If (A) such a drive existed and (B) it was affordable, I would stuff 8TB of portable SSD storage in my pants pocket. Because SanDisk, a division of Western Digital, has solved A.

SanDisk has actually manufactured what it claims is the world's first 8TB portable SSD (I can't find anything to deny this claim) and is showing it off at CES this week. However, it is only a prototype at this time.

There is every reason to believe that one day it will actually be a product that ships. Unlike some prototypes, this is not some whimsical new technology. It's a high-capacity SSD packed into a sturdy-looking pocket-sized casing with a mini-strap. 5]

Whether or not this will be a viable product for the masses in the near future depends on the price. Collectively, we are very fond of Samsung's T5 SSD, which tops our list of best external hard drives (it may be replaced by the recently announced T7 Touch). It has a maximum capacity of 2 TB and retails for $350. The largest capacity is 2TB and sells for $350.

SanDisk also offers a portable SSD in a similar-looking casing. This one also has a maximum capacity of 2 TB and is priced at $270 on Amazon (the list price is an unrealistic $500). If the capacity quadruples, the 8TB prototype could conceivably have a price tag in excess of $1,000.

I would be the only one to lose interest there. The good news for SanDisk (and Western Digital) is that SSD prices have dropped significantly over the past few years. The bad news is that there are market indicators that a spike in the cost of NAND flash memory is on the way. If that happens, there will be more reason to delay retail commercialization of prototype drives.

SSDs are, of course, inherently faster than HDDs. The bottleneck for this type of device is the interface, and in this case the prototype utilizes the latest USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 specification (20 Gbps). Looking strictly at the interface, the maximum bandwidth theoretically available is 2,500 MB/s.

SanDisk has not revealed any benchmarks or details about the internal SSD. If nothing else, we can say with confidence that it will not offer 2,500 MB/sec transfers, as the overhead would make that impossible. However, it could become not only the highest-capacity portable SSD on the market, but also one of the fastest.