SanDisk Announces 2TB USB 3.1 External SSD

SanDisk is announcing the availability of a host of external flash drives at Computex 2015. Two of them are being marketed as external portable SSDs with a Type-C interface, while the other two are standard flash drives.

The SanDisk Extreme 900 Portable SSD is the obvious star of the lineup. It comes in three capacities, 480 GB ($400), 960 GB ($600) and 1.92 TB ($1000). The SSD is housed inside a compact aluminum casing. All of them carry three year warranties. The family comes with a maximum performance rating of 850 MBps and carries a USB 3.1 interface. Both Type-A and Type-C cables are supplied with the unit.

Aspects of interest include whether the internal flash is organized in a RAID-0 fashion with SATA interfaces, or whether it is a PCIe based unit behind a USB 3.1 controller. Kristian is at Computex and will likely be having some hands-on time with the device to gather the answers

The SanDisk Extreme 500 Portable SSD is available in 120 GB ($100), 240 GB ($150) and 480 GB ($240) capacities and claims maximum performance of 415 MBps via a USB 3.0 interface. Both Portable SSDs are designed for rugged environments and feature SanDisk SecureAccess software with 128-bit AES encryption.

The Ultra Fit 128 GB and Ultra 256 GB are standard USB 3.0 thumb drives. The Ultra Fit is more like the Mushkin Atom in size, but has double the capacity. The unit is priced at $120. The maximum performance is of the order of 130 MBps. The Ultra Fit 256 GB is rated for 100 MBps and is priced at $200.

Both the Ultra thumb drives carry a five year warranty and include encryption with the SecureAccess software. In addition, these drives come with a year's subscription to RescuePRO software for data recovery.