At a look

Expert’s Rating

Pros

• Both 10Gbps and Thunderbolt 3/4 connectivity
• Fast, particularly over Thunderbolt
• IP68 climate and mud resistant

Our Verdict

For the person who desires the choice of speedy 40Gbps efficiency, the Pro-G40 is the perfect dual-bus drive that we’ve examined. But that flexibility will value you. As a USB 3.2 10Gbps, the Pro-G40 is nice, however not noticeably higher than the best-performing drives in that class.

Price When Reviewed

1TB/$160 I 2TB/$240 I 4TB/$400

Best Prices Today: SanDisk Pro-G40 SSD

It’s good to have selections, and the Pro-G40 exterior SSD offers a really helpful one: Thunderbolt 3/4 or 10Gbps USB. Yup, you possibly can join this drive to both bus relying on want: optimum pace, or minimal energy consumption.

Further studying: See our roundup of the perfect exterior drives to find out about competing merchandise.

SanDisk Pro-G40 design, options, and value

Though the spotlight of the Pro-G40 is its dual-bus (10Gbps USB/40Gbps Thunderbolt 3) compatibility, it’s additionally extraordinarily rugged and weather-toughened. The Pro-G40’s IP68 ranking (no mud intrusion, and no water intrusion as much as 1 meter) is nothing to scoff at. Given the uncovered (no plug or cowl) Type-C connector, it’s no imply trick both.

The different factor concerning the Pro-G40 is that, it’s, err… costly. The 1TB mannequin retails for $160, the 2TB for $200, and the 4TB for $400. By means of comparability, the 2TB Samsung T7 Shield is a mere $140.

The excessive value means it’s best to solely take into account the Pro-G40 if you need Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt storage is all the time costly, so don’t take this as a knock on the Pro-G40—there are costlier Thunderbolt drives.

As for the expertise inside, to attain the throughput Thunderbolt can ship NVMe is required. Indeed, AS SSD enumerated the interior drive as a Western Digital (the dad or mum firm) SN750E—an NVMe drive. What bridge or combo chip is in use internally, SanDisk didn’t say.

A be aware on Thunderbolt 3 versus Thunderbolt 4—each are the identical pace (40Gbps) and primary expertise, with barely completely different specs by way of what they need to help earlier than they’ll use the brand. Version 4 was principally applied to pressure distributors to implement everything of the spec, which incorporates tunneling USB/DisplayPort/HDMI, and so on., to be licensed. Many early implementations had been lower than full.

If you’re shopping for a Windows PC and need to be sure you have all of Thunderbolt’s options, search for the Thunderbolt 4 brand. Macs have all the time featured a whole implementation. For drives, together with the SanDisk Pro-G40 or OWC’s Envoy sequence, Thunderbolt 3 is all you want as they perform solely as storage.

How does the SanDisk Pro-G40 carry out?

Though the Pro-G40 is an honest performer over the 10Gbps USB bus, it’s clearly going to be an excellent higher one utilizing 40Gbps Thunderbolt. The gold bars beneath supply a lot proof of that.

However, earlier than the plain pace benefit seduces you, I ought to let you know that I’ve backed off pure Thunderbolt drives for on a regular basis use, opting as a substitute for USB 10Gbps and 20Gbps. Why’s that, you ask? It’s usually quick sufficient, makes use of much less energy, and produces much less warmth.

It’s not likely Thunderbolt’s fault—it’s merely that the quicker transfers use extra juice, which in flip makes issues hotter. Of course, when I’ve a very huge switch operation, I change to Thunderbolt—I’m not loopy!

As you possibly can see above, the Pro-G40 actually goes to city on Thunderbolt, and is kind of good as a 10Gbps USB drive as properly. Note that the WD Black P50 is a Superspeed 20Gbps drive, not 10Gbps just like the Pro-G40 and Samsung T7 Shield. It’s merely there to point out the variations between 10Gbps, 20Gbps, and 40Gbps.

In order to maintain the charts readable, I neglected the opposite combo USB/T3 drive I’ve examined for Macworld—the OWC Envoy Pro FX. The Envoy Pro FX is a worthy product, however performs a hair slower than the Pro-G40 over Thunderbolt, and for some motive, was a sluggish reader over 10Gbps USB.

The 48GB transfers proven above had been very shut between the Pro-G40 and the T7 Shield, with the Pro-G40 taking a slight victory by advantage of a really quick folder learn time.

Jon L. Jacobi

While the Pro-G40 over Thunderbolt was quick on the 450GB write, the drive was significantly slower than the T7 Shield through 10Gbps USB. Not by a ton, however noticeably so.

Note that whereas the Pro-G40 ships formatted to APFS, we reformatted to NTFS for testing. ExFAT would can help you change between macOS and Windows/Linux machines with impunity.

Overall, the Pro-G40 is an excellent performer, and as famous, offers you high pace whenever you want it and daintier energy consumption and fewer warmth when USB will do.

Should you purchase the SanDisk Pro-G40?

Thunderbolt drives are by no means low-cost, however they’re completely value it if efficiency is paramount. In reality, it’s laborious to inform them other than inside storage when in use. USB, alternatively is quick sufficient for most folk and makes use of considerably much less energy.

That’s a reasonably roundabout means of claiming: If you want the pace, go for it—the Pro-G40 is nearly as good as we’ve seen for a dual-bus drive. But given the value, if 10Gbps will suffice, go for a inexpensive drive such because the Samsung T7.

How we check

External drive exams at the moment make the most of Windows 11 64-bit working on an X790 (PCIe 4.0/5.0) motherboard/i5-12400 CPU combo with two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 4800MHz modules (64GB of reminiscence whole). Both 20Gbps USB and Thunderbolt 4 are on the board and Intel built-in graphics are employed. The 48GB switch exams make the most of an ImDisk RAM disk taking over 58GB of the 64GB of whole reminiscence. The 450GB file is transferred from a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB which additionally runs the OS.

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

Caveat: The efficiency numbers proven apply solely to the drive we had been shipped and to the capability examined. SSD efficiency can and can differ by capability resulting from extra or fewer chips to shotgun reads/writes throughout and the quantity of NAND out there for secondary caching. Vendors additionally often swap parts. If you ever discover a big discrepancy between the efficiency you expertise and that which we report, by all means, tell us.