SanDisk Professional G-DRIVE 4TB Enterprise-Class Desktop Hard Drive, up to 250MB/s USB-C (5Gbps), USB 3.2 Gen 1

Product Information

For those purchasing the G-DRIVE SSD for their Apple Mac, all they need to do is connect it to a recent Apple Mac computer, as the drive is pre-formatted with APFS. And, worryingly, where SanDisk previously provided both USB-A and USB-C cables, the new design comes exclusively with a single USB-C cable.

The milled aluminum and rubberized coating provide a sturdy home for the NAND module mounted inside the SanDisk Professional G-DRIVE SSD. Overall, this is a very nicely engineered and constructed external drive that looks able to cope with abuse that might be expected to kill those external SSDs that are made mostly of plastic.SanDisk has high confidence that the rugged enclosure on the PRO-G40 should keep the NAND technology inside safe and demonstrate this with a 5-year limited warranty. The G-Drive SSD comes with none of these, regrettably. We can only conclude that those who designed the G-Drive SSD assumed that it would be mostly Apple macOS users purchasing this drive, and they have Time Machine and don’t need any other tools. SanDisk delivers the drive pre-formatted with APFS for the Apple macOS, something that will cause some confusion with Windows owners who aren’t familiar with how to reformat drives.

A reasonable assumption to make about these is that they connect the drive to the enclosure and that removing them might facilitate access inside the case. Over this interface, the PRO-G40 managed over 3,150MB/s reads and 2,700MB/s writes using the 2TB model. When connected to a PC using USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, our speeds topped out at around 1,050MB/s reads with 1,000 MB/s writes on CrystalDiskMark 8.0.4, irrespective of USB-A or USB-C.The shaping of the Mags means that there is only one orientation that they go, and once inserted into Pro=Blade Station, a small LED above the slot indicates that they’ve been recognised, and this flashes when they’re in use. That makes the PRO-G40 the fastest external Thunderbolt drive we’ve tested recently by some margin. The only drive we’ve seen that is close to this is the OWC Envoy Pro FX, and that costs even more than the PRO-G40. The most significant flaw of the SanDisk Professional PRO-G40 is that the biggest capacity available is only 2TB. Whereas the SanDisk Extreme series drives come with 500GB and 4TB options, the PRO-G40 is either 1TB or 2TB. As well engineered as the new G-Drive Desktop is, and it is lovely, in a direct comparison with the mostly plastic opposition from Seagate, this product is expensive. One area it does shine is that the NVMe inside has the capability for 256-bit AES-XTS hardware encryption, enabling the contents of the drive to be secured effectively.