SanDisk Extreme Pro SSD (240GB, 480GB & 960GB) Review: The Fastest Just Got Faster
by Kristian Vättö on June 16, 2014 4:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Storage
- SSDs
- SanDisk
- Extreme Pro
AnandTech Storage Bench 2011
Back in 2011 (which seems like so long ago now!), we introduced our AnandTech Storage Bench, a suite of benchmarks that took traces of real OS/application usage and played them back in a repeatable manner. The MOASB, officially called AnandTech Storage Bench 2011 - Heavy Workload, mainly focuses on peak IO performance and basic garbage collection routines. There is a lot of downloading and application installing that happens during the course of this test. Our thinking was that it's during application installs, file copies, downloading and multitasking with all of this that you can really notice performance differences between drives. The full description of the Heavy test can be found here, while the Light workload details are here.
The Extreme Pro does well in our older Storage Benches as well, although as you can see we have gotten to a point where the difference between SATA drives is less than 10% in most cases.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
85 Comments
View All Comments
binarycrusader - Tuesday, June 17, 2014 - link
Thanks, that explanation makes the comparison seems a lot more reasonable.By the way, NewEgg is selling the 480GB model for $379.99 today, which makes the Intel one slightly more appealing.
binarycrusader - Tuesday, June 17, 2014 - link
There's still a DRAM cache though, so I'd like to see a torture test on SanDisk's drive before I could be confident. But I'm aware that's potentially bricking the drive so I can understand why you might not be able to do that.I agree that what SanDisk has done seems like it would help mitigate the need for a capacitor, but I just can't be confident about it until some tests are done.
brucek2 - Monday, June 16, 2014 - link
Can anyone recommend a simple Windows utility for profiling your storage usage? I'm picturing something that runs in the background with an icon in the system tray I could mouseover to get a quick take on average daily data written, QD histogram, maybe read/write and/or size mix. It'd be great to be able to take a look at it when I'm reading articles like this to figure out which stats matter most to me.matthew5025 - Tuesday, June 17, 2014 - link
I recommend diskmonhttp://technet.microsoft.com/en-sg/sysinternals/bb...
Essence_of_War - Monday, June 16, 2014 - link
Wherein SanDisk, not content with already having the top data rate and service time in the Destroyer benchmark, takes the title back from themselves.I'm very impressed with their commitment to product quality.
Antronman - Monday, June 16, 2014 - link
At 200USD for 240GB, I'm just not sold.2x HyperX 3K 120GB in your choice of RAID configuration and you've got it, for 40-50USD cheaper.
jameskatt - Tuesday, June 17, 2014 - link
Encryption is always going to slow down your drive. After all, it takes a lot of brute computation to do encryption.The biggest problem of hardware encryption is that you don't have the freedom to select your own encryption algorithm. For example, if the hardware encryption method is compromised then you are screwed if you rely on it.
I would rather keep whole disk encryption at the OS level.
TheWrongChristian - Wednesday, June 18, 2014 - link
Encryption in hardware is easy (at least easier than software) and probably adds very little in terms of latency and power budget. AES is just multiple rounds of XOR, ROM lookups and bit mixing. Quite easy to do in hardware quickly.AES-128 (the minimum AES level) is a long way from being considered broken.
SirKronan - Tuesday, June 17, 2014 - link
Thanks for the review!! I am still going strong with my Extreme II and have yet to have any issues with it. Windows is still running fantastic, since the very first install on this drive. My dad's Extreme II is also running strong. I felt like I was taking a bit of a risk with an unknown when I got a somewhat less popular drive, but the current sale price back then was unbeatable, and to this day I have no regrets. Nice to see they are still coming to town and packing a punch!uruturu - Tuesday, June 17, 2014 - link
Why don't you test the drives in storage bench 2011-2013 with 25% OP???