Andrew Orr
Western Digital has unveiled the rugged SanDisk PRO-G40 solid-state hard drive that offers high speed, combined with water and dust resistance.
The PRO-G40 features dual-mode compatibility with Thunderbolt 3 at 40Gbps and USB 3.2 Gen 2 at 10Gbps for data transfer through a single port.
It supports read speeds up to 2700 megabytes per second and write speeds of up to 1900 megabytes per second through Thunderbolt 3. Western Digital says users can transfer 50GB of data in 30 seconds or less.
With these speeds, the PRO-G40 offers real-time editing for 4K and 8K videos or rendering for augmented and virtual reality directly off the drive. It's not yet clear how big the drive's cache is, nor how long maximum speed is maintained.
The rugged enclosure is aimed at professionals in the field, with an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance. An aluminum core inside helps pull heat away from components to help maintain speeds over time.
The first digit of six offers the highest level of dust protection, qualified as "dust-tight." The second digit of eight in the rating is the second-highest for water protection, capable of immersion of one to three meters of depth.
Western Digital also says the PRO-G40 has up to three meters of drop resistance and can withstand an astonishing 4,000 pounds of crush resistance.
Pricing & Availability
The PRO-G40 solid-state drive is available now in two storage options. The 1TB drive costs $299.99, and the 2TB variant costs $449.99. Both drives have a five-year limited warranty.
Buyers can purchase the drive through the Western Digital Store or through authorized SanDisk Professional retailers, e-tailers and distributors.
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6 Comments
$50 less than OWC's Envoy Pro FX for both the 1 and 2TB configurations. I'd like to see a head-to-head test on various M-series Macs directly connected as well as through a thunderbolt dock.
I have the OWC Envoy Pro - a very nice solution. Very fast and easy to use on my MSI GS77.
"It supports read speeds up to 2700 megabytes per second and write speeds of up to 1900 megabytes per second through Thunderbolt 3. "
According to dpreview.com, they tested that disk with blackmagic and it exceeded the specs significantly. It claims 1900MBps write but the blackmagic benchmark shows the write speed is 2717MB. That is literally ~800MB per second higher than the specs!
"Western Digital claims the drive can offer read and write speeds up to 2700MB/s and 1900MB/s, respectively through the Thunderbolt 3 interface. We were sent a 2TB review unit to test these claims and discovered that when connected to an M1 Mac Mini (2020), the Pro-G40 actually achieved read and write speeds of 2530MB/s and 2717MB/s, respectively,"
https://www.dpreview.com/news/4277336280/western-digital-s-new-sandisk-professional-pro-g40-ssd-is-fast-and-rugged