SanDisk - Extreme M.2 1TB Internal SSD PCIe Gen 4x4 NVMe

The 1TB Sandisk Extreme M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen 4 SSD (Sandisk) lives up to its speed claims and is a terrific choice. My specific use for it is to edit photos with Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop and occasionally 4K video with Final Cut Pro. I can easily end up with 1,000+ pictures after a photo session. With so many files it’s a chore to cull, organize, and get them print or display ready so I like to be able to push through the process as fast as possible. That means using a fast drive that won’t choke on a high data, fast-paced workflow. When the internal SSD on my MacBook Pro is already full of other projects I have to use a supplemental external drive. Unfortunately, no pre-built external SSD is fast enough for my needs, so I construct my own by installing a speedy internal SSD into an also fast 40Gbps USB4 external enclosure. In this instance I used the 1TB Sandisk Extreme M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen 4. In choosing an SSD for photo editing I want four things: 1. A trusted brand, backed up by a long-term warranty, 2. Fast, but not record breaking, speed, because I can’t benefit from the very fastest models, and 3. It doesn’t get blazing hot just editing photos. On paper at least, the Sandisk filled the first two requirements with a 5-year warranty and advertised 5150 Mb/s read and 4900 Mb/s write speeds. Impossible to know about the heat until you use it. So, I initialized the Sandisk as an ExFAT drive for multi-platform compatibility and put it through the paces to confirm it was what its advertised to be and that it didn’t get too toasty. Using Blackmagic’s Disk Speed Test, the Sandisk proved it was everything it claimed to be and more as it exceeded the advertised speeds. I used the toughest stress test Blackmagic offers, 5GB, and it performed magnificently: 6272 Mb/s write and 5090 Mb/s read. Expectedly, the test indicated the Sandisk is capable of editing common flavors of 8K video and a few of 12K too. This is what I mean by my not needing the very fastest – the ability to edit even a few kinds of 12K video is already well beyond my needs. Of course, Blackmagic’s test is only theoretical, but my real-life experience mimics the Sandisk’s reported speed. For example, it took 4 seconds to transfer a 12.6 GB folder of photos from my M3 MacBook Pro to the Sandisk. (The SSD in the M3 MacBook Pro is similar in speed as the Sandisk so YMMV if you your internal drive is slower than the Sandisk). Photo editing with Lightroom and Photoshop (2024 version) on the Sandisk also feels as smooth as when I edit with the Mac’s internal SSD. Scrolling through hundreds of 36MB RAW photos goes almost too fast and even computer taxing edits like the new Lens Blur feature completes nearly instantly. Basic edits like exposure and dehazing are immediate even when done in rapid succession of each other. Also, I never experienced any “start and stop” that can happen when a drive hits a data bottleneck processing read and write tasks. So that brings me to that one “must not have” – excessive heat. Since I don’t have a thermal camera or similar tools, so, I had to resort to the “hand test.” If my hand is comfortable resting on the case then it’s “normal” heat. And that’s what I encountered after hours of constant use. My SSD enclosure’s temperature was hand warmer, but not an egg cooker. A wild guess of the temp I experienced here is somewhere in the 80F range. Next I disconnected the enclosure to feel the temperature of the Sandisk itself. It was many degrees cooler than my enclosure case which tells me my enclosure was doing its job being an effective heat sink and this SSD seems to keep to “average” SSD temperatures. Speaking of heatsinks, this Sandisk SSD model doesn’t have one built-in, making it ideal for upgradable laptops and external enclosures where space is tight. This Sandisk model is ideal for anyone who edits photos or videos or needs a fast “mid-range” SSD and has a computer or external enclosure than can take advantage of Gen 4 PCIe speed. It would probably also work well as a boot drive, but overkill for just storing files.

I have always had a good experience with SanDisk MicroSD's and other NVMe and this internal drive is no different. Installation was a breeze and it fit right into my daughter's gaming laptop that she uses for video editing and streaming. Doing just a general speed test I was able to move large amounts of previously edited video files from her other internal hard drive to this one with a consistent sustained right speed of 2.5 GBps. As far as video editing goes she saw a 30 to 35% speed boost over exporting and encoding to the other internal NVMe hard drive that came with her laptop. She uses a variety of video editing apps and primarily CapCut and Filmora for most of her YouTube editing as well as twitch and OBS studio for streaming. As we expected this drive has done great since we installed it allowing for deceeased export times and less wait time to upload to YouTube. For anyone who does a lot of video editing or streaming this hard drive is a great option to add as a second drive or even to replace your primary drive if it fails. With the PCIe 4.0 interface it will be compatible with most of your current laptops and even those that are a few years old while still allowing you to benefit from the increased throughput speeds.

I use many, many hard drives of various styles. As a photographer, digital photos (particularly RAW files) eat up space fast. Every thing gets triple backed up externally. However, I still need a lot of space on my desktop PC for current files. I have multiple drives onboard. I was in need of a new drive that would be fast and have at least 1TB. This SanDisk Extreme M.2 1TB fit the bill perfectly. Most of my drives are SanDisk and for good reason. They just work without fuss. Never had one fail. And I love the M.2 format for there small size and ease of use. Speed is important when working with large files and this drive delivers. There are faster drives out there, but they cost a lot more. And when you reach a certain speed, anything more becomes overkill as your PC will most likely create a bottleneck that the M.2 won't be able to overcome. The speeds with this SanDisk hit the sweat spot. This is so fast you would never notice if a faster drive were any faster. Read speeds of 5100+ and write speeds of 4800+ are crazy fast! So if you need a new drive for your operating system or one for more storage and you are comparing all the options, I can honestly say you won't go wrong with this drive.