SanDisk Professional Pro-G40 SSD Review

The SanDisk Professional Pro-G40 SSD is a portable storage device for digital files. It’s available in three capacities, 1TB, 2TB and 4TB. It’s compatible with Thunderbolt 3 (40Gbos) and USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) connections and comes with an appropriate USB-C style (Thunderbolt 3) cable. It uses NVMe technology, and this plus the Thunderbolt connectivity, enables data transfer read speeds of up to 3000MB/s and read speed up to 2500MB/s.

The drive comes formatted for use on Apple Mac computers but it can be formatted for use with Windows machines.

According to Western Digital’s website, with a Thunderbolt 3 connection, the SanDisk Professional Pro-G40 SSD has read speeds up to 3000MB/s while the write speed maximum is 2500MB/s. With a USB-C connection, this drops to a maximum of 1050MB/s (read) and 1000MB/s (write). However, the packaging for the review sample I’ve been testing states read speeds up to 2700MB/s and writes speeds up to 1900MB/s.

The SanDisk Professional Pro-G40 SSD has an aluminium core that’s designed to pull heat away from the drive to help maintain its data transfer speeds. That also helps it to survive drops from up to 3m and it’s crushproof to 400lbs. In addition, it’s rated as IP68 for dust and water resistance. That means it can endure being 1.5 m under water for up to 30 minutes.

This durable build gives Western Digital the confidence to give the drive a 5-year warranty.

The SanDisk Professional Pro-G40 SSD looks and feels like a high-quality portable drive. Its outer shell is tough and doesn’t flex when I grab it and twist. It also shows no ill effects after being dropped onto concrete a few times.

While the top of the drive has a hard plastic feel, the edges and underside have a soft-touch coating that gives grip and has pleasant feel.

My only disappointment with the build and handling of the Pro-G40 SSD is that the Thunderbolt 3 cable that it’s supplied with is short at around 15cm long (excluding the connectors). That’s a pain if your computer’s ports are on its back. Also, f you’re using a laptop on your knee, you’ll have to rest the drive on the keyboard or find some way to stop it slipping off and potentially disconnecting. That said, the cable slides snuggly into the drive’s port and feels secure, unlike some that are prone to disconnect with the slightest nudge. It stays put, but it’s not good practice to have a drive hanging by a cable.

I began testing the SanDisk Professional Pro-G40 SSD by connecting it via a Thunderbolt 3 port to a 2022 MacBook Air with the M2 chip and starting up Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. This registered write speeds of up to around 2800MB/s and read speeds of around 2604MB/s, both higher than the values indicated on the packaging.

Next, I dragged 9.74GB of images comprising 100 Jpegs and 100 raw files from the 45.7Mp Nikon Z7 II from the MacBook Air’s desktop to the drive. The files transferred in around 5 seconds. Transferring the files the other way took about the same amount of time. That’s impressively fast and great news if you’re a hurry to shift files from one place to the other.

Those speedy transfer rates translate into solid performance when you’re processing images. The drive mounts quickly and thumbnails render in a flash in a browser like Adobe Bridge. I was even to able to open all 200 of the Nikon Z7 II files in Adobe Camera Raw in next to no time and they were rendered very quickly ready for processing.

Similarly, the drive operates well as a working drive when you’re editing 4K video. Its speed of data transfer means that, provided your computer is up to the job, you have a fluid editing experience with out and stutter or dropped frames.

As usual, the Pro-G40 SSD warms up during use, but it doesn’t get excessively hot.

Not having convenient access to water that’s 1.5m deep, I dropped the SanDisk Professional Pro-G40 SSD into a glass of water with the USB/Thunderbolt port uppermost and left it fully-submerged for 30 minutes. After half an hour, I removed the drive from the water and dried it off, before leaving it for around an hour to ensure that there was no water in the Thunderbolt port to cause a connection issue. Once it was completely dry, I reconnected the drive to a computer and it was all systems go.

SanDisk is one of the best-known names in digital storage and naturally we have certain expectations of its Professional range. Aside from the minor niggle about the length of the supplied cable, the SanDisk Professional Pro-G40 SSD doesn’t fall short. It feels durable, is capable of surviving a dunking and it moves data quickly.

As you might expect given its speed and robust build, its one of the more expensive portable drives around, but it comes with a 5-year warranty and delivers where it matters.