Aimed at the high-performance gamer, SanDisk look to lay the smackdown on the competition with it’s Extreme Pro Solid State Drive – capable of up to 550MB/s.
Product on Review: Extreme PRO 480GB SSD
Manufacturer & Sponsor: SanDisk
Street Price: £253 GBP
If you have never heard of SanDisk you must have been living under a rock for the past 25 years because they are one of the world’s biggest providers of PC and mobile storage solutions be it a USB drive, micro flash or like our topic for today, high performance SSDs. You don’t get to stay in this business for that amount time unless you are good at what you do. In short SanDisk is a name you can trust and that trust in the electronic storage industry is something you should never take lightly.
The product we are looking at today is the latest innovation in a long line of storage solutions, in particular SSDs. The Extreme Pro is the pinnacle of the range which has both entry level and consumer grades covered along with a variety of storage capacities to fit both budget and performance requirements so no matter what your needs are, SanDisk have a SSD for you.
The SanDisk Extreme Pro has some very impressive figures on paper with a read speed of 550MB/s and a read speed of 515MB/s and it’s the SSD we feel most gamers and enthusiasts will choose out of the range.
Here’s what SanDisk had to say about their product
Super-charge your PC or game console with 24/7 consistent high
performance from a global leader in Flash memory. Whether you’re
a gamer or a media pro, SanDisk Extreme Pro® loads and runs your
graphics-intensive applications blazing fast so you can spend your
time doing instead of waiting. SanDisk’s innovative nCache™ Pro
Technology optimizes read and write speeds and drive endurance
and makes sure your data is stored in the safest place. Extreme
Pro® SSD is engineered for efficient multi-tasking and workload
management, low latency, and consistently fast computing. Easy to
install, it runs cool, quiet and energy efficient, so your power bills are
lower and your battery last
performance from a global leader in Flash memory. Whether you’re
a gamer or a media pro, SanDisk Extreme Pro® loads and runs your
graphics-intensive applications blazing fast so you can spend your
time doing instead of waiting. SanDisk’s innovative nCache™ Pro
Technology optimizes read and write speeds and drive endurance
and makes sure your data is stored in the safest place. Extreme
Pro® SSD is engineered for efficient multi-tasking and workload
management, low latency, and consistently fast computing. Easy to
install, it runs cool, quiet and energy efficient, so your power bills are
lower and your battery last
Specification & Features
Available capacities: 240GB, 480GB and 960GB**
Dimensions: 2.75 x 3.96 x 0.28 in. (69.85mm x 100.5mm x 7.0 mm)
Operating temperature: 32ºF to 158ºF (0ºC to 70 ºC)
Storage temperature: -67ºF to 185ºF (-55ºC to 85ºC)
Interface: SATA Revision 3.0 (6 Gb/s)
Shock: Resistant up to 1500 G @ 0.5 m/sec
Vibration (Operating/Non-operating) : 5 gRMS, 10-2000 HZ / 4.9 gRMS, 7-800 HZ
Power Consumption (active): 0.13w (240 GB), 0.15w (480 GB, 960 GB)
Support: 10 year limited warranty**
Performance
Seq. Read (up to) 550 MB/s
Seq. Write (up to) 515 MB/s
Rnd. Read (up to) 100K IOPS
Rnd. Write (up to) 90K IOPS
Dimensions: 2.75 x 3.96 x 0.28 in. (69.85mm x 100.5mm x 7.0 mm)
Operating temperature: 32ºF to 158ºF (0ºC to 70 ºC)
Storage temperature: -67ºF to 185ºF (-55ºC to 85ºC)
Interface: SATA Revision 3.0 (6 Gb/s)
Shock: Resistant up to 1500 G @ 0.5 m/sec
Vibration (Operating/Non-operating) : 5 gRMS, 10-2000 HZ / 4.9 gRMS, 7-800 HZ
Power Consumption (active): 0.13w (240 GB), 0.15w (480 GB, 960 GB)
Support: 10 year limited warranty**
Performance
Seq. Read (up to) 550 MB/s
Seq. Write (up to) 515 MB/s
Rnd. Read (up to) 100K IOPS
Rnd. Write (up to) 90K IOPS
Consistent high performance
No stall. No stutter. Innovative nCache™ Pro Technology delivers extreme performance you can count on, every day, every week, every year.
