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Happens to even the best of us. Last week, I had an SSD crash of my main PC and shortly after learned that my back-up wasn’t going to work and my secondary back-up set me back 2-years. Considering my love of photography and all things digital, that was a MASSIVE loss. Sitting right beside my PC was SanDisk’s newest SanDisk Professional PRO-BLADE Transport along with two 2TB and a 4TB PRO-BLADE Mags. You just know if I reviewed this only a week ago, I wouldn’t have suffered this loss as I would have done a system backup to this beautiful 4TB PRO-BLADE SSD Mag.
SanDisk has recently introduced their newest SanDisk Professional PRO-BLADE modular SSD ecosystem and it is a thing of beauty. It comprises of three parts: a PRO-BLADE Transport, PRO-BLADE Mags which are available in 1,2 and 4TB capacities, and soon to be released PRO-BLADE Station. This full eco-system is capable of maintaining top performance through its incorporation of both USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 (20Gbps) and ThunderBolt 3 (40Gbps), which is definitely the first of its kind. It is a bit of an odd duck actually as most people have gone one way or another; ThunderBolt 3 or USB 3.2 Gen 2×2.
The SanDisk Professional PRO-BLADE Transport is, for the most part, an external SSD enclosure that connects by way of its included USB 3.2 Type-C to Type-C cable, providing 20Gbps data transfer speeds up to 2GB/s. It is constructed of an aluminum shell with plastic cover, has a Type-C USB port on one side and a slot for the PRO-BLADE SSD Mags on the other.
The beauty of this device when we think of interchanging the SSD Mags is that they are hot-swappable so one can simply pull one out and insert another without disconnecting the PRO-BLADE Transport.
The SanDisk PRO-BLADE SSD Mags come in 1, 2 and 4TB and simply click into place when inserting each into the Transport.
Their custom 40-pin connector makes for a very secure fit.
The PRO-BLADE SSD Mags are constructed of an anodized grey aluminum two-piece shell which is secured by three Torx screws.
Inside is a WD Black SN750 Gen 3 SSD attached to the custom connector with thermal paste on the SSD to allow the exterior aluminum shell to dissipate heat.
The SanDisk Professional PRO-BLADE SSD Mags are rated for 2000 insertions. Their design is rather simple, consisting of the shell, SN750 SSD and connector. We are anticipating release of the last component to this ecosystem shortly which is the SanDisk PRO-BLADE Station.
The PRO-BLADE Station will hold four PRO-BLADE SSD Mags in a JBOD fashion (Just a Bunch of Drives) and its connection to the PC is by way of ThunderBolt 3, enabling data transfer between the Mag, Station and PC up to 3GB/s read and 2.6GB/s write. Only the Transport is limited to 2GB/s as it is USB 3.2 gen 2×2 at 20Gbps.
Let’s not make any mistake; this system is a solid build and targeting the media professional. Checking Amazon, we see pricing at $69 for the PRO-BLADE Transport enclosure alone, $180 for the 1TB PRO-BLADE SSD Mag, $290 for the 2TB version and $600 for the 4TB version with availability of the Transport and any single SSD Mag together cutting the price just a bit. One almost has to wonder if SanDisk would also sell the empty SSD Mags to make use of our own SSDs already on hand.
Let’s turn the page for some performance results shall we?
I have a feeling that in the future you will dissect a 1TB Mag and insert an 8TB SSD to see if it works, and I’ll be interested in finding out whether it does or not.
However I see no reason why it wouldn’t. If it does, then the option of purchasing bare Mags would be very nice!
The PRO-BLADE SSD Mags are constructed of an anodized grey aluminum two-piece shell which is secured by three Torx screws.
What brought me to this site is that I just purchased the transport and a couple of mags only to find that the USB a ports on my 3-year-old computer won’t handle the data transfer. Foo!!! do you have a recommendation for a card reader with USB c 3.2 ports that would work for me? Thanks.
No. Sorry and understand your frustration completely. Just building our new Hero maximus Z790 Bench in order to take full advantage of these. Stay tuned!