Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to review a blisteringly fast SSD drive with ironclad security that was designed specifically for the creative industries. Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) was the company behind this new product from the storage giant’s G-Technology sub-brand. The G-Technology ArmorLock range of high-capacity and extra-secure drives were specially developed for the movie industry where large files need to be distributed on a physical medium that has a level of hardware protection built-in that has to be secure enough to protect movie footage from productions with multi-million dollar budgets.

This creative sector of the storage market is growing, so Western Digital has decided to launch a dedicated brand called SanDisk Professional. The new name will be used for all WD’s premium storage aimed at content creators. Whether the user is producing the latest blockbuster movie, capturing a destination wedding or simply managing business-critical content, the new range of SanDisk Professional products has been designed to deliver scalable, high-performance, reliable storage solutions across global markets that require the ultimate levels of performance and security.

Professional content is constantly in motion; creative content that’s captured and created then needs to be saved, transferred, off-loaded, shared and archived. SanDisk Professional will function as a separate Western Digital brand marketing a range of purpose-built storage solutions that work at each step of the creative process.

The new brand should be instantly recognizable thanks to the prominence of the SanDisk brand in the consumer market. Western Digital will gradually transition its professional-grade G-Technology brand over to SanDisk Professional even though the G-Technology brand has already established itself as the storage choice of many Hollywood professionals. The new SanDisk Professional line will initially feature 16 modular workflow solutions with professional-grade performance coupled with the levels of reliability only usually found in enterprise-class storage products.  

The initial SanDisk Professional portfolio will include:

• PRO-CINEMA CFexpress VPG400 – An professional-grade and rugged CFexpress card designed for videographers and cinematographers who need superior and uninterrupted performance when recording at a minimum of 400MB/s. The new card is expected to be available this summer.
• The PRO-READER series is four new devices that feature a USB-C interface supporting SuperSpeed USB 10Gb/s. The PRO-Reader is designed to work with the latest and most popular camera models using CFast, CFexpress, RED Mini-Mag Edition, CF, microSD and SD cards. PRO-READER devices are expected to be available this summer.
• PRO-DOCK 4 is a new four-bay docking station that can bridge capture and ingest files at scale, saving time and money on productions with multi-camera setups. The PRO-DOCK ships later this summer and will enable four-card offloads at the same time. 

Other new products in the SanDisk Professional range will include a new 4TB G-DRIVE ArmorLock Encrypted NVMe SSD, G-DRIVE ultra-rugged portable drives, plus desktop devices with enterprise-grade Ultrastar, G-RAID and G-RAID SHUTTLE transportable drives. There will also be enterprise-grade RAID solutions with Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C support offering high levels of reliability and high-performance as well as large capacities. These devices will include 100TB+ backup and archiving for mission-critical content. The new drives will begin shipping in early June.    

More info: SanDiskProfessional.com