SanDisk Professional - G-DRIVE 6TB External USB-C 3.2 Gen2 Hard Drive - Black

Turned out to be too slow for editing videos, but I feel like that's my fault for not researching it enough. I suspect it's fast enough for most computing. I didn't return it, I'm using it as a back-up drive. I back up my computer and transfer completed videos onto it. But I work off a faster, smaller drive. If you're still learning, like me, it's best to talk to a knowledgeable sales person to find the right drive for your needs. Also the size/shape is nice.

Had this hard drive for about a year now, and I am extremely disappointed with it from a day to day use perspective. If you are going to use it primarily for storage, it's fine. BUT, if you plan to do any photo/video work off of this drive, I would look for something else. Recently, I have been having lots of issues with it on Mac, as it will intermittently self-eject while I am editing projects linked to its data. I will get the "did not eject properly alert" all the time, need to turn it off then on, or try relinking all my footage. Additionally, the drive seems to put itself to sleep after a very short period of time, which makes workflow very slow if you are doing something like editing color for a specific video file and not physically playing/scrubbing through anything for a few minutes. When you go to watch through your project, you can hear the drive start spinning again, and it takes minutes for it to talk with my editing programs (Premiere and Davinci Resolve).

I've purchased six G-drives over the past few years, four of which are the previous generation and they have flip power swtiches so powering them on and off is quite simple. The new version, on the other hand, has a press button swtich that works quite differently, it would be good for sandisk to include at least some instructions regarding the new design, but they didn't do it. To power the drive off, you'll have to press and hold the power button for 5 seconds, in Windows this is more noticable as the system will make the 'unplug sound' when the drive is powered off. Since the drive is automatically powered on when connected to the AC adapter and the LED light is not associated with the on/off condition of the drive, it is pretty tricky to figure out how the power button actually works. The first time I got the new version drive I thought the power button is broken, now I bought another one and both act the same.

I chose this external hard drive because I wanted a desktop model that also had a power on/off switch, which this does. It also has an LED switch that apparently toggles the brightness of the "power on" light. I haven't needed this, so can't comment on its utility. There are several concerns I have with this hard drive. First, it is quite loud. Apparently, from what I've read on the web, the loud noise has to do with the stylus doing some kind of disk maintenance. It is loud even when not writing or reading from the disk. So if you want a silent HD, this one is not for you. Second, it replaced a pretty old G-Drive that was causing kernel panics on my new computer. I had thought that with G-Drive now being owned by Sandisk, and the good reviews of this drive, kernel panics would be a thing of the past. However, this drive has at least once been responsible for a kernel panic on my new computer. Unacceptable. I am hoping it doesn't repeat, but it is a concern. It is connected via a CalDigit dock, and they told me that they have had trouble with G-Drives with their docks, so something to be aware of. Problem might not be an issue if connected directly to the laptop.

This a must have for every photographer. I have 3 of this and I like the speed to write and read. Highly recommended. Zero noise and very slick design