Western Digital launches new 22TB and 44TB Sandisk Professional external hard drives

The Sandisk Professional G-RAID Mirror External HDD
(Image credit: WD / Sandisk)

Storage behemoth Western Digital added two new external hard disk drives to its already burgeoning roster of storage devices ahead of IBC2023, the International Broadcasting Convention that takes places every year in Amsterdam and attracts, the cream of the broadcasting, media and entertainment industry.

The pro-grade products fill a gap in Western Digital’s offering and include the SanDisk Professional G-Drive PROJECT and the G-RAID Mirror, formerly part of the G-Technology family. 

Both come with Thunderbolt 3 (rather than Thunderbolt 4) allowing up to five devices to be daisy-chained, a five-year warranty and with one or two hard disk drives (up to 22TB Ultrastar Enterprise-class hard drives, likely to be the Ultrastar DC HC570). They also both feature a PRO-BLADE SSD mag slot that allows you to manage content via this SSD-based storage device.

The PROJECT is available in capacities ranging from 6TB ($369.99) up to 22TB ($849.99). Western Digital claims that it can reach read/write speeds of up to 260MB/s which is slightly less than the maximum transfer speed reached by the HC570 (291MB/s).

The G-RAID Mirror reaches up to 44TB using two drives and costs a whopping $1499.99. It ships in RAID-1 “mirroring” mode for enhanced data redundancy. It can be changed to RAID-0 for better performance or JBOD (Just a bunch of drives) simply by flipping a switch.

In comparison, the My Book Duo, a consumer product, costs just under $1,200, and comes with a shorter warranty, lacks the PRO-BLADE SSD mag slot and runs on USB 3.2 Gen 1. The price gap is even bigger - $450 or 70% - between the 22TB WD Elements and the 22TB PROJECT.

What about Seagate?

Western Digital’s arch-rival doesn’t have an equivalent line of product, focusing instead on consumer external hard drives with the Expansion and One Touch family ranges. Instead, you need to look at LaCie, Seagate’s separate premium storage brand, that maintained a distinct identity from the mothership. 

Its 2Big Dock competes against the G-RAID Mirror, with a much higher price tag ($1899) and a lower storage capacity (up to 40TB). It does however have two Thunderbolt ports, CFexpress Type B, CFast 2.0, and SD card slots as well as a USB hub and a full size DisplayPort.

More from TechRadar Pro

TOPICS
Desire Athow
Managing Editor, TechRadar Pro

Désiré has been musing and writing about technology during a career spanning four decades. He dabbled in website builders and web hosting when DHTML and frames were in vogue and started narrating about the impact of technology on society just before the start of the Y2K hysteria at the turn of the last millennium.

Read more
Hard Drive
The largest SSD and hard drives of 2025
OWC ThunderBlade X12
Want to tackle 16K RAW videos? This external storage system offers 96TB of SSD storage but won't come cheap
One of the fastest external hard drive picks, the Seagate Portable 4TB External Hard Drive
Fastest external hard drive of 2025
Seagate Exos 28TB Factory Recertified HDD
Hundreds of the world's largest hard disk drive have mysteriously gone on sale online as refurbished model - should you buy them?
One of the best external hard drive for mac picks against a two tone background
Best external hard drive for Mac of 2025
Seagate Exos M HDD
Seagate smashes largest HDD world record with 36TB hard drive and reveals a 60TB model is coming
Latest in Pro
Finger Presses Orange Button Domain Name Registration on Black Keyboard Background. Closeup View
I visited the world’s first registered .com domain – and you won’t believe what it’s offering today
Racks of servers inside a data center.
Modernizing data centers: an efficient path forward
Dr. Peter Zhou, President of Huawei Data Storage Product Line
Why AI commonization is so important for business intelligent transformation and what Huawei’s data storage has to offer
Wix automation
The world's leading website builder aims to save businesses time with new tool
Data Breach
Thousands of healthcare records exposed online, including private patient information
China
Juniper patches security flaws which could have let hackers take over your router
Latest in News
A super close up image of the Google Gemini app in the Play Store
It's official: Google Assistant will be retired for phones this year, with Gemini taking over
Quordle on a smartphone held in a hand
Quordle hints and answers for Sunday, March 16 (game #1147)
NYT Strands homescreen on a mobile phone screen, on a light blue background
NYT Strands hints and answers for Sunday, March 16 (game #378)
NYT Connections homescreen on a phone, on a purple background
NYT Connections hints and answers for Sunday, March 16 (game #644)
Three iPhone 16 handsets on show
Apple could launch an iPhone 17 Ultra this year – but we've heard these rumors before
Super Mario Odyssey
ChatGPT is the ultimate gaming tool - here's 4 ways you can use AI to help with your next playthrough