SanDisk Professional 2022 Product Lineup Hands On (IBC 2022)

During IBC 2022 we had the chance to talk to Ruben Dennenwaldt, Head of Product Marketing & Marketing Operations for Western Digital who shared with us several of the most recent products by SanDisk Professional (a WD brand) aimed at photographers, videographers, and content creators.

SanDisk Professional: a Brief History

First things first. What is SanDisk Professional and where did it come from? A little history first. Sandisk was acquired by Western Digital in 2016 but the brand name remained and WD currently sells products under both the WD brand and Sandisk brand for somewhat different market segments.

Going even further back in time, in 2009 Hitachi acquired a company called Fabrik inc. from San Mateo, California. Fabrik developed the G-Technology drives for professional users which quickly became an industry standard for a lot of productions. When Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST) itself was acquired by WD in around 2012, G-Technology continued to operate under WD as a separate division.

Fast forward to 2021 and WD announced that the G-Technology brand will now be called SanDisk Professional and continue to market some of the same products but will also introduce new ones for professional users, content creators, etc.

During our talk with Dennenwaldt at IBC we were shown several products that belong to the new SanDisk Professional brand as well as some pretty exciting upcoming products (which are still under NDA) that make it clear that WD is very serious about its approach to the professional market segment.

SanDisk Professional: new products

Dennenwaldt shared with us several products that are currently part of the SanDisk Professional line:

SanDisk Professional PRO-DOCK 4 – announced back in 2021, this heavy-duty 4-bay Thunderbolt 3 docking station can occupy up to 4 different memory card readers/modules (that you will need to purchase separately mind you) including RED MINI-MAGs, CFExpress B, CFast 2.0, MicroSD, SDHC and Compact Flash (sadly there is currently no support for CFExpress A for Sony users). The unit has quite a few connectors including the following:

2 x Thunderbolt 3
2 x USB-C (USB 3.2 gen 2)
2 x USB-A (USB 3.0)
1 x 3.5mm audio/mic
1 x DisplayPort 1.4
1 x Gigabit Ethernet

The SanDisk Professional PRO-DOCK 4

SanDisk Professional PRO-BLADE ecosystem – Introduced earlier this year, the PRO-BLADE is an intriguing proposition. At the heart of this ecosystem are small thin fast NVME-based memory units called PRO-BLADE SSD Mag which come in 1TB/2TB/4TB flavors with fast transfer speeds of up to 2000MB/s. On their own, they are easy to store and travel with (much smaller than any comparable external NVME solution) but you will need a PRO-BLADE TRANSPORT unit (a single blade mag reader the size of a large external SSD) or the new PRO-BLADE STATION which can read from up to four blade mags at the same time.

This entire ecosystem was built for production environments where you need a fast reliable magazine-based data solution that you can switch in seconds and continue shooting while on the other end you can bring in several fast media units at the same time and carry them without taking too much space (it would be nice if some future cameras can write directly to these mags but sadly most camera manufacturers are stuck with other solutions).

The thin SanDisk Professional PRO-BLADE mag

SanDisk Professional PRO-CINEMA CFexpress Type B VPG400 – this is the first CFexpress Type B memory card from SanDisk Professional (interestingly and rather confusingly SanDisk has its own line of pro CFexpress Type B cards these are red and black while the SanDisk Professional cards are brushed made with aluminum and black). The new cards come with VPG400 or Video Performance Guarantee 400 (for a minimum of 400MB/s), which should let you capture cinema-quality 4K/8K video without dropping frames.

The new SanDisk Professional PRO-CINEMA CFexpress Type B VPG400

SanDisk Professional G-DRIVE – this is the latest version of the original G-technology G-drive which now comes in capacities of up to 22TB with 7200RPM Ultrastar HHD (280MB/s read and write speed) and USB 3.2 Gen 2 connection.

Prices and availability

All of the products mentioned above should be available now (or coming very shortly) at the following prices:

SanDisk Professional PRO-DOCK 4 – $490 (with each reader costing an extra $50-$100).
PRO-BLADE SSD Mag – $180-$600 (1TB-4TB).
PRO-BLADE TRANSPORT (Empty) – $70.
PRO-BLADE STATION – TBD.
PRO-CINEMA CFexpress Type B VPG400 (256GB) memory card – $450.
SanDisk Professional G-DRIVE – $210-$650 (4TB-22TB).

For more of our coverage on LensVid from IBC 2022 – please visit the following link.

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.