SanDisk 4TB Extreme PRO Portable SSD – Up to 2000MB/s – USB-C, USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, IP65 Water and Dust Resistance, Updated Firmware – External Solid State Drive – SDSSDE81-4T00-G25

Sandisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD 2 TB New Generation
Right now, the only computer equipment that I have is an ASUS 15 inch Vivobook Laptop PC. My desktop self destructed and I gave my Dell laptop to my daughter.Compared to similar portable SSD’s, I was impressed by how durable this Sandisk SSD is (water resistant & dust resistant and survives ordinary drops). I have not dropped it or placed it in water (yet) but it is nice to know that this Sandisk will survive through harsh conditions.I read several negative reviews about how super HOT this SSD gets. So I decided to purchase the Sandisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD 2 TB New Generation (which is a lot more SSD than I really need). Why? The SanDisk Extreme PRO® Portable SSD is housed in a forged aluminum chassis that also acts as a heatsink, saving you time through higher sustained speeds (it is less likely to overheat). The Extreme Pro is slightly larger than the regular Extreme – which also helps it to dissipate heat (although both models are very portable). In other words, this model promises to never slow down due to overheating. In my experience: My Extreme Pro NEVER gets hot, in fact, it seldom gets warm. My Extreme Pro is cool to the touch except the rare times when it is slightly warm. Note: I am not extremely demanding. I read and write small files to my Sandisk from time to to time during the day. Otherwise, I leave the Sandisk plugged to my ASUS laptop all dayOne thing I noticed about my Sandisk Extreme Pro. If there is zero read-write activity for an extended period, my Extreme Pro goes to sleep. And it drops to room temperature. This situation can prevail for minutes or 24-7 with my setup. My Extreme Pro Portable NEVER gets hot. As you read other reviews by other buyers, it appears (I am guessing here) that some users are in a situation where their Extreme Pro or Extreme never goes to sleep (and their device gets SUPER HOT). In my situation, if I attempt to write to my Extreme Pro after it has not experienced any read-write activity for an extended period, it takes a moment to “wake-up” my Extreme Pro. Not a problem because I know this feature allows my Extreme Pro to stay nice and cool (resulting in a longer life). I have not read anything about this feature. If you are interested in how this “sleep” feature works or if your Sandisk portable SSD gets SUPER HOT, contact Sandisk and ask for further details.I did encounter one problem. I have no idea what causes this and neither does Sandisk Technical Support. When I connect this device to the single USB C port in my laptop, Windows OS cannot “see” this SSD. Yet, my PC works just fine with another external HDD that I connect to this same USB C port. So, I connect my Sandisk to a Type A USB 3.0 port (and the Sandisk works just fine). I do not have another PC to connect my Sandisk SSD to (which might give me a clue what is going on). It is entirely possible that something is strange with the USB C port on my laptop, so I cannot blame the Sandisk SSD.This is a revision written weeks later: I purchased a new laptop. Exactly the same kind as I already had, a ASUS Vivobook 15.6″ laptop. Because I really like the keyboard on the ASUS. The USB C port on my new laptop works just fine with my Sandisk Extreme Pro SSD. So the problem lies with my older ASUS Vivobook (read above). My Sandisk Extreme Pro SSD works perfectly.I am happy with my Sandisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD 2 TB New Generation and I intend to keep it long after my ASUS Vivobooks die.My only negative: I wish the Sandisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD had an activity light (so I could tell [at a glance] when it is reading-writing). Note that this device is totally silent and warm to the touch, so not always obvious when it is reading-writing data. Not a big enough negative for me to deduct a star.update: 8 months after purchase. My Sandisk Extreme Pro performing well, going strong. Zero problems. Connected to my ASUS laptop all the time using the USB C port, a laptop I use about 12 hours a day, my Extreme Pro gets warm but not hot.

Reliable SSD
Been using one as my main storage since 2023. Never rely on an internal drive, but externals can be slow. Blackmagic Speed Test says this one is 920mbps read and write. Fast enough for editing 2k in most codecs. In practice, I’ve been able to use it to edit 4k raw in DVR. Biggest problem will be playback if you have power windows and a lot of nodes esp denoise. For that, I go straight to my Mac Mini internal that reads/writes at 6700mbps, then archive to the external. Good news is it hasn’t hesitated, overheated or crashed.

BRICKED SSD After 6 Months. MacOS users out of luck.
My experience is a breach of trust in the WD brand. I’m a macOS user working with large files for photography and videography. I’ve been a WD customer since the first My Passport and My Book HDDs. I bought the 4TB Extreme PRO V2 because I enjoyed using the 2TB Extreme V2. I figured the faster R/W speed and storage space would mean an even better user experience. Right? Wrong.After only six months of storing over 2TB of data, my system no longer recognized the disk. The only actions my system allowed me to take were to either Eject, Initialize or Ignore the disk. None of these were optimal. Yet the hurdles to hunting for a solution frustrated me even more.That’s when I learned about the firmware issue from WD’s response to another reviewer’s comments. The device impact checker confirmed my disk “may have been impacted.” Discovering that my only options were to use a PC to download and install the firmware update or contact customer support infuriated me. WD must not value its macOS customers for it not to offer an easy way for us to update the firmware. We are Mac users for a reason.Instead of having it done the easy way, I get a complicated set of instructions to download and install a third-party program called RescuePRO Deluxe. Now here’s where I got super angry with this experience. Customer support told me that though the program might be able to preview in evaluation mode, I would need to pay for it to back them up to my local hard disk. In other words, the customer MUST PAY for WD’s negligence to address this issue before they shipped these drives. On top of that, I learned that if this program failed to retrieve my files, my last line of defense was to pay for third-party hardware data recovery. I think WD should pay for this, not the customer they failed. At the very least, WD should replace my bricked SSD with a working one and include shipping costs.I ran RescuePRO Deluxe overnight and returned to find that it could not produce a preview of any recoverable files. Not one byte of my more than 2TB of data was retrievable. Incredible. I cannot recover my files and am too cash-strapped to pay for hardware data recovery. I can’t believe I spent $400 for a bricked SSD. This event prompted me to write this review to steer others clear of this debacle and look elsewhere for portable storage solutions.

Bulletproof design, rugged and built to last.
This is a great mass storage solution for the average person if you need portability, I will never buy another Western Digital product again.

Great, Fast, I had one issue with it,,I have added some files on it.. after a while when I connect it, the windows didn’t recognize it and I had to format it and loose all my files that I don’t have backup on them ):Make sure when formatting to choose File system: ExFat not NTSF so that it could work on both PC and Mac

Haven’t had many chances to test the capabilities of the SSD, but, so far its performance is quite impressive. Turning on its encryption was also straightforward. I heard many news in the past if its data integrity issues but I hope SanDisk has fixed it and it wouldn’t happen down the road.