SanDisk 1TB Extreme Portable SSD - Up to 1050MB/s, USB-C, USB 3.2 Gen 2, IP65 Water and Dust Resistance, Updated Firmware - External Solid State Drive - SDSSDE61-1T00-G25

This seems to work pretty well. I don't have much to compare it to, since my last external drive was a disk drive, but it transfers data relatively fast and I like the password protection feature that comes with it. I haven't tested the limits of the storage, but I have used it right after it was in the cold (about 15°F) and it worked well. It's also a nice compact size, but not so small that it can get lost easy. Overall, I think this is a solid option for external storage. I bought a case for it separately, and it gives me some additional peace of mind that it won't be damaged, so I would recommend buyers do that, too. Is it worth the price? So far, so good. I'll definitively say yes if it's still working well in eight years or so (that's how long my old external disk drive is and it still functions well).

I’ve been using the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD (1TB) to back up photos and video, and it’s been one of the most useful pieces of gear in my kit. Transfer speeds are genuinely fast, so moving large batches of RAW files or video clips takes minutes instead of forever. Drives in this line are rated around 1000–1050 MB/s read and ~1000 MB/s write, which makes a noticeable difference when working on tight timelines.  The size and build are a big plus. It’s small enough to keep in a pocket or camera bag, and the rubberized shell feels rugged. These drives are designed with water and dust resistance and drop protection, which gives some peace of mind when traveling or shooting outdoors.  Setup is simple with USB-C, and the included cable and adapter make it easy to use with both newer laptops and older USB-A ports. I’ve used it for everything from field backups to editing directly off the drive, and it’s been consistently reliable. If there’s one small downside, it’s that like most compact SSDs, it can get slightly warm during long transfers, but nothing concerning. Overall, it’s a great portable SSD, especially for photographers, videographers, or anyone who moves large files regularly. Fast, durable, and easy to carry, which is exactly what you want in a travel drive.

I absolutely loved my purchase! Exceeded my expectations from the very first use. The storage capacity of 1TB is perfect for anyone who needs extra space for large files, backups, photos, and videos without constantly worrying about running out of room. The performance is outstanding. File transfers take just seconds and, even under heavy workloads, the noise level is non-existent — completely silent, which I really appreciate. Another big plus is the compatibility. It worked flawlessly with my devices using USB-C, with no setup or additional software required. Just plug and play. The design truly stands out. It’s very small, exactly as shown in the photo, making it extremely portable and easy to carry in a bag or backpack. The fit in my hand feels great and gives a strong sense of durability and premium quality. Considering the speed, portability, build quality, and brand reliability, this SSD offers excellent value for money. It’s fast, compact, durable, and incredibly efficient. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a powerful external SSD that delivers performance and convenience in a small package. An excellent choice! 🚀💯

So far, it has worked as expected. It's very small and easy to carry. I like the color, and it's covered in a protective rubber casing. I have two external HDD (mechanical) drives, and they are larger and noisier, but this SSD drive (which works like a USB flash drive) is faster, quieter, and doesn't get hot. It costs more than an HDD, that's true, but it's worth it for its advantages.

So once I got to the point where the library I wanted to carry around could no longer fit on the biggest USB powered drive I could find, I was having more and more of my bag taken up with storage. Well now I have the same amount of storage in less than a quarter of the footprint, including the protective cases. Less room required, higher performance, and no moving parts so it's noiseless. Yes it's definitely pricier, but if you can afford the additional cost you get the value back in convenience and performance. Can't wait for the next upgrade.

I purchased this drive to use as a local mirror/backup for a large Lightroom photo library (~2 TB and growing). While the drive works fine for short file transfers, it repeatedly disconnects during long, sustained write operations. I tested different cables, ports, and configurations on macOS, and the behavior was consistent: the drive would unmount during heavy continuous writes and cause backup jobs to abort. This may be fine for casual use or short transfers, but if you’re planning to use it for large photo/video archives, long backup jobs, or continuous mirroring, I’d recommend looking at a more conservative, thermally stable SSD designed for sustained workloads. I’m returning it and switching to a different model better suited for long-duration backups.

the biggest mistake I see many folks do with their electronic devices is NOT BACKUP your important business and personal files in the event of a catastrophic failure, or accidentally deleting them. As a retired photographer, videographer, multimedia specialist, and IT support person backing up my work is the most important point of working with electronic files. I have 3 computers, desktop, laptop, server in my home and I weekly do updates, new documents, changes and need to make sure my work is secured in at least 3 locations, the device, the cloud, and a portable medium if I need to travel with my laptop. Sandisk is a reliable brand with a long history of reliability and product quality. I weekly backup my entire computer profile which includes documents, photos, audio and video files, downloads, music, multimedia projects, saved password and link files. This device is small enough not to take a huge footprint in your luggage, fits in coat pocket. It is compatible with Windows, Android, Apple and Mac computers.

