how much faster is this than an external HDD?

With an SSD over HDD, you're obviously paying for the increase in speed. Nobody actually answered your question of "how much faster." Even though it's been over a year now, maybe it will help someone else. A typical portable HDD speed seems to be about 120 Mbps, whereas this drive claims 1,050 MBps read and 1,000 write. So about 8 or 9 times faster. Also, it is pretty fast relative to other portable SSDs. 1 GBps seems to be about the standard right now for drives in this price range. The T7 quotes the same speed, from what I can tell. Definitely not "3-4x" faster. The X5 quotes twice the speed (at twice the price).

How to get the full 1000 mb/s? only getting about 800 mb/s write and 700 mb/s read. plugged directly into a macbook air m1 (2020). blackmagic test

The numbers quoted are for the raw data rate - how fast the drive can accept bits. You will never see this in real life. Some factors affecting real-world performance include: * File system overhead. Your file system (whether FAT, NTFS, HFS, APFS, ext or anything else) has overhead. This overhad consumes bandwidth, but you won't see it in a benchmark that only measures the data used by your files. * Your testing application may not be getting enough CPU cycles or USB bandwidth to be able to push data at the device's maximum speed. Testing labs use a computer with a specialized operating system that can ensure sufficient bandwidth, but an app running on a normal operating system can't make such a guarantee.

It's not showing up on my ntfs for mac but is in finder. also keeps asking me to authenticate in order to do anything with it?

Ntsf is a windows format. A Mac will not write to it natively. You will need to get 3rd party software like Paragon or another to fully work with a ntsf formatted hard drive on a Mac. Format it to apfs if it is only going to be used on a Mac or buy ntfs for Mac software if you need to go back and forth.

Can I use this as an additional storage *continuously* connected to my mac? any overuse or overheat issues?

Since my poor MacBook Pro 2016 has gotten slower because I refuse to update the OS (because I know what would happen), I started using my 2TB 1050mbps SSD Sandisc external drive for my heavy video editing and music production projects and it flies without any problem. I would say though that it is true that at some point it gets quite hot but nothing’s affected it’s performance. My advise is just connect it when you need it and that’s it. I love this little friend!!

Brand	SanDisk
Manufacturer	Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
Series	Extreme Portable
Product Dimensions	0.97 x 5.26 x 10.08 cm; 49.9 g
Batteries	1 12V batteries required.
Item model number	SDSSDE61-4T00-G25
Is Discontinued By Manufacturer	No
Color	Black
Form Factor	Portable
Item dimensions W x H	10 x 53 x 101 mm
Hard Drive Size	4 TB
Hard Disk Description	Solid State Hard Drive
Hard Drive Interface	USB 3.2
Voltage	1 Volts
Hardware Platform	Mac, PC
Operating System	Windows_10, mac_os, windows_8
Are Batteries Included	No
Lithium Battery Packaging	Batteries only
Lithium Battery Weight	2 Kilograms
Number Of Lithium Ion Cells	1
Nombre de cellules Lithium-Métal	1
Item Weight	49.9 g

SanDisk 4TB Extreme Portable SSD - Up to 1050MB/s - USB-C, USB 3.2 Gen 2 - External Solid State Drive - SDSSDE61-4T00-G25

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