A Guide: Choosing the Best Portable Drive for Your Needs

Backing up images or footage in a timely manner is a must for any creative professional in maintaining a fool-proof workflow. We’ve all heard disaster stories of photographers losing irreplaceable shots due to corrupted memory cards, or formatting a card that hasn’t been backed up.

Getting them off your memory cards and onto an external hard drive is essential, especially when on location without a desktop solution nearby. Whilst writing to two memory cards provides an extra layer of safety, simply storing images on multiple cards is not a solid backup strategy.

Taking a laptop and at least one external hard drive with you is an important part of any on-the-go workflow, with many creative professionals opting for two or three to be kept in separate locations. You never know what unpredictable events you may face on the road (theft, damage, misplacement, etc), however, implementing this strategy provides peace of mind knowing you will arrive back to the studio with at least one copy.

“Whether you’re after a tough travel companion, top security features, or blazing fast speeds, this guide will help you navigate which portable drive is best for your creative project needs.”

FOR THE ADVENTUROUS

If you’re a creative professional often fighting against the elements in outdoor locations, the SanDisk Professional G-DRIVE™ ArmorATD™ drive may be your best option in shielding your images or footage.

With rain, dust, crush and triple layer shock resistance1, this drive is the perfect travel companion for photographers and videographers specialising in areas such as landscape, wildlife, travel, adventure, and drone shots.

Animal photographer Alex Cearns ACS swears by the G-DRIVE ArmorATDwhen on the field. “The protective rubber casing keeps it dust and moisture free. I’ve been able to back up in sandy and windy areas, extreme heat environments …and even in light rain when I needed to clean the images off my memory card urgently,” says Alex.

G-DRIVE Armor ATD

G-DRIVE-ArmorATD_12

+ Capacities up to 5TB2

+ Transfer rates up to 140 MB/s3

+ USB-C™ready with support for Thunderbolt™ 3

+ USB-C to USB-A adaptor for USB 3.0 compatibility

+ 3 year limited warranty

+ Mac ready out of box and Windows®via reformat

Click here to learn more.

FOR THE SECURITY CONSCIOUS

Working with sensitive files or projects yet to be launched? The SanDisk Professional G-DRIVE ArmorLock™ SSD will keep your files under lock and key with state-of-the-art encrypted hardware protection.

With the ability for access control, you can easily control who receives access to your drive with the ArmorLock app. This provides peace of mind when shipping the drive to a different location, as you can authorise access to specific individuals. This works perfectly for big productions shooting on various sets, or with editors and post-production team working remotely.

Music Producer Simon Moro found himself working under NDA for a TV project, using the G-DRIVE ArmorLock SSD to prevent catastrophic leaks before airing. “Once the drive is ejected, it is automatically locked, rendering all content inaccessible,” he says. “It is nearly impossible for someone to unlock it without the proper authorisation.”

G-DRIVE ArmorLock SSD

G-DRIVE ArmorLock SSD

+ Capacities up to 4TB4

+ Transfer rates up to 1000 MB/s5

+ Access control authorisation

+ No passwords required, use your phone as a key

+ Auto Unlock with an authorised phone or computer

+ Erase content with the tap of a button +5 year limited warranty

Click here to learn more. 

WHEN THE BOTTOM LINE IS ON THE LINE

When working in fast paced environments, you need a drive that can keep up with the rate you’re moving. The G-DRIVE PRO SSD is the fastest SanDisk Professional SSD on the market, withblazing transfer speeds up to 2800MB/s6-that’s as much as a terabyte of data in under seven minutes.

With the capability to edit multi-stream 8K footage at full frame rate and quickly renderVR projects, the G-DRIVE PRO SSD is perfect for creative professionals working on time critical shoots or to deadlines.

Often shooting under pressure in dangerous locations around the world, cinematographer  Andy Taylor ACS keeps his G-DRIVE PRO SSD on hand. “The file transfer time can be 10 times faster than a standard hard drive, so whilst it is a little more expensive, it’s essential for when things are frantic and everyone is in a hurry,” he says.

G-DRIVE PRO SSD

G-DRIVE PRO SSD

+ Capacities up to 2TB7

+ Transfer rates up to 2800 MB/s

+ Edit multi-stream 4K footage at full frame rate

+ Thunderbolt™ 3 connectivity

+ Shock-resistant storage with 3m drop protection8 and 1000lb crush-proof rating

+ 5 year limited warranty

Click here to learn more.

© 2022 Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates. All rights reserved. SanDisk Professional, G-Technology and G-RAID are registered trademarks or trademarks of Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.

1 Shock resistance up to 1.2m on a carpeted concrete floor for 1TB and 2TB capacities, and up to 1m on a carpeted concrete floor for 4TB and 5TB capacity.

2 TB = 1 trillion bytes. Actual user capacity may be less depending on operating environment.

Based on read speed, unless otherwise specified. As used for transfer rate, megabyte per second (MB/s) = one million bytes per second. Performance will vary depending on your hardware and software components and configurations.  

TB = 1 trillion bytes. Actual user capacity may be less depending on operating environment. 

Based on read speed, unless otherwise specified. As used for transfer rate, megabyte per second (MB/s) = one million bytes per second. Performance will vary depending on your hardware and software components and configurations. 

Based on read speed, unless otherwise specified. As used for transfer rate, megabyte per second (MB/s) = one million bytes per second. Performance will vary depending on your hardware and software components and configurations. 

TB = 1 trillion bytes. Actual user capacity may be less depending on operating environment. 

On a carpeted concrete floor.

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