Sharge Disk Pro Review: An SSD Hub with a Fan, and You Certainly Hear It

I’ve seen storage manufacturers try all sorts of ways to mitigate heat, with the most popular option being a design that facilitates passive cooling. Sharge went a different route, though, and packed a tiny fan into the wallet-sized DiskPro. It’s different, but is it better?

Sharge makes a lot of mobile-focused accessories and the Disk Pro with active cooling is just one of three SSD options the company had available at the time of writing, inluding the super-small Sharge Disk that it originally launched on Kickstarter back in 2023.

The Disk Pro is available in two colors and in three capacities (1TB, 2TB, and 4TB). It starts at $269.

Sharge Disk Pro Review: Design and Build

What makes the Sharge Disk Pro special is that the company claims that it is the world’s first actively-cooled hub with a built-in NVMe PSSD. Like the Sharge Disk, it was also successfully backed on Kickstarter. So the Disk Pro isn’t just an SSD, although that will probably be its primary function, but also a hub with five ports: USB 2.0, USB 3.0, HDMI 2.1 (for 4K at up to 144Hz or 8K at up to 30Hz), a 10Gbps USB-C 3.2 port with support for power delivery up to 100W, and a second 10Gbps built-in USB-C cable.

The Sharge Disk Pro also has two other options: a toggle for the fan and a switch to turn off the SSD. The fan toggles between “automatic” and “turbo,” with the former kicking the fan on whenever the Disk Pro gets too warm and the latter to force the fan to operate at maximum capacity. Auto mode will self-select between 7,000 and 10,000 RPM at a power consumption between 3.3V and 5V, while Turbo will use the highest 10,000 RPM and 5V power consumption.

Sharge says it included the switch for the SSD as a form of data protection so that it can still be used as a hub, but the SSD is not powered on.

I mentioned that the Disk Pro is wallet-sized, but more specifically, it measures 11mm tall, 90mm long, and 61mm wide. It is also made almost entirely of plastic, but it doesn’t feel cheap. The use of plastic also allowed Sharge to go with a transparent top plate, which is a nice aesthetic.

Sharge shows the Disk Pro as being able to act as the center of multiple types of setups, from connecting a Switch 2 to both a wall and a larger display (for cases when you might not have the official dock) to being able to connect an iPhone, a keyboard, a monitor, and a mouse all at the same time.

I think the Sharge Disk Pro fits into a content creator’s workflow as an option for recording high-framerate Apple ProRes Log footage from the iPhone 17 Pro. The Disk Pro includes a magnet backing that allows it to snap to the iPhone’s MagSafe, and the cable is just the perfect length to nicely coil around and into the USB-C port on the bottom of the iPhone without sticking out much at all.

Sharge Disk Pro Review: In Use

I tested the Disk Pro in two environments: attached to my Mac Studio and attached to my iPhone 17 Pro, in both cases, used mainly as an SSD. The hub capabilities are a nice value-add, but I didn’t really find them necessary to fit into my workflow. I will say, it is probably nice to be able to use the Disk Pro as a hub with the iPhone for attaching monitors and other accessories, but that’s not really how I use the iPhone to capture footage.

My main goal was to see if Sharge is able to deliver on the promise of no data throttling, and I am happy to report that appears to be the case.

Firstly, when connected to my computer, I performed our standard speed test, which involves testing the disk speed fresh out of the box, filling the SSD to full, and testing the speed again, and then finally emptying the SSD and testing the speed a third time. What I found was that the SSD performed best right out of the box, but even after taking on a substantial data load, the max write speed did not dip by a huge amount. Bear in mind this is just a USB 3.2 connection, so the Disk Pro was never going to match the blisteringly high speeds we’re seeing out of USB 4 or Thunderbolt, but it also costs substantially less than those higher-end drives.

Speed test brand-new.

Speed test when SSD is full.

Speed test after emptying from full.

Expect about 875 MB/s write speeds and 895 MB/s read speeds, which is more than enough for 4K workflows and even some 8K video work. It also means you can transfer about 250 GB of data in around six minutes.

Click to view larger.

