SanDisk's latest portable SSD offers an almost unbelievable amount of storage
Expect the portable drive to cost a fortune -- if it ever leaves prototype status.
- Shortlisted for British Photography Awards 2022, Commended in Landscape Photographer of the Year 2022
Alas, shutterbugs can't get their hands on this.
SanDisk just might have created the perfect device for travel photographers. Its latest portable solid-state drive is absolutely enormous at 8 terabytes, big enough to store even the most capacious of image libraries -- but small enough to slip into your pocket when you're on the go. But don't get too excited just yet, as the drive is being shown off at this year's CES in Las Vegas as a concept only. That means you can't buy one yet.
I spoke to SanDisk and the company didn't have a date for when this may hit shelves -- if it ever does. Unsurprisingly, there's no word on price, but I'd expect the cost to be easily four figures if the drive goes on sale soon.
It's a shame this is only a concept for now, as a superhigh-capacity drive like this would be huge news for photo and video professionals, who can easily fill up even the largest of today's storage drives on a single shoot. With more cameras offering higher-resolution capabilities, even surpassing 4K, storage needs are only going to increase. I regularly use SanDisk's existing 2TB portable SSD drive and would love to see a significant size increase.
The drive's promised speed is an immense 20Gbps, a huge increase over the 550Mbps of the 2-terabyte Extreme Portable SSD .
SanDisk also showed off a 1-terabyte thumb drive with both USB-A and USB-C connectivity, upgraded SSD drives for gaming PCs and a cloud-connected photo backup device for the home.
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Originally published Jan. 7.