Sandisk Extreme Pro gave me a look at what proper USB4 external disks, such as this, are waiting for us, and all I have to do is excited. Finally, there are useful USB4 USB4 entities with a power of 40 Gb / s are finally here and are quick. It is also, in the same year in which Sandisk showed us the first mainstream, useful SSD PCIE 5.0 with WD Black SN8100. 2025 really seems to be a year of transition and evolution for storing PCs.
Although I could not find the official specification that lists a specific controller in this external SSD Sandisk Extreme Pro, it certainly must be the apply of a up-to-date controller, which allows this disk to finally maintain USB4 speed and do it at a decent temperature. Several previous USB4 drives on the market simply were not able to do so.
Previous USB4 drive controllers, such as those in Adata SE920, for example, could not maintain the peak speeds at low temperatures. The SE920 uses energetic cooling to lend a hand in this front, but my tests have shown that even then you cannot adjust this sandis in performance and temperature (and therefore also in format).
Regardless of the fact that there is a clear improvement in generational performance in the offer with Sandisk Drive, and I mean both in terms of sequential performance and RND4K, i.e. for file transfers and system tasks, such as starting games from SSD.
Extreme Pro USB4 Specifications
The drive is estimated at a maximum of 3800 Mb/Si I found it to maintain the transfer speed Just A disturbing this for almost two minutes in a row, which means about 450 GB of data transferred in just two minutes. Then (after exhausting pseudo SLC) it drops to about 2000 Mb/s for the next two minutes, then back to the next two, then rinse and repeat.
The speed to which it falls in these declines, most importantly, is the same, and even slightly higher than USB 3×2 USB 3.2 GEN drives, such as Samsung T9. USB4 is much better, but of course you need to have a USB port that can handle the 40 Gb / s specification to make it worth it. Most up-to-date laptops have at least one such port nowadays, but it is worth checking it just in case, otherwise you will spend USB4 money just to be confined to USB 3.2 Gen 2×2.
Admittedly, as you can see below, for this coherence, you must enable the drive buffering, which can theoretically reduce stability and boost the risk of data loss. But in practice, this should not be a high risk, and and at least it still reaches decent sequential peak frequencies even with the function of the recording cache turned off.
It’s not just moving the Sandisk Extreme Pro Smashs file. My Crystaldiskmark tests have shown that the RND4K Drive read performance was 34% better than another USB4, SE920 drive, and offer more than double Samsung T9 performance, which is very premium USB 3×2 USB 3×2 USB disk and before was my goal. Most importantly, this reference point is imitated by hundreds and thousands of minor reading/record activities, through which the disk will pass in more general apply, for example when starting the application directly from a given drive.
The reason why USB 3.2 Gen 2 T9 was my efforts before USB4 SE920 is that the latter is an incredible thing that becomes incredibly warm, even with a strange spring solution in the form of cooling the fan in the offer. But there are no such nonsense from Sandisk Extreme Pro; It is a slim drive that I discovered at only 66 ° C during my tests.
However, Extreme Pro does not have an ordinary external SSD project. Although it is certainly slim enough, it is larger than most drives of previous generations in other dimensions. At 140 x 68.7 x 11.9 mm is essentially the size of the phone. You don’t believe me? It’s in my hand here.
Picture 1 With 3
This makes it larger than Corsair Ex400U, for example another up-to-date USB4 drive. It also has a rim, as you can see, what probably to keep it attached or blocked, but I did not find apply for it. Certainly, it is not used for apply on barrel, considering how huge it is.
Its textured top is pleasant to hold, just like the entire SSD. He feels very solid and premium, and when I put it on the desk, his wide, rubber base did not move at all. He does not hold the desk thoroughly, but he did not move from a elementary poke.
Although it is a bit wide, it will not matter if you hold it flat on the desk or on the computer. Which leads me to the genuine apply of: as the pursuit of storing games and playing from them. This is the first external drive that has really been pushed out on this front for a long time.
This is because its performance RND4K translates into solemn game results. I applied to the 3DMark benchmark, which tests the disk in real game scenarios, such as charging records in contemporary games, and wiped the floor with any other external test that I tested. We are talking about 2.5x better than high quality USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 drive, such as T9, and about 50% better than USB4 SE920.
Buy if …
✅ You make enormous file transfers: This drive will view enormous transfers due to the lasting speed of recording, provided you have a USB4 port that can apply it properly.
✅ You want to apply it as a game library: This drive offers better RND4K performance than on any external drive, which means it is great for games.
Don’t buy if …
❌ You don’t have a USB4 port: If you lack the right port, you might as well save money and opt for a good USB 3.2 Gen 2×2.
I also tested the game myself and did not fall into any problems. My crustacean jumped on a cheerful road by Kraba masters without stuttering, and the levels and textures loaded immediately. Donating the game 1.7 GB to the drive was also immediate.
Of course, you can expect to pay a bonus for the same performance. But in some way this is not so much a bonus as I expected. The 2 TB version I tested is around 280 USD. At the time of writing this text, you can get 2 TB T9 (USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 premium disk for around 210 USD and SE920 (USB4 drive) for around 270 USD. It is more pricey than USB 3×2 USB 3×2 drives, but there is a strike in the USB4 price range and works as well as its price indicates, which is more than I can say for the SE920 now that this Sandisk exists.
There are other up-to-date USB4 drives on the market, but the only other that I tested in addition to Sandisk, encountered problems and did not offer anywhere close to it.
In the event of a huge boost in speed you get, it’s definitely worth Premium if you want something incredibly doing. It is true whether you are looking for a pursuit of many backups and transfers (i.e. with good sequential performance) or one game (i.e. with a good RND4K performance). I think this is a up-to-date pursuit of overcoming.
