Any photographer who takes their work seriously knows all about securely storing both their raw and edited work across multiple media and a part of this means using reliable storage devices.
SanDisk has recently announced the latest product for letting users do exactly that and its compact size makes it ideal for photographers in particular.
The company’s Pro-G40 SSD is an ultra-fast external storage drive with excellent transfer speeds and tiny but durable size for easy transport.
The Pro-G40 SSD lets users connect it to their devices via either Thunderbolt 3 or USB-C connections for rapid, stable transfer of files and offers dual-mode compatibility with both Thunderbolt and USB 3.2 Gen 2 interfaces for usably plugging into any USB-C device with support for these formats. All of this works through one single port in the Pro-G40 SSD.
According to SanDisk, the little storage device is also one of its physically toughest storage offerings to date, with an IP68 waterproofing rating that lets it stay underwater to a depth of 1.5 meters (roughly 5 feet) for as long as 30 minutes.
The drive is also nearly impervious to grit, dust and dirt unless really hammered with any of these substances, which is exceptionally useful for bringing it along on field photography expeditions.
The Pro-G40 SSD also happens to be highly resilient to impact forces (never mind moderate bumps) of all kinds. The company claims to have built it to withstand 4,000 lbs of crushing pressure and falls of three meters (just under 10 feet) onto carpeted surfaces.
In terms of transfer capacity, the new SSD drive is also very robust, with a speed of up to 2,700 MB/s for reading and a write speed of 1,900 MB/s if connected via Thunderbolt. This means it can usually transfer up to 50GB in 30 seconds without a hitch. Photographers can expect about a third of that performance if connecting via USB-C.
Other design features of the drive are the ability to extract bus power through its connectivity to a device and an aluminum core that helps reduce heat accumulation on the drive mechanism.
The SanDisk Pro-G40 SSD is fully compatible with both macOS from versions 10.13 and up and Windows operating systems.
According to testing from Petapixel, the Pro-G40 SSD happens to really live up to its promises of high transfer speed. In real-world scenarios conducted by the site, it managed a write speed of a little over 2,582 MB/s and a read speed of 2,756 MB/s. In this case, it was connected to an Apple Mac Studio desktop computer.
The most impressive thing about these test speeds is that they actually exceed what even SanDisk itself promises for the Pro-G40 SSD.
With PC use, read and write speeds were a bit slower according to Petapixel, but still quite impressive at 1,975 MB/s for transfers.
Basically, the SanDisk Pro-G40 SSD seems to really deliver on usability for photographers on the go and is available for a fairly reasonable price of $300 for the 1TB edition and $450 for the 2TB version. Western Digital (SanDisk’s parent company) also throws in a limited 5-year warranty as part of these sale prices.
