As this design doesn’t have the Thunderbolt daisy-chain functionality of the PRO, to have more than one of these connected requires multiple USB ports or at least a hub. If SanDisk wanted even better performance, they could have created a PCIe card with a slot for SSD Mags, and exposed the full NVMe potential of the drives to the PCIe pathways inside a computer. But they didn’t do that.

Where can you get it?Widely available from the larger online retailers in most regions and directly from Western Digital.Therefore, when we tested a 12TB edition of the G-DRIVE Desktop Drive, we were forced to reformat it on our test PC before it would appear as a drive in the file system.

And while it does both those things admirably, it also makes the unit heavy and unsuitable to put in a laptop bag with a computer. With its external PSU, sharp edges and multiple USB cables, this drive needs its own bag for carrying, and it isn’t that portable. The most significant flaw of the SanDisk Professional PRO-G40 is that the biggest capacity available is only 2TB. Whereas the SanDisk Extreme series drives come with 500GB and 4TB options, the PRO-G40 is either 1TB or 2TB. At first glance, the Pro-Blade Transport resembles a standard SSD, but a closer look reveals its unique design, accommodating a Pro-Blade SSD Mag. The Mag is easily inserted and removedwith a smooth and secure operation.And for those wondering if this high pricing is Brexit related, it isn’t. The prices for this range in France are equally inflated, being €163.99,€264.99, €410.99 and €769.99. Why they didn’t use exFAT and a utility that runs on both platforms to reformat the drive for both groups is a mystery. Because that’s normally what Western Digital does, the overarching business that owns the SanDisk brand. While the idea of creating an elegant workflow from camera to editing system is alluring, there are aspects to this solution that are at odds with the rapidly changing landscape of external SSD storage. Being rugged is good, but the more significant selling point here is the performance of this external drive, which matches some internal SDD storage.

Given the IP67 rating, it should handle the odd splash of water, being dumped in the dust and, with 2000lb of crush resistance, accidentally driven over by a family car. The issue here is that the designers of the PRO-G40 evidently decided that the NVMe inside would be the SN750 SE, and that doesn’t come in 4TB.

Game Smarter

But this product has issues with some of the workflow thinking here that SanDisk entirely owns. These include no easy means to identify one Mag from another, that a Transport carrier was designed without any included means to mount it on a camera, and that without a Pro-Blade Transport or Pro-Blade Station, it is impossible to access a Mag.