Photos and Features
SanDisk hasn’t changed up their packaging at all from the last time I had one of their external drives in the office. The box for the Extreme Pro Portable SSD has a black background and down on the bottom, there is a red stripe with the SanDisk logo. They have a picture of the drive on the front which looks like it is splashing into water to show off its water and dust resistance. The SanDisk logo is repeated again up top along with the model name which is in gold. This is the Extreme Pro Portable SSD V2 though and the packaging doesn’t indicate this is the v2. Then on the right side, they have the drive size which ours is the huge 4TB model, and below that they have the drive speeds for read and write which are listed as 2000 MB/s on both. Around on the back, they highlight a few of the drive's features like being an NVMe drive, its ruggedized design, the size, and type-c support including smartphones. Each of those are then repeated in 5 more languages. The only other thing on the back is that they have a badge for the 5-year warranty. The rest is filled with the normal fine print.
Inside of the box, the Extreme PRO Portable SSD V2 comes in a thin plastic tray and with a strip of plastic around the drive which I assume is to keep it from rubbing on things in the box. Below the drive, they have the documentation which is just a safety and warranty guide in the tray as well. The tray also had the two different USB cables packed in it as well, both in its own plastic bag.
So the Extreme PRO Portable SSD V2 comes with two cables, both are around a foot long and both have a Type-C connection on one end for connecting to the drive. On the other end, one cable is Type-C and the other is a more traditional Type-A connection. I like the SanDisk went with two different cables for this, not the small C to A adapter that are easy to lose.
SanDisk stuck with a similar look to their past Extreme portable SSDs for the Extreme PRO Portable SSD V2. The drive has a rubberized coating on the sides to give a little grip as well as the loop in the top corner that you can hang the drive from or use with a lanyard or a carabiner. The drive is 2.26 inches wide and 4.34 inches tall then .4 of an inch thick. The Extreme PRO Portable SSD V2 isn’t the smallest portable SSD out there with those dimensions but it is still small enough to slide into a pocket easily.
The Extreme PRO Portable SSD V2 has a base aluminum frame which is where it gets most of its durability from. That is the orange that you see in the loop in the corner. Then over top of that, they have given it a rubberized finish and the top has an extra thick rubber finish with dimples for even more grip. The aluminum frame is what keeps the Extreme PRO Portable SSD V2 strong from drops, the rest is there to try to prevent falls from happening in the first place. It is officially IP55 rated which means it can keep dust and water out but it isn’t fully protected from either. In other words, it can handle water being sprayed at it, but it cant be submerged. On the back and front of the drive, they have the SanDisk logo in the center. On the back, they also have all of the normal certification logos as well as the serial number and full model number. The model name here also doesn’t include the V2 just like on the packaging which could cause some confusion. But just know the new drive is the one that lists the read and write speed as 2000 whereas the old drive was half that. The aluminum frame does wrap around the drive with a rubber bumper to take up any initial hits. Then down at the bottom edge, the Extreme PRO Portable SSD V2 has a Type-C connection in the center. Being Type-C you don’t have to worry about plugging the connection in just right, it just works.
Just because the Extreme PRO Portable SSD V2 looks similar to past drives doesn’t mean it is. I dug out two older SanDisk portable drives for comparison and you can see the evolution of the rugged design over the years. The square drive is the oldest and while the drive doesn’t have the same shape you can see the same ideas. That drive has the loop to hook the drive on as well as the textured finish for grip. That design also has an extra-thick bumper that goes all the way around the drive as well. The second drive is a lot more like the current Extreme PRO Portable SSD V2. This is the non-pro model that I reviewed back in 2018 and the drive size is the main difference here. The new drive is taller and wider but the older drive was thicker. The same loop is in the corner, only smaller and it has the same textured finish on the top and rubberized finish on the bottom. I guess for the most part SanDisk has found what works for them, why change much beyond the drive performance itself and I agree.
