Western Digital's SanDisk brand today unveiled a prototype flash drive, which it says is the world's highest capacity USB drive featuring total of 4TB of storage.

Equipped with a USB-C connector, the flash drive is a prototype and thus it's not yet for sale. A 4TB USB-sized flash drive would be prohibitively expensive as even 2TB flash drives cost upwards of $1,000, but it does demonstrate advances in storage technology.

sandisk4tbflashdrive
SanDisk is also launching new portable SSDs and a new SanDisk Flashback service for cloud backups. The SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD is designed to offer 1GB/s transfer speeds and it features IP55-rated durability. Set to be released in spring 2019 in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities, pricing information is not yet available for the Extreme Pro.

sandiskextremepro
SanDisk's Flashback service is available for two of SanDisk's USB drives, the SanDisk Ultra Flash Drive and the SanDisk Ultra Fit Flash Drive. Flashback offers a cloud backup option that creates an online copy of USB drive content so consumers can view, search, and share files even if their drive is lost or in another location.

Along with these products, under its WD brand, Western Digital is introducing a new My Passport Go with 500GB to 1TB of SSD storage.

westerndigitalmypassport
The My Passport Go features a built-in USB-A cable and transfer speeds of up to 400MB/s, with the SSD protected by a durable rubber bumper. Western Digital has not provided specific release and pricing details for the new My Passport Go.

Top Rated Comments

diamond3 Avatar
78 months ago
Genuinely interested: Who would be the target market of a 4tb flash drive with a 4 digit price, other than SanDisk having "bragging rights"?
Video editors. Sometimes projects are over the 1-2TB of footage and if you want to edit/backup on the go, you don’t want to deal with multiple drives. While it seems crazy to some, it’s not uncommon to shoot 500gb in a day when using 4-8k raw files or even prores 5k aerials. The market is small, but it’s there.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
domneedscoffee Avatar
78 months ago
Genuinely interested: Who would be the target market of a 4tb flash drive with a 4 digit price, other than SanDisk having "bragging rights"?
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mr. Retrofire Avatar
78 months ago
Built in USB-A cable? Though the rest of the range is USB-C?

Wah?
400 MByte/s transfer speed does not require USB C, especially with UASP.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dilbert99 Avatar
78 months ago
I welcome the day when spinning HDDs get discontinued...
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
keysofanxiety Avatar
78 months ago
Video editors. Sometimes projects are over the 1-2TB of footage and if you want to edit/backup on the go, you don’t want to deal with multiple drives. While it seems crazy to some, it’s not uncommon to shoot 500gb in a day when using 4-8k raw files or even prores 5k aerials. The market is small, but it’s there.
It’s not just the size though, it’s the speed of the drive. If it takes hours to write the data then they’re better off spending the same or less on a larger TB3 enclosure.

Yes the Extreme Pro claims to write 1GB/s speeds, but from what I understood from the article, the 4TB prototype seemed more consumer oriented rather than appealing to a professional market down the line. Possibly I’m interpreting it wrong.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ignatius345 Avatar
78 months ago
('https://www.macrumors.com/2019/01/07/sandisk-4tb-prototype-flash-drive/')


Western Digital's SanDisk brand today unveiled a prototype flash drive, which it says is the world's highest capacity USB drive featuring total of 4TB of storage.

Equipped with a USB-C connector, the flash drive is a prototype and thus it's not yet for sale. A 4TB USB-sized flash drive would be prohibitively expensive as even 2TB flash drives cost upwards of $1,000, but it does demonstrate advances in storage technology.



Cool tape dispenser.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18

20 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.2

Monday December 16, 2024 8:55 am PST by
Apple released iOS 18.2 in the second week of December, bringing the second round of Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. This update brings several major advancements to Apple's AI integration, including completely new image generation tools and a range of Visual Intelligence-based enhancements. Apple has added a handful of new non-AI related feature controls as...
iphone 16 apple intelligence

Apple Drops Plans for iPhone Hardware Subscription Service

Wednesday December 18, 2024 11:39 am PST by
Apple is no longer planning to launch a hardware subscription service that would let customers "subscribe" to get a new iPhone each year, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman first shared rumors about Apple's work on a hardware subscription service back in 2022, and at the time, he said that Apple wanted to develop a simple system that would allow customers to pay a monthly fee to gain...
iPhone 17 Pro Dual Tone Feature 1

iPhone 17 Pro Rumored to Stick With 'Triangular' Camera Design

Wednesday December 18, 2024 2:36 am PST by
Contrary to recent reports, the iPhone 17 Pro will not feature a horizontal camera layout, according to the leaker known as "Instant Digital." In a new post on Weibo, the leaker said that a source has confirmed that while the appearance of the back of the iPhone 17 Pro has indeed changed, the layout of the three cameras is "still triangular," rather than the "horizontal bar spread on the...
elevation lab airtag battery

Your AirTag's Battery Will Last for Up to 10 Years With Elevation Lab's New TimeCapsule Enclosure

Wednesday December 18, 2024 10:05 am PST by
Elevation Lab today announced the launch of TimeCapsule, an innovative and simple solution for increasing the battery life of Apple's AirTag. Priced at $20, TimeCapsule is an AirTag enclosure that houses two AA batteries that offer 14x more battery capacity than the CR2032 battery that the AirTag runs on. It works by attaching the AirTag's upper housing to the built-in custom contact in the...
apple tv 4k yellow bg feature

New Apple TV Rumored to Launch Next Year With These Features

Tuesday December 17, 2024 9:02 am PST by
The current Apple TV 4K was released more than two years ago, so the streaming device is becoming due for a hardware upgrade soon. Fortunately, it was recently rumored that a new Apple TV will launch at some point next year. Below, we recap rumors about the next-generation Apple TV. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman last week reported that Apple has been working on its own combined Wi-Fi and...
blackmagic vision pro

Blackmagic Debuts $30K 3D Camera for Capturing Video for Vision Pro

Monday December 16, 2024 4:17 pm PST by
Blackmagic today announced that its URSA Cine Immersive camera is now available for pre-order, with deliveries set to start late in the first quarter of 2025. Blackmagic says that this is the world's first commercial camera system designed to capture 3D content for the Vision Pro. The URSA Cine Immersive camera was first introduced in June, but it has not been available for purchase until...
mac pro creativity

Apple Launched the Controversial 'Trashcan' Mac Pro 11 Years Ago Today

Thursday December 19, 2024 7:00 pm PST by
Apple launched the controversial "trashcan" Mac Pro eleven years ago today, introducing one of its most criticized designs that persisted through a period of widespread discontentment with the Mac lineup. The redesign took the Mac Pro in an entirely new direction, spearheaded by a polished aluminum cylindrical design that became unofficially dubbed the "trashcan" in the Mac community. All of ...
iPhone 17 Slim Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' With 'Major' Design Changes and 19-Inch MacBook Detailed in New Report

Sunday December 15, 2024 9:47 am PST by
Apple is planning a series of "major design" and "format changes" for iPhones over the next few years, according to The Wall Street Journal's Aaron Tilley and Yang Jie. The paywalled report published today corroborated the widely-rumored "iPhone 17 Air" with an "ultrathin" design that is thinner than current iPhone models. The report did not mention a specific measurement, but previous...