In the last several years, storage drives have evolved immensely—in capacity, speed, and format. In particular, small, bus-powered external drives have been a photographer’s best friend for backing up and transferring image files. The gradual move from spinning drives to SSDs has also brought models that are more rugged, smaller, and have faster transfer rates.

Along the way, there have been two competing data communication protocols—USB and Thunderbolt. Of late, we’ve seen a merging of sorts with both USB and Thunderbolt using the same Type-C connector, and a couple years ago Sabrent brought out their Rocket XTRM-Q with dual-mode Thunderbolt 3/USB 3.2 Gen 2 compatibility, with increased convenience for the user. Not long after, OWC’s Envoy Pro FX arrived. Now, Western Digital is adding their dual-mode SanDisk-branded PRO-G40 SSD to the mix.

OWC’s Envoy Pro FX

SanDisk PRO-G40 SSD

Keep in mind that dual-mode connection capability provides Apple/Windows hardware interoperability, but Apple and Windows use different primary file system formats (HFS+ or APFS for Apple; NTFS for Windows), so if you want to have a drive that can be used with both systems, you’ll want to format it to exFAT.

The options for portable storage have never been better.

by Chuck Maas
chuck@imagingnorth.com