SanDisk 2TB Extreme Portable SSD - Up to 1050MB/s, USB-C, USB 3.2 Gen 2, IP65 Water and dust Resistance, Updated Firmware, Sky Blue - External Solid State Drive - SDSSDE61-2T00-G25B

This is a good SSD. It does heat up, get a little warm, but never too hot. It’s small, and fits in my pocket. It’s about half the size of my phone, and uploads always take pretty reasonable times. It’s easy to plug in, just as long as you have a USB-C port in your laptop/phone/computer/tablet, since it works with all of those. It’s very versatile, and quick.

Fast and reliable portable SSD The SanDisk 2TB Extreme offers large capacity, excellent transfer speeds, and a durable design. Perfect for securely storing photos, videos, and files on the go. Highly recommended for its performance and durability.

I picked up the SanDisk 2TB Extreme Portable SSD as an upgrade from my older external hard drives, and it’s easily one of the best storage devices I’ve used. The speed difference alone makes it worth it—transfers that used to take minutes on my traditional hard drives now finish in seconds. Large files, videos, photos, and backups move incredibly fast with no lag or stuttering. The size is another huge win. It’s unbelievably compact—smaller than most phones and light enough to clip onto a backpack or keep in a pocket without even noticing it’s there. Despite the small size, it feels durable and solid, with a rugged rubberized exterior that helps protect it from drops and everyday wear. Compared to traditional hard drives, there’s no spinning disk, no noise, and no worrying about bumps causing damage. It stays cool during most normal use and has been extremely reliable so far. I use it for work files, media storage, and backups, and it has handled everything without a single issue. A few small caveats worth mentioning: • It can get a little warm during long or heavy file transfers (not dangerously hot, just warm to the touch). • To get the full advertised speed, you need a USB-C port that supports USB 3.1/3.2 Gen 2. On older ports, it will still work fine but will be slower. • Like most SSDs, it’s pricier than traditional external hard drives, but the speed and portability make the difference worth it. • The included cable is on the shorter side, so you might want a longer one depending on your setup. Overall, this SanDisk Extreme SSD is a huge step up from regular external drives—faster, smaller, tougher, and much more convenient. If you need a dependable portable drive with great performance, this one is absolutely worth it.

I recently purchased the SanDisk 2TB external portable SSD, and I honestly couldn’t be happier with the performance. As someone who deals with a lot of large video files, photos, and heavy documents for both personal and professional use, having a reliable, fast, and compact drive is essential and this one delivers on every level. First off, the speed is incredible. Transferring hundreds of gigabytes of data takes a fraction of the time compared to my old hard drive. Whether I’m editing videos directly from the SSD or backing up entire folders, the read/write performance is smooth and consistent. It feels like an extension of my laptop rather than an external device. I’ve used it with both Mac and Windows machines and had zero compatibility issues. The size and portability are major advantages too. It’s so small and lightweight that I can just toss it in my backpack, purse, or even my pocket. The build quality is solid it has a sleek, rubberized texture that makes it feel secure in the hand and adds an extra layer of durability. I haven’t dropped it (yet!), but it definitely feels like it could survive a few bumps along the way. Another thing I love is how quiet and cool it runs. Unlike traditional external hard drives, there’s no sound, no vibration, and it doesn’t heat up even after long usage sessions. It’s also USB-C compatible, which is perfect for my current devices, and comes with both USB-C to USB-C and USB-C to USB-A cables in the box, which is a thoughtful touch. I’ve already recommended this SSD to friends and colleagues who need a fast, reliable, and portable storage solution. It’s not the cheapest option out there, but you’re definitely paying for quality, performance, and peace of mind especially if your data is valuable or irreplaceable. I’ll likely buy another one soon just to keep separate backups. Highly recommended.

As a photographer, this drive is a must-have. Transfer speeds are extremely fast, which makes backing up and editing large files seamless. It is compact, lightweight, and easy to travel with, yet powerful enough to handle demanding workloads. The build feels durable and reliable, and it integrates effortlessly into my workflow. I would not hesitate to recommend this to anyone working with large photo or video files.

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.

This SSD is the only one I buy to store my pictures and architectural drawings. I have been using them for years with no problems or complications. I recommend this item because of its durability, ease of use, and portability.

So far so good, no complaints. Will update if that changes as I know hard drives can be hit and miss. I love that is small and easy to take with me on the go. I have used it for photography and have had no issues!