Western Digital's SanDisk brand today unveiled a prototype flash drive, which it says is the world's highest capacity USB drive featuring total of 4TB of storage.

Equipped with a USB-C connector, the flash drive is a prototype and thus it's not yet for sale. A 4TB USB-sized flash drive would be prohibitively expensive as even 2TB flash drives cost upwards of $1,000, but it does demonstrate advances in storage technology.

sandisk4tbflashdrive
SanDisk is also launching new portable SSDs and a new SanDisk Flashback service for cloud backups. The SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD is designed to offer 1GB/s transfer speeds and it features IP55-rated durability. Set to be released in spring 2019 in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities, pricing information is not yet available for the Extreme Pro.

sandiskextremepro
SanDisk's Flashback service is available for two of SanDisk's USB drives, the SanDisk Ultra Flash Drive and the SanDisk Ultra Fit Flash Drive. Flashback offers a cloud backup option that creates an online copy of USB drive content so consumers can view, search, and share files even if their drive is lost or in another location.

Along with these products, under its WD brand, Western Digital is introducing a new My Passport Go with 500GB to 1TB of SSD storage.

westerndigitalmypassport
The My Passport Go features a built-in USB-A cable and transfer speeds of up to 400MB/s, with the SSD protected by a durable rubber bumper. Western Digital has not provided specific release and pricing details for the new My Passport Go.

Top Rated Comments

diamond3 Avatar
89 months ago
Genuinely interested: Who would be the target market of a 4tb flash drive with a 4 digit price, other than SanDisk having "bragging rights"?
Video editors. Sometimes projects are over the 1-2TB of footage and if you want to edit/backup on the go, you don’t want to deal with multiple drives. While it seems crazy to some, it’s not uncommon to shoot 500gb in a day when using 4-8k raw files or even prores 5k aerials. The market is small, but it’s there.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
domneedscoffee Avatar
89 months ago
Genuinely interested: Who would be the target market of a 4tb flash drive with a 4 digit price, other than SanDisk having "bragging rights"?
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mr. Retrofire Avatar
89 months ago
Built in USB-A cable? Though the rest of the range is USB-C?

Wah?
400 MByte/s transfer speed does not require USB C, especially with UASP.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dilbert99 Avatar
89 months ago
I welcome the day when spinning HDDs get discontinued...
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
keysofanxiety Avatar
89 months ago
Video editors. Sometimes projects are over the 1-2TB of footage and if you want to edit/backup on the go, you don’t want to deal with multiple drives. While it seems crazy to some, it’s not uncommon to shoot 500gb in a day when using 4-8k raw files or even prores 5k aerials. The market is small, but it’s there.
It’s not just the size though, it’s the speed of the drive. If it takes hours to write the data then they’re better off spending the same or less on a larger TB3 enclosure.

Yes the Extreme Pro claims to write 1GB/s speeds, but from what I understood from the article, the 4TB prototype seemed more consumer oriented rather than appealing to a professional market down the line. Possibly I’m interpreting it wrong.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ignatius345 Avatar
89 months ago
('https://www.macrumors.com/2019/01/07/sandisk-4tb-prototype-flash-drive/')


Western Digital's SanDisk brand today unveiled a prototype flash drive, which it says is the world's highest capacity USB drive featuring total of 4TB of storage.

Equipped with a USB-C connector, the flash drive is a prototype and thus it's not yet for sale. A 4TB USB-sized flash drive would be prohibitively expensive as even 2TB flash drives cost upwards of $1,000, but it does demonstrate advances in storage technology.



Cool tape dispenser.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

iphone air thickness

Apple Said to Cut iPhone Air Production Amid Underwhelming Sales

Friday October 17, 2025 8:29 am PDT by
Apple plans to cut production of the iPhone Air amid underwhelming sales performance, Japan's Mizuho Securities believes (via The Elec). The Japanese investment banking and securities firm claims that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are seeing higher sales than their predecessors during the same period last year, while the standard iPhone 17 is a major success, performing...
iOS 26 Feature

iOS 26.1 to iOS 26.4 Will Add These New Features to Your iPhone

Saturday October 18, 2025 11:00 am PDT by
iOS 26 was released last month, but the software train never stops, and iOS 26.1 beta testing is already underway. So far, iOS 26.1 makes both Apple Intelligence and Live Translation on compatible AirPods available in additional languages, and it includes some other minor changes across the Apple Music, Calendar, Photos, Clock, and Safari apps. More features and changes will follow in future ...
HomePod mini and Apple TV

Apple's Next Rumored Products: New HomePod Mini, Apple TV, and More

Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year. The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
maxresdefault

Here's Everything Apple Announced Today

Wednesday October 15, 2025 3:54 pm PDT by
We didn't get a second fall event this year, but Apple did unveil updated products with a series of press releases that went out today. The M5 chip made an appearance in new MacBook Pro, Vision Pro, and iPad Pro models. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. We've rounded up our coverage and highlighted the main feature changes for each device below. MacBook Pro M5...
iOS 26

iOS 26.0.2 Update for iPhones Coming Soon

Friday October 17, 2025 7:35 am PDT by
Apple's software engineers continue to internally test iOS 26.0.2, according to MacRumors logs, which have been a reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions. iOS 26.0.2 will be a minor update that addresses bugs and/or security vulnerabilities, but we do not know any specific details yet. The update will likely be released by the end of next week. Last month, Apple released iOS 26.0.1,...
14 inch MacBook Pro Keyboard

New 14-Inch MacBook Pro Has Two Key Upgrades Beyond the M5 Chip

Thursday October 16, 2025 8:31 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with an M5 chip, and there are two key storage-related upgrades beyond that chip bump. First, Apple says the new 14-inch MacBook Pro offers up to 2× faster SSD performance than the equivalent previous-generation model, so read and write speeds should get a significant boost. Apple says it is using "the latest storage technology," ...
Apple iPad Pro hero M5

Apple Debuts New iPad Pro With M5 Chip, Faster Charging, and More

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:16 am PDT by
Apple today announced the next-generation iPad Pro, featuring the custom-designed M5, C1X, and N1 chips. The M5 chip has up to a 10-core CPU, with four performance cores and six efficiency cores. It features a next-generation GPU with Neural Accelerator in each core, allowing the new iPad Pro to deliver up to 3.5x the AI performance than the previous model, and a third-generation ray-tracing ...
M5 MacBook Pro

Apple Announces New 14-Inch MacBook Pro With M5 Chip

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:07 am PDT by
Apple today updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, which is also available in updated iPad Pro and Vision Pro models. In addition, the base 14-inch MacBook Pro can now be configured with up to 4TB of storage on Apple's online store, whereas the previous model maxed out at 2TB. However, the maximum amount of unified RAM available for this model remains 32GB. Like...
m4 macbook air blue

M5 MacBook Air Coming Spring 2026 With M5 Mac Studio and Mac Mini in Development

Thursday October 16, 2025 3:57 pm PDT by
Apple plans to launch MacBook Air models equipped with the new M5 chip in spring 2026, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple is also working on M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro models that will come early in the year. Neither the MacBook Pro models nor the MacBook Air models are expected to get design changes, with Apple focusing on simple chip upgrades. In the case of the MacBook Pro, a m...