Pro-level speeds
SanDisk Extreme PRO® SSD delivers super-fast 550MB/s sequential read speeds so you can work, and play, with no delays.
Load and run in a heartbeat
Waiting for big, graphics-intensive apps and games to load is time you’ll never get back. With SanDisk Extreme PRO® SSD, it’s time you never have to waste.
Trust your SSD. We do.
No other company stands behind their SSD for ten long years. Since we developed the world’s first Flash-based SSD more than 20 years ago, we have good reason to believe in our drives.
Always know what’s going on
With our SanDisk SSD Dashboard, you always have visibility into how your drive’s performing, what firmware updates are available, and what you can do to maintain peak performance.
Runs cool and quiet
With no moving parts, our SSDs run cool and quiet even when you use them hard. Your battery lasts longer on a single charge, and your laptop has a longer life—up to 33% longer**
No stall. No stutter. Innovative nCache™ Pro Technology delivers extreme performance you can count on, every day, every week, every year.
Pro-level speeds
SanDisk Extreme PRO® SSD delivers super-fast 550MB/s sequential read speeds so you can work, and play, with no delays.
Load and run in a heartbeat
Waiting for big, graphics-intensive apps and games to load is time you’ll never get back. With SanDisk Extreme PRO® SSD, it’s time you never have to waste.
Trust your SSD. We do.
No other company stands behind their SSD for ten long years. Since we developed the world’s first Flash-based SSD more than 20 years ago, we have good reason to believe in our drives.
Always know what’s going on
With our SanDisk SSD Dashboard, you always have visibility into how your drive’s performing, what firmware updates are available, and what you can do to maintain peak performance.
Runs cool and quiet
With no moving parts, our SSDs run cool and quiet even when you use them hard. Your battery lasts longer on a single charge, and your laptop has a longer life—up to 33% longer**
Packaging & First Look
The front of the packaging has an attractive design that is typical of SanDisk with a performance red, black and white colour scheme along with gold lettering reserved for the product title which is synonymous with SanDisk’s Extreme range. Capacity and expected performance figures are clearly labelled too which is refreshing to see.
The rear of the box appears to have a wealth of information however upon closer inspection it is simply the same basic information in multiple languages and of little use to the buyer.
The accessories are okay as far as accessories go. You get an installation guide and a drive adaptor to make it thicker that it is should you drive bay no support 7mm height drives. There is also a business card which advises you to download SanDisk’s SSD Dashboard software which is a performance monitoring tool giving you the status of the drive and moves data around to increase both performance and file integrity.
The drive itself looks good which again follows on from the performance theme of the product packaging. The materials of the drive are a combination of aluminium and plastic making for a very lightweight (54g) drive and couple this with a height of just 7mm it should come as no surprise that this drive is likely to appear in ultra/Macbooks in the future.
Closer Look
Removing the outer casing will likely void you warranty and with 10 years offered by SanDisk you would be silly to do so. As you can see above, one side of the blue PCB is void of any components, which leads us to believe that the same PCB design along with multiple of NAND flash will be used for the 960GB range topping Extreme Pro drive.
The business side of the SSD had thermal tape covering the NAND, Cache and controller. This is the first time we have seen this in an SSD but then with the 10 year warranty, SanDisk are unlikely to be taking any chances with heat becoming an issue.
The Marvel 88SS9187 controller features both high performance and low power consumption – ideal for an SSD of this calibre. It has an EEC engine with adaptive read/write schemes, an on-chip RAID function supporting the latest generation of NAND and features dual-core Marvell 88FR102 V5 CPU with shared DTCM and ITCM SRAM.