What I tested next is how well the SSD is able to maintain that transfer speed, since the integration of active cooling is one of the major selling points of the Disk Pro. For these tests, I left the SSD on “auto” mode and hit it with large data dumps repeatedly over the course of 20 minutes. What I found was that, when connected to my computer, the automatic fan kicked in after about three minutes and 45 seconds and ran for about 10 seconds before shutting itself off. It would then turn itself on and off again every minute or so for as long as I was dumping data onto the disk.

I timed transfers and checked data write speed and did not notice a change, so the Sharge Disk Pro is fulfilling its promise of not throttling due to heat.

It’s more good news when using it with the iPhone to record ProRes Log. When shooting at 4Kp60, the fan never turned on at any point during a straight 15-minute recording, so if you’re planning to use the Disk Pro for 60p recording or lower, unless you’re recording out in the sun or if ambient temperatures are hitting summertime highs, you shouldn’t expect to hear the fan much at all.

At 4Kp120, the fan kicked on one minute and 30 seconds in and stayed on for about 30 seconds. It came back on at three minutes and 30 seconds, again for about 30 seconds. It followed this cadence for the entire 12-minute record time, which was the maximum I could record given the size of the 1TB SSD I had for testing.

I cannot think of a case where I would record 4Kp120 for 12 minutes straight (or, heck, even a minute and a half straight), so instances where you’ll hear the fan are probably limited. You may also see the fan kick on more frequently the longer you use it in tandem with the iPhone, though, as the iPhone generates a good amount of heat itself and much of that is out the back where the Disk Pro is mounted.

That said, while I felt both the iPhone and the Disk Pro get physically warm to the touch, at no point would I say that they ever got “hot.” It hovered around body temperature a majority of the time and stayed there for the most part.

I want to also note that while there is a Turbo fan function, I never needed to use it and did not see any improvement when I did choose to manually toggle it on. Auto seems perfectly capable of self-regulating and never needed to up its speed to maximum RPM either.

That’s a good thing, because this little fan is loud.

It’s not like loud at a concert level, but at Turbo, it runs around 60 decibels. It’s around 40 decibels at the lower fan RPMs. What’s probably worse than the decibels of the fan is the fact that it’s a really irritating frequency. It’s the kind of fan noise that will slowly drive a man insane. PC fans, monitor fans, or even just room fans all typically run at a lower frequency, so they’re not as ear-piercing when you do hear them. That’s not the case for the Disk Pro, which really manages to hit that maximum irritation sweet spot.

When holding the iPhone and shooting video, you’re going to hear it when it kicks on and if you’re running a shotgun mic, it’s going to pick it up. It is the kind of frequency you can probably cut out with Denoise filters in video editing, but that doesn’t make it any less unpleasant to hear while it’s happening.

The Sharge Disk Pro Is a Versatile SSD Dock

What I like about the Disk Pro is that it’s usable for a wide variety of purposes. You can use it just as an SSD and ignore all of the other features, and it’s still a good deal at $269 for 1TB, especially considering the high cost of flash memory at the time of writing. Jumping up to 4TB costs $669 at the time of writing, which is pretty sticker-shocking, but again, not a bad deal when you compare it to flash pricing across the industry.

Hopefully, you’re reading this in the future, and the pricing has all come way down.

The value proposition of the Disk Pro expands if you plan to use it as a hub, because then it really showcases value versus the competition. If you plan to use this as an SSD, a hub for your Steam Deck or Nintendo Switch, and as a capture device for your iPhone footage, then you have a very versatile little drive that can wear a bunch of hats.

Just don’t get this thing anywhere near liquid. Due to the active cooling, there are literal holes in the chassis, and water ingress will kill this SSD very quickly.

Are There Alternatives?

Sharge compares its $269 Disk Pro against the Samsung T7 SSDs, and I do think that is a fair competitor. A 1TB T7 SSD currently costs $275, has only one port, and doesn’t natively support MagSafe. While it is better protected against the ingress of water and dust, you’re paying more for Samsung’s SSD and getting a lot fewer options. The Samsung T7 also scored the worst in terms of speed across all SSDs we have tested.

You might also want to consider the Genki SavePoint if you care more about compact size than anything else, but bear in mind the passive cooling on that little SSD means the case gets very hot.

Should You Buy It?

Yes. Those in the market for just an SSD might find the Disk Pro to be overkill for what they need, and the fan is very loud and irritating, in a market where flash storage is as expensive as it is, Sharge managed to ramp up the value in a unique way.