Nice review, but I wish we had a photo with this unit next to a thumb drive so we could see scale. As it is this just looks like a slightly smaller external SSD, and really shouldn't be compared to devices you can toss in your pocket. When viewed as a smaller portable SSD the value proposition goes out the window entirely. Cool product, bad price.
And before it's said, yes I understand this was labeled as a portable drive, not a thumb drive. But isn't any portable drive's direct competition thumb drives? Thumb drives are much more practical to take with you, so a portable has to provide very compelling performance gains to make any sense. It looks like you did include a thumb drive in the charts and this product is 5-20x faster but the Corsair Voyager is far from the top of the line thumb drive. These large form factor devices are a stopgap until we can put a terabyte in our pocket. My 32 cents.
Funny you should say that, I drew the exact opposite conclusion. Ganesh doesn't give us the dimensions either, so both of us are just speculating. It looks to me to be about 4x4 or even 4x5, hardly pocketable.
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fanofanand - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
Nice review, but I wish we had a photo with this unit next to a thumb drive so we could see scale. As it is this just looks like a slightly smaller external SSD, and really shouldn't be compared to devices you can toss in your pocket. When viewed as a smaller portable SSD the value proposition goes out the window entirely. Cool product, bad price.fanofanand - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
And before it's said, yes I understand this was labeled as a portable drive, not a thumb drive. But isn't any portable drive's direct competition thumb drives? Thumb drives are much more practical to take with you, so a portable has to provide very compelling performance gains to make any sense. It looks like you did include a thumb drive in the charts and this product is 5-20x faster but the Corsair Voyager is far from the top of the line thumb drive. These large form factor devices are a stopgap until we can put a terabyte in our pocket. My 32 cents.GTRagnarok - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
I think the picture with the USB cable says enough. It's quite pocketable.fanofanand - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
Funny you should say that, I drew the exact opposite conclusion. Ganesh doesn't give us the dimensions either, so both of us are just speculating. It looks to me to be about 4x4 or even 4x5, hardly pocketable.Dahak - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
According to sandisk's website it isDimensions 2.98 x 2.98 x 0.42 in. (75.69mm x 75.69 mm x 10.67 mm)
Compared to the Cruzer Glide thumb drive
Dimensions: 2.37 x 0.82 x 0.44 in; 60.2mm x 20.8mm x 11.2mm
So is about a square thumb drive
ganeshts - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
I would say it is pocketable without the USB cable.Picture on top here from our CES coverage for the initial request: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9943/sandisk-updates...
mr_tawan - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
If they have a wifi version (with repeater functionality), it will be a hit.