SanDisk 8TB Desk Drive SSD review

If you’re a photographer, videographer or anyone else that creates with visual media, there’s never been a better time to enjoy your art.

The amount of awesome image-making technology out there puts a level of quality fit for the silver screen right at your fingertips. However, as we all know, in photography there’s always a trade-off.

In this case, it’s finding the capacity to store the ever-increasing file sizes that go hand in hand with such high resolutions.

Gone are the days when you buy a laptop with what seems like infinite hard disk space, these days receiving a ‘your scratch disk is full’ message seems to happen far to regularly.

It’s for this reason that external storage is such big business. And SanDisk is one of the biggest names out there.

In this review, we take a closer look at one of the brand’s newest additions, the SanDisk 8TB Desk Drive, to see what it is, what it offers and whether you should buy it.

What is the SanDisk 8TB Desk Drive and who should buy it?

The SanDisk 8TB Desk Drive is an external SSD hard drive designed for individual workstations. It is a static unit, so unlike its portable counterparts, it requires its own power supply.

The capacity of our test unit is a substantial 8TB, so it is perfect for photographers and filmmakers who deal with large file sizes. SanDisk’s parent company, Western Digital, has also promised a 16TB version later in 2024, so watch this space.

There is hub option, so this drive is designed for individual professionals or home use rather than, say, a studio environment where multiple users need access at the same time.

At the time of writing, the 8TB version is available for £663.99 from the Western Digital website.

SanDisk 8TB Desk Drive features

First up, let’s talk about looks. The Desk Drive is well designed, with a sleek, minimalist rounded square form in matte black and a single red stripe around its edge.

It’s small at approximately 10cm square by 4cm high, but carries a decent enough weight to stop it moving around your desk too much. This is well-complemented by a rubberised base for extra grip.

Aside from that, there is nothing more to see on the pleasingly simple exterior, except two ports. One for the USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 connection and one for the power supply.

While on the subject of connections, it makes sense to cover read and write speeds. The drive is an SSD, which Western Digital claims is up to four times faster than a desktop HDD.

The stated read speeds are up to 1000MB/sec and write speeds are up to 900MB/sec. These are impressive numbers, which we’ll test later.

Our drive’s capacity is 8TB, however, there is also a 4TB version available at the time of writing from the Western Digital website for a cheaper price of £359.99. Plus, as mentioned above, there are promises of a 16TB version later this year.

In the box, you get minimal accessories to match the minimal design. You’ll find the drive itself, a power adapter and a USB-C cable measuring around a metre There is also a handy USB-C to USB-A adapter so you can connect the drive to older devices if need be.

Finally, the SanDisk 8TB Desk Drive comes with a three-year warranty, which is always good for peace of mind.

Using the SanDisk 8TB Desk Drive

The drive is very simple to use. It’s ready to plug in and begin straight out of the box. The drive arrives in ExFat format so it’s good for both Mac and PC.

Once connected, it behaves just as any other mass storage device would and is ready to write to with no setup required. Unless, of course, you would like to reformat it for optimisation with your preferred operating system.

Due to its static, powered nature, this drive is perfect for a home or office-based backup and as such, it is compatible with backup software such as Time Machine.

Alternatively, Western Digital has a deal with Acronis True Image software that gives you five years free subscription when using Western Digital drives.

Such quick read and write speeds also make this a great local drive to use in real time. In our own speed tests using the BlackMagic Disk Speed Test app, we found read speeds to be 861.0 MB/s and write speeds to be 835.1 MB/s, which is more than adequate for day-to-day tasks.

Sandisk 8TB Desk Drive specs

Capacity: 8 TB
Connection: USB-C 3.2 Gen 2
Read speed: 1000MB/s
Write speed: 900MB/s
Dimensions: 99.2mm x 99.2mm x 40.2mm
Weight: 268gms
Operating Temperature: 0°C to 35°C