Touted as being "ultra tough," these two new high-speed external SSD drives from Sony can be submerged in 3 feet of water up to 30 minutes, take a 9 foot drop, and withstand 13,227 pounds of pressure.
Sony has announced two new external SSD drives, the SL-M and SL-C, that use USB Type C ports for connection. The SL-M series will have a read and write speed of up to 1,000 MB/s and from photos appears to be a bit longer in physical size than the SL-C. The SL-C is more compact and has a 540 MB/s read speed and 520 MB/s write speed.
Both external drives are dustproof and waterproof, and the USB-C port does not even require a cover to maintain protection. To further secure data, the drives can be password protected using "hardware encryption providing AES 256-bit encryption without any speed decline." More data security is possible with the SSD Utility app which can enable dual password protection and also has a Lifetime Checker to monitor its condition. File rescue software can recover accidentally deleted photos and videos.
Sony SL-M
Sony SL-C
The exterior of both drives features a ridged aluminum surface for grip and two yellow bands for visibility, along with label stickers for easy identification. They have an LED activity light near the USB port.
The SL-M and SL-C will come in 500 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB storage configurations. Pricing has not been released yet, and the drives are expected to ship in summer 2019.
I just picked up a pair of Sony Tough cards. I like that they're prioritizing this kind of durability, I just can't wait for it to trickle up into their cameras! I have no complaints about the robustness of my A7iiis but they're not at this level yet.
“I won’t buy these until they fix the ergonomics. These Sony HDs feel like bricks and won’t ever belong to a true professional’s kit”
🤣
I think the yellow stripes are not so much for visibility as they are a throw back to the Sony Walkman era which were all yellow and signaled as being waterproof.
Maybe, but it’s what Sony stated they were for in the press release.
I am still waiting for a company to produce a RAID 1 2xSSD 2TB rugged external USB drive. Thats when I will be willing to put down my $$$. Until then its 2x Samsung T5 with a couple of scripts and separate storage locations when on location.