Buyers’ guide
Sandisk Professional › westerndigital.com/en-gb
hard drive range. Capacities from 4TB to 20TB are available, with the lowest-capacity unit at £320. While performance is not SSD level, a useful 260MB/s read/write speed is offered. Sandisk boasts plenty of portable options. The Extreme Pro Portable SSD V2, available in 1TB, 2TB and 4TB capacities, is ideal for the on-the-move image creator. It’s fast, with a 2000MB/s write speed, tough and portable, and this pro-grade memory device is also great value – the 1TB unit sells at £125.
For an external hard drive that looks the business, go for the Sandisk Professional G-Drive. Proving beauty is more than skin deep, it’s a high-performance unit with a storage capacity of 7.68TB, read speed of 2900MB/s and write speed of 1900MB/s. It boasts dual Thunderbolt 3 ports for daisy chaining up to five additional devices. The Pro Studio SSD is not cheap at around £1700, though a more affordable option can be found via the G-Drive Pro desktop SATA
Western Digital › westerndigital.com/en-gb
Thanks to its comprehensive product portfolio, you won’t struggle to find a solution to your internal and external hard drive needs with Western Digital. A popular external memory choice is the My Book Duo family with capacity starting from 16TB, priced at £549, to 44TB at £1294. Out of the box, My Book Duo drives are formatted NTFS for Windows compatibility – and for Mac users a downloadable NTFS driver is available. The hard drive is set up to be Raid 0. If your need is for a lightweight, portable drive, the My Passport Ultra family is made for you – and it’s decent value. The 1TB drive is priced at £81 and the 5TB at £158. Each unit comes loaded with backup software, enabling fuss-free automated backup. In addition, 256-bit AES hardware encryption means you can protect data with a password via free downloadable software.
Prograde › progradedigital.com
Covering all card storage options, Prograde’s memory line-up includes SD, CFast, microSD, CFexpress Type B and CFexpress Type A. The Prograde CFexpress Type B 2.0 (Cobalt) 1700 is available in 165GB, 325GB and 650GB capacities at £185, £462 and £790 respectively. You get impressive performance from Cobalt cards, which have read speeds of 1700MB/s and write speeds of 1500MB/s. Go for the CFexpress Type B Gold card and write speed drops to 1300MB/s, but so does price. Find five capacities, with the 512GB version costing £185. Prograde also has high- performance card readers in its range.
Lacie › lacie.com/gb/en
Lexar Professional › lexar.com
Lacie has an extensive range of memory products, so whether you require portable or desktop drives, conventional hard drives or SSDs, this is a fantastic place to start hard storage shopping. If you need a tough portable drive for location shooting, the Rugged family has plentiful options worth looking at, including the Mini, USB-C, SSD Pro and SSD. The SSD and SSD Pro feature IP67- rated water resistance, plus drop (to 3m), dust and crush resistance along with high performance. For desktop storage, the Lacie 1big Dock is available in 4TB, 8TB, 10TB, 16TB, 18TB and 20TB, with prices ranging from £360 through to £950. Inside each 1big Dock is a Seagate IronWolf Pro drive with 280/240MB/s read/write speeds. It’s also covered by a five-year warranty. The reliable 1big Dock has 60W power delivery to keep the laptop charged. Additionally, there are Thunderbolt ports as well as SD and CompactFlash card slots.
Memory specialist Lexar has a full range of memory cards, USB flash drives and SSDs. The 2000x SDHC/SDXC UHS-II Gold series sits at the top of the SD card range. Available in 32GB, 64GB, 128GB and 256GB, the Gold series theoretically offers 300MB/s read and 260MB/s write speeds, making its SD cards almost the fastest money can buy. With performance comes expense – the 128GB Gold card costs £199, while it’s £399 for the 256GB version. Lexar has Gold series CFexpress Type A and Type B formats, too. The CFexpress Type B delivers an awesome 1900MB/s read and 1500MB/s write performance together with rugged durability as well as added protection against extreme temperatures, shake and vibration. Card capacities extend from 64GB up to 2TB. Lexar’s latest addition to the CFexpress B Diamond series is a 512GB card, which joins the 128GB and 256GB sizes. With a write speed of 1700MB/s and VPG400 video class rating, it’s fast enough to capture smooth 8K Raw video and retails at £770. PN
Angelbird › angelbird.com
Angelbird might be a new name to many UK image makers, but the brand is fast building a reputation for reliable kit. It designs, engineers, assembles and tests kit in its native Australia, paying attention to functionality, endurance and reliability. Its CFexpress Type B SX cards are available in 160GB and 330GB capacities, priced at £156 and £360 respectively, which is competitive. If you need serious shooting capacity, Angelbird offers 2TB and 4TB CFexpress Type B cards at £1152 and £2160. But the 4TB card is currently only compatible with the Nikon Z 9 and Red V-Raptor 8K cameras.
18 Photography News | Issue 110
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