This SSD uses TLC NAND memory, which is a good feature. However, it seems it lacks an internal DRAM cache, which is not very good. I'm not 100% sure tbh about the absence of the DRAM cache, it's difficult to find detailed specs for this drive, but from what I googled, it seems it doesn't have a DRAM cache. The main issue for me—and the reason I deducted one star—is that once the drive is partially filled, the write speed for large files drops to approximately 438 MB/s. When the disk is empty, CrystalDiskMark reports sequential read and write speeds of around 1 GB/s. However, CrystalDiskMark is not a good test for real-world performance, at all (I’ll explain this in more detail below). In actual use, writing large files to an empty disk achieves speeds of about 736 MB/s. As mentioned earlier, the write speed decreases noticeably as the drive fills up. While this behavior is somewhat normal for SSDs, the speed drop can be much less pronounced in more expensive or higher-quality SSDs. That said, reading large files remains consistently fast with this drive, maintaining speeds of around 1 GB/s regardless of how full the disk is. Recently, I realized I didn’t know as much about SSDs as I thought and had been relying too heavily on CrystalDiskMark for testing. Since then, I’ve educated myself on SSDs, learned how to test them properly, and even acquired several different SSDs for testing and experimentation. If you’re interested in learning more about SSDs and proper testing methods, feel free to read on. A lot of people use CrystalDiskMark for testing storage speed. You should know that using CrystalDiskMark is not a good way to test speed. It's a pretty limited test. It can't emulate the real-life use case of copying large files. Even if you choose 64 Gbyte test file size, CrystalDiskMark will simply create a 64Gb test file, but then it will only write or read a small part of that file. So if you want to copy large files with high speed, you need to test it by... no surprise here... by copying large files. Although I think it can be a surprize for a lot of people who rely on CrystalDiskMark. Make sure you will copy from another very fast SSDs, so that the read performance of that other SSD will not be the real bottle neck. I used my fastest internally isntalled NVME SSD to copy large files from (TLC NAND memory, SLC cache, DRAM cache, up to 7 Gbyte/s read & write speeds). Storage drives have different kinds of caches. SSD drives can have an SLC cache (SLC = Single-Level Cell, the fastest and most expensive type of NAND memory) and/or a DRAM cache (for example, an SSD can have 1Gb DDR4 internal cache). Consumer SSDs usually use QLC (Quad-level cell, stores 4 bits per cell, one of the slowest and less reliable types on NAND memory. Used in cheaper SSDs) or TLC (Triple-level cell, stores 3 bits per cell, faster and more reliable than QLC. Used in more expensive SSDs). You can see how an SLC & DRAM caches come into play, for example, here: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/silicon-power-xs70-1-tb/6.html More expensive SSDs also have an internal DRAM cache, which is used before the SLC cache (if present) is used. In 2024-2025 DRAM cache usually uses DDR4 memory. DDR4 cache is a few times faster than TLC for sequential reads & writes and has about a 1000x lower latency than TLC (nanoseconds vs microseconds). So when choosing an SSD, if you want high sustained write-speeds, you need to make sure the drive has the following characteristics (which often can be found in the SSD database on this website: https://www.techpowerup.com/ssd-specs/silicon-power-xs70-1-tb.d707 ): 1) TLC type of NAND memory (faster than QLC) 2) SLC Cache and the larger, the better (good drives nowadays have 100+ Gbytes of an SLC cache). You can see how an SLC & DRAM caches come into play, for example, here: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/silicon-power-xs70-1-tb/6.html 3) DRAM Cache and the larger, the better (1Gb+ DRAM cache is a good size) I'm sorry for this long text, I just hope I can help some people to understand SSDs and how to test them better and make better choices when buying SSDs and SSD adapters.