The SanDisk Extreme Pro features an innovative feature called n-cache. With the majority of access blocks being 4 KB this can conflict with the physical block structure of NAND flash. Therefore SanDisk employ a 3 stage storage layer of DDR DRAM Cache, n-cache and MLC NAND flash.
The nCache is used to accumulate the small writes at high speed and then consolidate them to larger MLC sections of the NAND flash memory. The cache level on this drive is 512MB DDR3 @ 1600MHz.
Finally we see that the drive has a compliment of 8 x MLC NAND Flash chips making up the combined total storage of 480GB.
Test Setup & Methodology
Our test system is formatted and a fresh version of Windows is installed with just drives in place – no additional applications. Windows is then updated to the latest release and the drivers are installed. Included in the list of benchmarks are the following applications:
Benchmarks
ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.46
AS SSD
CrystalDiskMark 3.0
Iometer
SiSoftware SANDRA 2012
HDTune Pro 5.5
AS SSD
CrystalDiskMark 3.0
Iometer
SiSoftware SANDRA 2012
HDTune Pro 5.5
Test system
CPU Intel Core-i7 4770K
Motherboard GIGABYTE Z87X-OC
Graphics MSI R7970 Black Edition
Memory 16GB Corsair Vengeance Pro (2400MHz) CL10
HDD
– SanDisk Extreme Pro (Sata 6Gbps)
– Samsung 850 Pro 128GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Corsair Force LX 256GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Intel 730 240GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– ADATA Premier Pro SP920SS 256GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– OCZ Vertex 460 240GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– OCZ Vector 150 240GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Samsung 840 EVO mSATA 500GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Samsung 840 EVO mSATA 250GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Kingston HyperX 3K Na’Vi 240GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– OCZ Vertex 450 256GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Samsung 840 EVO 750GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Samsung 840 Pro 256GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Samsung 840 256GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Toshiba 256GB THNSNH256GCST (Sata 6Gbps)
– OCZ Vector 256GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Corsair Force GS 240GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– OCZ Vertex 4 128GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Kingston HyperX 3K 120GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Kingston HyperX 240GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– ADATA S510 120GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Intel 520 480GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Samsung 830 Series 256GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Samsung HD103SJ 1TB (Sata 3Gbps)
PSU Corsair HX1050 Gold
OS Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit
Motherboard GIGABYTE Z87X-OC
Graphics MSI R7970 Black Edition
Memory 16GB Corsair Vengeance Pro (2400MHz) CL10
HDD
– SanDisk Extreme Pro (Sata 6Gbps)
– Samsung 850 Pro 128GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Corsair Force LX 256GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Intel 730 240GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– ADATA Premier Pro SP920SS 256GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– OCZ Vertex 460 240GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– OCZ Vector 150 240GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Samsung 840 EVO mSATA 500GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Samsung 840 EVO mSATA 250GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Kingston HyperX 3K Na’Vi 240GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– OCZ Vertex 450 256GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Samsung 840 EVO 750GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Samsung 840 Pro 256GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Samsung 840 256GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Toshiba 256GB THNSNH256GCST (Sata 6Gbps)
– OCZ Vector 256GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Corsair Force GS 240GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– OCZ Vertex 4 128GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Kingston HyperX 3K 120GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Kingston HyperX 240GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– ADATA S510 120GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Intel 520 480GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Samsung 830 Series 256GB (Sata 6Gbps)
– Samsung HD103SJ 1TB (Sata 3Gbps)
PSU Corsair HX1050 Gold
OS Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit
Benchmarks: ATTO
The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.
Benchmarks: AS SSD
AS SSD Benchmark is a straightforward tool for measuring the speed of your SSD drive.
Simply launch the program, choose your drive, click Start, and it’ll test your SSD’s read and write speed in a variety of ways, delivering a score for each when it’s done. And if that’s not enough, there are also additional file copy and compression-related benchmarks available from the Tools menu. (The author’s support page is German only, but if you need further English explanations then there’s a thread on the program at the OCZ Technology forum.).
