Today, SanDisk is debuting its highest-capacity external desktop solid state drive yet. The new SanDisk Desk Drive – a sort of desktop hard drive-like product, but with a solid-state storage system on the inside. WD is marketing the new drive as such, delivering a desktop SSD that forgoes the compact form-factor of the mainstream portable SSDs for a large capacity solution that requires a power cable. Now available for purchase at select retailers, you can dive into the details down below.
SanDisk’s new desktop drive with SSD internals
We are certainly no stranger to portable SSDs around here, and have covered plenty of them from the likes of Samsung, WD, SanDisk, and others. But the new solution from Western Digital is a somewhat new format looking to deliver some serious storage space in an SSD made to rest on the desk (or something like it). The new SanDisk Desk Drive is only available in 4TB and 8TB configurations.
It lands on your desk in a sort of rounded form-factor with a bit more of chunky footprint than your typical portable SSD, alongside the usual gray and orange SanDisk colorway. It measures roughly 4 inches in width and depth and stands just over 1.5 inches tall.
As we mentioned above, this drive features an AC port alongside the USB-C data connection as it requires an external power source to run.
One thing that comes as a sort of a disappointment for me personally is the speeds. It is rated for 1,000MB/s data transfers. Despite it being marketed as a sort of upgraded desktop HDD and the fact that it is rated 4x the speed, that’s still a touch slower than your average mainstream portable drive.
The giant elephant in the room when it comes to covering new SanDisk storage products is the disastrous issues it went through with its formerly quite popular Extreme portable SSD lineup. Reports quickly flooded the internet last year when drives started failing and data being lost. Some suggested it was a lack of power, some heat-related issues, but let’s just hope it has course corrected on the drafting table and assembly line this time around.
Having said that, my SanDisk Extreme drives still function perfectly (finger’s crossed), and I still know folks that swear by them.
The new SanDisk SanDisk Desk Drive is now available for purchase with the 4TB carrying a $379.99 list and the 8TB model selling for $699.99 shipped. But if you ask me, it ought to be a lot faster than it is for those prices, and it might be better idea to hold off until it has proven itself out in the wild. Your call.
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