SanDisk Extreme Pro 1TB Portable SSD Review

TweakTown's Rating: 91%

The Bottom Line

When it comes to portable 10Gb/s USB-C solutions, the SanDisk Extreme Pro mixes top notch build quality with best in class performance.

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SanDisk is no stranger to the portable or solid state drive market. Nearly two years after releasing the first SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD, we have the Extreme Pro, following the pattern of drives that have recently made the jump to 10Gb/s USB-C.

With the upgrade to 10Gb/s, slight changes have been made, offering a dramatic increase in build quality due to some infusion of aluminum into the enclosure. SanDisk still uses the same colorway with deep grey silicon on an anodized orange/red shell.

Performance is rated at 1050 MB/s with capacity options of 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB. Connectivity is offered over USB-C with an adapter available for USB 3.0 systems, albeit with legacy performance. This solution is IP55 rated for dust and water. MSRP of the SanDisk Extreme Pro in the 1TB capacity comes in at $219.99 with a five-year warranty.

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Packaging sticks with the red on black we have seen from past Extreme products. We get an image of the drive centered along with capacity and performance top right.

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The back offers warranty information at the bottom with features above.

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Included in the box, we have the USB-C cable and C to A cable.

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The Extreme offers a silicon rubber exterior for increased durability, which is soft on the hands. At the top, there's an aluminum attachment point for those that want to saddle this drive up to your bag, etc.

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The backside offers capacity and regulatory information.

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The bottom of the drive offers the USB-C port for connectivity.

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Opening the drive, we have a USB-C to NVMe PCB, attached is a SN750 from WD.

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The Extreme Pro is factory formatted with exFAT. Usable capacity comes in at 931GB.

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SanDisk SecureAcess is included with the drive and allows you to password protect your data.

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Starting with CDM, we see 940.1 MB/s read and 907 MB/s write.

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ATTO shows the Extreme Pro reaches peak performance at 512K and holds through 64M.

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Price to Performance for this drive puts it in third place behind the X8 from Crucial and T5 from Samsung, but with a small price adjustment, it could easily be at the top of the list.

Closing out the Extreme Pro, build quality has been substantially increased over the original Extreme Portable SSD with a more durable aluminum shell allowing the drive to keep its IP55 certification and increasing the shockproof nature of the drive.

Performance is top for this drive among all 10Gb/s USB-C drives that I have tested the past month. At 940 MB/s read and 907 MB/s write, this drive is the quickest in read operations and second only to the Rugged SSD Pro in write performance. ATTO showed this solution does tend to favor thicker file sizes getting up to top speed at 512K with no stumbles after.

As for pricing, SanDisk has priced this solution a good bit higher than most 1TB USB-C 10Gb/s solutions. With the MSRP at $219.99, it's $50 higher than the Crucial X8 and RAVPower Portable SSDs. That said, SanDisk does offer a class-leading five-year warranty along with value-added software for encrypting the data on the drive.

Tyler's Test System Specifications

• Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair VIII Formula X570 (buy from Amazon)
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (buy from Amazon)
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB 2x8GB DDR4 3600 (buy from Amazon)
• Cooler: Corsair Hydro H60 (buy from Amazon)
• Case: Corsair Carbide 275R (buy from Amazon)
• OS Storage: Corsair MP600 1TB (buy from Amazon)
• Power Supply: Corsair RM850x (buy from Amazon)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 (buy from Amazon)