Simply launch the program, choose your drive, click Start, and it’ll test your SSD’s read and write speed in a variety of ways, delivering a score for each when it’s done. And if that’s not enough, there are also additional file copy and compression-related benchmarks available from the Tools menu. (The author’s support page is German only, but if you need further English explanations then there’s a thread on the program at the OCZ Technology forum.).
Benchmarks: CrystalDiskMark 3.0
CrystalDiskMark is a disk benchmark software that analyses different types of hard drive. Giving sequential benchmark write and read statistics in MB/s. A simple program that is very useful.
Benchmarks: Iometer
Iometer is based on a client–server model, where one instance of the Iometer graphical user interface is managing multiple ‘workers’ (each one representing a separate Dynamo.exe process) which are doing the I/O. Iometer performs Asynchronous I/O – accessing files or block devices (later one allowing to bypass the file system buffers).
Iometer allows the configuration of disk parameters such as the ‘Maximum Disk Size’, ‘Starting Disk Sector’ and ‘# of Outstanding I/Os’. This allows a user to configure a test file upon which the ‘Access Specifications’ configure the I/O types to the file.
Iometer allows the configuration of disk parameters such as the ‘Maximum Disk Size’, ‘Starting Disk Sector’ and ‘# of Outstanding I/Os’. This allows a user to configure a test file upon which the ‘Access Specifications’ configure the I/O types to the file.
For the purpose of this test. The 4K 50%/50% read/write file will be under the examination with 100% Random Distribution – reporting back on IOPS and MBs per Second.
Benchmarks: SiSoftware SANDRA
SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.
Sandra is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.
It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.
Sandra is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.
It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.
Benchmarks: HDTune Pro
A new utility we have added to our line-up of benchmarks is the ever popular HDTune Pro. HD Tune Pro is a hard disk / SSD utility with many functions. It can be used to measure the drive’s performance, scan for errors, check the health status (S.M.A.R.T.), securely erase all data and much more.
Anvil's Storage
Anvil’s Storage is a relatvely new benchmark but it is rapidly becomming the industry standard when testing SSD’s so from today’s review we will be including this benchmark in our suite of tests. It is both comprehensive and accurate measuring both disk read and write speed along with a thorough interrogation of IOPs performance.
Conclusion
The SanDisk screams ‘premium performance product’ from the outset and we wouldn’t argue with that claim. SanDisk claim read speeds up to 550MB/s and writes up to 515 MB/s and for the most part this was found to be true in our own benchmarks. Having read and write speeds above 500MB/s puts this product very high up in the performance charts so to this end, the SanDisk Extreme Pro comes highly recommended. There is however a blip on the performance radar and that is IOPs performance. In this area the drive was average with some faster drives available.The price of the drive is comparable to the market costing less than the equivalent Samsung 850 Pro and Intel 730 but more than the Crucial M550 and OCZ Vertex drives. With SSD prices unstable at the moment this could change as demand decreases/increases but for the time being we would class the Extreme Pro as being fairly priced.
So then, if you are looking for a large capacity SSD whether it is for a Notebook or performance PC, then you would do well to consider the SanDisk Extreme Pro. It has performance by the bucket load, it is fairly priced and it’s available in 340, 480 and 960GB capacities. It isn’t the fastest drive on test nor the cheapest but with a 10 year warranty backing up the solid performance you can be assured of the same quality for years to come.
In summary
Overall, the SanDisk Extreme Pro is a high performer backed up by a fantastic 10 year warranty from one of the industry leaders so you can be assured of long lasting, ‘Extreme’ performance.
Pros
+ Fast read/write speeds
+ 10 year warranty
+ 7mm Height
+ nCache
Cons
– IOPs performance lower than expected
+ Fast read/write speeds
+ 10 year warranty
+ 7mm Height
+ nCache
Cons
– IOPs performance lower than expected
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.
