe, and so forth.

As the write velocity solely dropped to 550MBps off secondary cache, I’m assuming it makes use of TLC reminiscence, which is often rated at 600TBW per terabyte of capability.

How a lot is the Sandisk Extreme Pro SSD with USB4?

The Sandisk Extreme Pro SSD with USB4 is on the market in a 2TB mannequin for $280 and a 4TB mannequin for $430. That’s in keeping with the pre-populated competitors such because the Adata SE920 and OWC 1M2, however not almost the discount that’s the Corsair EX400U.

You may roll your personal for significantly much less with one thing just like the Ugreen CM642. But after all, you’ve gotten the hassle of opening and putting in the SSD. In complete, worth shouldn’t be a difficulty with the Extreme SSD Pro SSD with USB4 (Geez, I’m getting bored with typing that title!). But there have been points.

How quick is the Sandisk Extreme Pro SSD with USB4?

When it operated at full velocity, the Extreme Pro SSD with USB4 drive was quick, albeit not as quick because the competitors — it positioned final amongst some very quick USB4 SSDs. In our real-world switch checks, it additionally fell behind a few 20Gbps SSDs. Additionally, it had points connecting at full velocity on our check mattress.

Using the equipped cable (40Gbps emblem’d) the Extreme Pro SSD with USB4 operated at solely 10Gbps on one in every of our check mattress’s Thunderbolt 4 ports, and 5Gbps on the opposite. Windows additionally warned that the drive won’t carry out as USB4 ought to. Using the identical cable on an M4 Mac Studio’s Thunderbolt 5 port gave the complete 40Gbps.

Using an excellent high-quality Thunderbolt 5 cable, the Extreme Pro SSD with USB4 was capable of carry out and full testing at 40Gbps on the PCWorld check mattress. However, a second try with the identical Thunderbolt 5 cable produced the lowered speeds.

Note that USB4 (a wedding of Thunderbolt 4 and USB) continues to be in its infancy, so interoperability points aren’t startling, although these are the primary I’ve skilled. The drive would possibly carry out considerably higher and join extra reliably on different methods. It did on my Mac Studio.

It may be incompatibility with our check mattress’s Thunderbolt 4 implementation, however I’ve by no means seen this from another USB4 product. It may be Sandisk’s hand-shaking or thermal administration that’s amiss. I requested each Sandisk and all of the Thunderbolt/USB4 people I do know concerning the problem, however had not heard again as of this writing.

When linked on the full 40Gbps, you’ll be able to see that the Sandisk Extreme Pro with USB4 was largely in keeping with, if not fairly as much as the competitors in CrystalDiskMark 8’s sequential checks.

The main weak spot was in single queue/thread writing, which is the way in which Windows operates, These weak spot confirmed up on different checks.

In CrystalDiskMark 8’s random 4K checks, the Extreme Pro SSD with USB4 was, once more, largely as much as snuff with the competitors, aside from the very disappointing single-thread write rating. There’s a theme right here.

We repeated the single-queue, single-thread check a number of occasions to ensure it wasn’t an aberration. It might need one thing to do with secondary cache administration because the rating doubled once I ran it by itself. However, 40MBps continues to be significantly slower than the competitors.

Again, Windows solely makes use of a single queue and thread (regardless of NVMe being a decade previous now) for writing knowledge, so it’s not shocking that the Extreme Pro SSD with USB was off the tempo. It was truly slower on this check than a number of 20Gbps USB 3.2×2 SSDs.

While not tragic, the Sandisk Extreme Pro with USB4’s 450GB write efficiency was middling at finest. Close to 3 minutes slower than the SE920 and, once more, slower than a number of 20Gbps SSDs.

I used to be a bit shocked that Sandisk didn’t pull extra velocity out of this unit. But the corporate isn’t quite as good with external SSDs as it’s with inner ones. And that is not the first Sandisk SSD to have connection points.

Note that the majority SSDs are able to their marketed velocity — on sure methods. AMD’s Thunderbolt 4 implementation is quicker than Intel’s. Our check mattress is Intel, which we’ve saved static over greater than 100 exterior and inner SSD checks. All the drives we’ve examined have had the identical “handicap.”

Should you purchase the Sandisk Extreme Pro with USB4?

The Extreme Pro SSD with USB4 is good-looking, rugged, feels nice in your mitts, is decently inexpensive for USB4, and is quicker than the vast majority of USB 3.2×2 20Gbps SSDs.

That stated, the connection points are a purple flag, and the 40Gbps competitors is quicker. Wait for the second revision on this one. I’ll revisit this evaluation if and when the problem is resolved, or Sandisk sends me a better-behaved alternative unit.

How we check

Our storage checks presently make the most of Windows 11 (22H2) 64-bit operating on a Z790 (PCIe 5.0) motherboard/i5-12400 CPU combo with two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 modules (64GB of reminiscence complete). Intel built-in graphics are used. The 48GB switch checks make the most of an ImDisk RAM disk taking over 58GB of the 64GB complete reminiscence. The 450GB file is transferred from a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB, which additionally comprises the working system.

Each check is carried out on a newly formatted and TRIM’d drive so the outcomes are optimum. Note that as any drive fills up, efficiency will lower attributable to much less NAND for secondary caching, and different components.

The efficiency numbers proven apply solely to the drive we had been shipped in addition to the capability examined. SSD efficiency can fluctuate by capability attributable to extra or fewer chips to learn/write throughout and the quantity of NAND obtainable for secondary caching (writing TLC/QLC as SLC). Vendors additionally sometimes swap elements. If you ever discover a big discrepancy between the efficiency you expertise and that which we report (methods being roughly equal), by all means—tell us.