The period to consider a portable SSD is not the best, since half of Italy is forced to home, however the news around the new SanDisk Extreme V2 Portable SSD is not to be underestimated.
Those who do Smart Working in the kitchen or on the sofa may feel the need for a backup unit or to increase the space of the MacBook Pro: the choice of SanDisk is interesting and indeed, data in hand is truly amazing when compared to that of a year. does.
SanDisk Extreme V2 Portable SSD, the review
Aimed at travelers
SanDisk's drive represents, in the brand's catalog, a cheaper version than the SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD model, which we reviewed about a year ago.
Runner's soul, nomad's body. the SanDisk Extreme V2 portable SSD is not afraid, as they say, of getting its hands dirty on the go
There are aesthetic differences, even if an inattentive eye may not notice them, but it is from a technical point of view that these become more evident.
The type of internal memory is different and the connection port is also different, Thunderbolt 3 in the Pro model, USB-C in this one.
In both cases, however, it is a unit designed for mobility, although obviously it also looks good on the desk: let's say that for those who are comfortably in the office or in the living room perhaps the competition with the cousin WD My Passport SSD makes itself felt, but when you leave there is no story, the determination of the nomad emerges.
A USB core, or rather USB-C
There isn't much in the box, apart from the disk, which we tested in the 1TB denomination, but which is also available in the smaller 500GB and 2TB denominations, a USB-C cable and an adapter USB-C / USB-A for those who still have computers without the new connector.
The external surface is in soft black rubber, except for the upper part, in plastic and that of the ring, also in plastic but harder.
The rubber in the lower part is perhaps the only negative area, more or less: in the sense that the porosity of the rubber tends to collect and retain dust more than necessary (a glossy surface does not have this problem). But it's just an aesthetic factor, nothing related to performance.
At the base a USB-C 3.2 connector (nominally capable of carrying up to 10 Gb / s), but which with the appropriate adapters also connects to USB-C 3.1 and USB-A connectors up to version 2.0.
The edgeless shape fits in the pockets here in the Razer backpack
The drive arrives formatted in ExFAT, which makes it ideally useful on both macOS and Windows: a quick reformatting to APFS improves performance with macOS (but makes it useless on Windows, beware) even if only slightly.
The best news is that the new NVMe memories today show speed data that until a few months ago were the prerogative of the Pro model (which at this point we hope to try as soon as possible).
I am speed
As for the use, it is clear that the SanDisk Extreme V2 Portable SSD lends itself as much to storage as to backup, even if in the latter case it would be really a waste (much better for a backup a mechanical drive, typically cheaper) .
In our case, the unit was a reservoir of entire catalogs of high-resolution images, both in Jpeg and RAW, and of vector images in AI format (compatible with PDF, so that the Finder can render the preview).
The speed results here with the SanDisk Extreme V2 drive formatted in ExFAT
Connected to a 2018 Mac mini (we haven't had the opportunity to try the new Mac mini 2020 yet but the result would have been identical) accessing a folder with more than 10,000 images produced one less window content rendering of a second. The same for vector files.
But the real beauty was being able to place Parallels Desktop 16 virtual disks on them and use them directly from the disk, instead of occupying the precious internal memory of the Mac mini (which, on balance, costs a lot more): virtualization offered optimal performance, and we did not notice any differences compared to using it directly from the internal disk.
The drive, among other things, albeit much faster than its cousin WD My Passport SSD heats up less, with peaks that are never annoying anyway.
SanDisk Extreme V2 formatted in APFS slightly increases speed on Mac, but becomes useless on PC. Given the small margin, perhaps it is not worth it.
Considerations
When we were introduced to the new SanDisk drives, the slogan was “more speed” but in fact it was a surprise to see them at work.
SanDisk Portable SSD Extreme V2 is small, very light but resistant, mainly because the rubber coating absorbs shocks and also because of the rounded shape that avoids easy-to-break edges.
Speed is really important if you think it has practically caught up with the Pro model of the previous version, as long as you have a USB-C 3.2 or Thunderbolt 3 port.
Pro:
• Fast, small, quiet • Corner-free shape fits everywhere • Hook is convenient on the go
Cons:
• The lower porous rubber surface tends to collect dust
Price:
• 159.99 Euros (500 GB) • 260.99 Euros (1,000 GB) • 353.99 Euros (2,000 GB)
SanDisk Extreme V2 Portable SSD is available in large retail stores, but you can also find it more conveniently at Amazon.co.uk. The first version is also available on Amazon, identical in design but with slower internal memory. Also on Amazon there are travel cases, both single and double.
