The SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD is built tough — for an SSD, at least — but you do pay something of a price premium for all that ruggedness.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| IP65 and drop resistant | USB-C port is oddly unprotected |
| Comes appreciably close to its speed claims | Does have a price premium over other portable storage options |
| Included cable covers USB-C and USB-A connections | That cable’s almost inevitably going be lost somewhere (possibly eaten by a bear) |
Score: 3/5
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In this review
SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD Specifications
SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD Design
SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD Performance
SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD Verdict
Ethical disclaimer: The SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD used in this review was sent to me by Sandisk for review purposes. As far as I know, it’s not going back (and if it does, it’s being safely wiped to ensure the privacy of my data).
I mention this upfront as far too many publications simply don’t bother to inform their audiences at all.
I think due disclosure is important, because it shines a light on the (sadly increasing) prevalence of effective “pay for play” style journalism, where “reviewers” give glowing reviews to products in order to keep big companies on side.
Does that serve your needs as a reader? I’m going to say no, it doesn’t, which is why I’m clear upfront about where a product has been sourced from. To be 100% clear, Sandisk has no influence on this review, and they can read it the same time you do.
For more on ART’s Ethics position, see here.
Design
Portable external SSDs are by their nature relatively small and light devices, and at just 52g and measuring in at 100.80×52.55×9.60mm the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD certainly fits that bill. It’s a small rectangular drive with a loop hole at the top for attaching to a carabiner or other cable at the top, a relatively prominent SanDisk logo in the middle and a USB-C port at the base.
The drive itself is wrapped in a rubberised covering, and that’s part of the whole “Extreme” side of the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD. No sign of Sabu here, but instead tying into the fact that any SSD won’t have moving parts and is inherently less likely to crash than a portable mechanical drive, and kicking it up a notch… mostly.
SanDisk rates the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD as being capable of surviving drops of up to 3 metres, as well as being rated at IP65 for dust and water intrusion.
I’ve got a full guide to how IP ratings work (and their limitations) that you can read here (or watch below), but if you want the short-form version, IP65 means that the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD should be entirely dust resistant but also able to survive being hit with water jets but – critically – not immersed. If you’re after a scuba-suitable SSD, think again.
Testing out those kinds of claims with just a single drive is a tricky affair, and it’s one that often leads to more of the “YouTube stunt” kind of testing that I abhor – because it’s more destruction porn and far less properly measured, I go into that in more detail here – and to be upfront, I’ve not put the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD through a lot of stress during my review period.
I did kick some sand in its face, old-school-Charles-Atlas comic book ad style. It didn’t seem to care.
I also experimentally dropped it on the floor and sprayed it with some water just to show willing, but the reality here is that while it should mostly be fine for everyday outdoor use, you really shouldn’t push it.
More astute readers might notice my use of the qualifier “mostly” there, because there’s one part of the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD’s construction that does give me pause for thought in this respect. The USB-C port on the base is almost certainly internally sealed against water and dust in the typical fashion, but it’s not protected itself against any kind of intrusion or grime.
Hello, I am a USB-C port. Also a likely future point of failure. Maybe some kind of cap is in order?
If you are using the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD in more hazardous environments, especially those where dust or other particles might build up in the USB-C socket, there’s the prospect of damaging the connector over time, at which point the entire drive is going to fail. Even a simple rubber flap would go a long way to adding to the protection of the drive here.
One way around that issue would be to keep the included cable permanently plugged into the drive, because that would transfer that risk to a replaceable capable.
Feel the sheer excitement of a USB-C CABLE!!!!
The included cable is ~17cm long with USB-C connectors on both ends; a little longer if you drop the USB-C to USB-A adaptor that’s also included in the box onto it as well.
I do appreciate the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD not having a sealed cable on the unit, as that way lies obsolescence the minute the cable breaks, but equally, for a cable this short, the time it’s going to take for it to be lost on my desk can be measured in seconds. Maybe that’s just me, but at least you can replace it with a USB-C data-suitable cable with relative ease.
Also read
Samsung T9 Portable SSD Review
Performance
Out of the box the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD will work across most computing platforms, as well as most tablets and smartphones, Chromebooks, Linux systems and the rest, because USB storage is a very much settled matter; for those who do need to stress such matters it’s formatted as ExFAT by default.
SanDisk produces the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD in 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB and 8TB capacities at varying prices and in three different colour hues; as per SanDisk Australia’s website you can buy it in Black, Sky Blue or Monterey (Green/Blue, more or less) hues, but not in every storage size.
If you’re after the 500GB or 8TB drives, those are Black only, while 1TB and 2TB buyers have Black or Sky Blue options and the 4TB option is the only one that gets Black, Sky Blue or Monterey choices. No, I don’t know why hard drive manufacturers work that way, but for what it’s worth, SanDisk sent me a 1TB model in Black.
Black with an orange accent, that is. You’ll have to supply your own connecting loop, mind you.
SanDisk provides encryption software for PC and Mac on the drive that allows you to add password protection and AES 256 encryption to it if needed; these are not protected files so if you wipe them and need them later, you’re going to have to look for other encryption solutions, not that these are all that hard to come by.
In terms of raw speeds, SanDisk’s claim is that the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD can handle read speeds of up to 1050MB/s and write speeds of up to 1000MB/s, though that’s naturally enough a peak speed and will depend on the nature of the files you’re transferring to and from the drive. The way most operating systems work, moving one large file at a given capacity will typically run faster than shifting a folder of the same size containing many files, given the need to create or read each individual file.
To put this to the test, I plugged the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD into a MacBook Pro M4 running MacOS Tahoe and used BlackMagic Disk Speed Test to see how well it would manage larger file type transfers:
While it didn’t hit its actual peak speed, the reality of computer usage is that you’re typically never going to see those kinds of speeds outside of very specific situations where there’s basically nothing else going on inside a computer, smartphone or tablet.
The SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD hits the kinds of speeds I’d expect to see out of a drive making these kinds of claims, though to put that into context, I then ran it against the internal SSD on the MacBook just to give that some comparative weighting.
That the internal SSD handily bests an external one is no surprise at all; the internal SSD benefits from being part of the “Apple Silicon” approach of having (effectively) one single blob of silicon that hosts CPU, GPU and storage all in one, so it gets a huge efficiency boost from being quite literally inside the machine.
I point this out however because it’s worth bearing in mind that if you’re just after pure speed, an internal storage SSD solution is always going to run rings around any external port solution.
SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD: Alex’s Verdict
The SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD does (mostly) live up to its speed claims, and there’s some merit to the idea of buying a slightly more rugged external drive, especially if you’re going to be using it consistently in more challenging environments.
It’s worth noting, however, that actual retail pricing for the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD varies at a lot at the time of writing; I’ve seen the 1TB version of this drive that I’ve tested for anything from around $150 up to $250 from some local merchants.
That does put it on the pricier side for that capacity of drive, and as you might expect, it gets more expensive as you climb up the storage tiers. There’s definitely a premium here on the ruggedness of the drive, and if you don’t need that, there are plenty of competing alternatives.
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