Sandisk's new portable SSDs are faster and more secure

Western Digital have refreshed the SanDisk Extreme and the Sandisk Extreme Pro range of portable SSDs, announcing three new drives which are some of the fastest non-Thunderbolt 3 external drives on the market.

Early indications are the drives are as fast as advertised however, with Tom’s Hardware already testing the 2TB version of the drive already, and noting that it delivers “very strong sequential read and write performance” over the USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 standard.

According to Sandisk, that means claimed speeds of up to 2000MB/s for both read and write on the most expensive model, the SanDisk Extreme PRO Portable SSD. The regular SanDisk Extreme is no slouch either, offering transfer speeds of up to 1050MB/s read and 1000MB/s write.

The drives are also more secure, featuring AES 256-bit hardware encryption, an improvement on the software-based 128-bit encryption used in the previous models.

The new SSDs also feature better physical protection, with an IP55 rating for dust and water resistance, and SanDisk says the drives should also survive being dropped from up to two meters in height. 

All three drives will be available in selected capacities starting 30th November at selected retailers and retailers including Officeworks, Amazon, Harvey Norman and JB Hi-Fi.
 
And the prices - the flagship SanDisk Extreme PRO Portable SSD has a Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price (MSRP in AUD) of $399 for 1TB and $749 for 2TB.

The SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD has an MSRP of $189 for 500GB, $319 for 1TB, and $629 for 2TB. The SanDisk Portable SSD has an MSRP of $149 for 480GB, $269 for 1TB* and $529 for 2TB.

You can find out more about the new range at Sandisk.