Western Digital’s G-Technology model is well-known in multimedia manufacturing circles with merchandise starting from transportable SSDs to multi-HDD RAID enclosures. As a part of its Flash Perspective occasion right this moment, the corporate is introducing the SanDisk Professional tag for merchandise bought earlier beneath the G-Technology model. In addition to new merchandise concentrating on the prosumers and manufacturing homes, current merchandise are additionally getting pace bumps with updates within the USB interface.
With elevated resolutions and body charges, content material seize on location (in addition to post-processing) now offers with big quantities of knowledge. On the seize facet, we’ve seen multimedia-recording gear assist new card codecs comparable to SD Express, CFast, and CFexpress. These enable seize at speeds exceeding even SATA SSDs, with CFexpress being the present card of selection for skilled seize gear. SanDisk has historically performed within the client market with varied reminiscence playing cards. On the CFexpress facet, they’ve been providing the Extreme PRO lineup – nevertheless, the opposite merchandise within the Extreme PRO class are sometimes meant for the buyer base too. With SanDisk Professional, the corporate has launched the PRO-CINEMA CFexpress VPG400 (with a assured 400MBps write pace) for multimedia manufacturing homes with the 256GB model carrying a MSRP of $450.
Card readers that combine into non-obligatory card docks are fairly well-liked within the business, permitting for simultaneous ingestion of content material from a number of seize gadgets. One of the primary merchandise on this phase was the Thunderbolt 2-equipped Lexar Professional Workflow HR2, which we reviewed again in 2017. Though Lexar dropped the ball by way of maintaining with the most recent know-how, distributors comparable to ATech Flash Technologies carry merchandise such because the Blackjet TX-4DS. Equipped with a Thunderbolt Three upstream interface, the TX-4DS helps as much as Four completely different swappable modules to assist a spread of bodily media (CFast / CFexpress / XQD / Sony SxS / RED MINI-MAG / SDXC / 2.5″ SATA / M.2 PCIe and so forth.). Western Digital has additionally determined to play on this market – the SanDisk Professional PRO-READER sequence comes with a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C interface (as much as 10 Gbps) and helps several types of playing cards together with CFast ($90), CFexpress ($100), RED MINI-MAG ($200), and CF / SD / microSD ($80).
These readers also can combine right into a 4-bay PRO-DOCK with a MSRP of $500. The Thunderbolt dock (with assist for conventional USB-C hosts additionally) contains further USB Type-C and Type-A ports.
In phrases of product upgrades, the G-DRIVE ArmorLock SSD launched final yr with a 2TB SKU now comes with the SanDisk Professional branding and a 4TB SKU. The G-RAID and G-RAID SHUTTLE merchandise with the enterprise HDDs are additionally getting up to date interfaces to work with each Thunderbolt and USB hosts. The complete product portfolio is predicted to hit cabinets in June 2021.
The G-Technology model has acquired vital traction within the skilled market. However, SanDisk is healthier identified to shoppers shifting into the prosumer class and SOHO / SMBs simply beginning out with video workflows. By retaining the G-Technology product names beneath the ‘SanDisk Professional’ tag, Western Digital has managed to create a unified branding for its complete portfolio of merchandise concentrating on the complete spectrum of content material seize and post-processing markets.
