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
Final Words
The Extreme Pro is without a doubt the fastest SATA 6Gbps SSD in the market. As Anand said in the Extreme II review, SanDisk has picked an excellent balance of IO consistency and peak performance, resulting in high performance regardless of the workload. Too often I have seen manufacturers focusing on just one or the other, with the end result being an unbalanced drive. Intel's SSD 730 is a prime example of this -- its random write consistency is one of the best we have ever seen, but the lack of peak performance makes it a middle-class performer in our Storage Benches. In the end, real world performance is a mix of consistency and peak performance because the drive is not constantly hammered with high queue depth write activity (which is why peak performance matters) but on the other hand it must also be able to handle a constant IO load consistently.
My only real complaint is SanDisk's decision to not include TCG Opal 2.0 support in the the Extreme Pro. Right now there are no high performance client SSDs with proper encryption support, and I think that's a niche SanDisk should have taken onboard. Currently you can buy the Crucial MX100/M550 or Samsung 840 EVO to get proper encryption support, but that comes at the cost of performance. In my opinion a user should not have to decide between performance and encryption because both are vital. There is hope that the X300s fills the gap by providing Extreme Pro class performance with full encryption support, but I am afraid that the limited availability and the higher price would make it out of reach for most consumers. We will see when we get one in for testing.
| NewEgg Price Comparison (6/15/2014) | ||||
| 240/256GB | 480/512GB | 960GB/1TB | ||
| SanDisk Extreme Pro | $200 | $370 | $600 | |
| SanDisk Extreme II | $172 | $308 | - | |
| SanDisk Ultra Plus | $143 | - | - | |
| Crucial MX100 | $108 | $220 | - | |
| Crucial M550 | $157 | $305 | $496 | |
| Plextor M6S | $165 | $400 | - | |
| ADATA Premier Pro SP920 | $150 | - | - | |
| Intel SSD 730 | $219 | $445 | - | |
| Intel SSD 530 | $165 | $330 | - | |
| OCZ Vector 150 | $200 | $360 | - | |
| Samsung SSD 840 EVO | $150 | $255 | $450 | |
| Samsung SSD 840 Pro | $199 | $437 | - | |
There is no way that the Extreme Pro can compete with Crucial MX100 and Samsung 840 EVO in price but it is a totally different animal with substantially higher performance. When the Extreme Pro is compared against other high-end SSD, namely Intel's SSD 730, OCZ's Vector 150 and Samsung's 840 Pro, the prices are quite competitive. NewEgg does not have any stock at the time of writing, but I would not be surprised to see the prices falling a bit once the drive becomes available later this month.
All in all, the Extreme Pro is the only no compromise high-end SSD in the market (aside from the Extreme II, of course). Its performance is unmatched by any other SATA 6Gbps drive and it is the only truly high performance SSD with proper power management, making it perfect for mobile use as well. It's also the first high-end SSD in 1TB-class capacity, so there is no longer a need to choose between performance and capacity. As long as you can live without hardware encryption support, I am comfortable with saying that the Extreme Pro is currently the best SATA 6Gbps SSD in the market for users who seek the highest performance with consistency.
SanDisk is turning out to be a very dangerous player in the client SSD space. With nearly perfect vertical integration model (they just lack client controller silicon and DRAM), SanDisk has the ability to put against Samsung and Intel who have traditionally held the performance crown. Before the Extreme II, SanDisk was fairly unnoticeable in the retail SSD market, but the Extreme II acted as a warning of SanDisk's skill and knowhow, and the Extreme Pro just further reinforces that. If SanDisk can keep their pace going with PCIe SSDs, others will have hard time keeping up with them.
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Solid State Brain - Tuesday, June 17, 2014 - link
@Kristian VättöIf you still can, could you please post somewhere some screenshots (preferably) or write down the description/name for all SMART attributes for this drive from the SanDisk SSD Dashboard under the SMART tab?
SanDisk doesn't readily provide this information to the public, and if you could fulfill this request, it would get easier to make sense of those attributes with other popular third party drive SMART information tools such as CrystalDiskInfo.
This is what I got on my Extreme II SSD from that SanDisk SSD Dashboard. As far as I know the Extreme PRO has more/different SMART parameters, which is interesting since the controller should be the same:
5 / 05 - Retired Block Count
9 / 09 - Power On Hours
12 / 0C - Device Power Cycle Count
166 / A6 - Min W/E Cycle
167 / A7 - Min Bad Block/Die
168 / A8 - Maximum Erase Cycle
169 / A9 - Total Bad Block
171 / AB - Program Fail Count
172 / AC - Erase Fail Count
173 / AD - Average Erase Cycle
174 / AE - Unexpected Power Loss Count
187 / BB - Reported Uncorrectable Errors
194 / C2 - Current Temperature
212 / D4 - SATA PHY Error
230 / E6 - Percentage Total P/E Count XX.YY
232 / E8 - Spare Blocks Remaining
233 / E9 - Total GB Written to NAND
241 / F1 - Total GB Written
242 / F2 - Total GB Read
243 / F3 - [?]
Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, June 17, 2014 - link
My drives are currently at my friend's place as he does the photography for me (I don't have a DSLR), so I can't do this right now. However, I'll swing by his place next week at the latest, so feel free to remind me via email (kristian@anandtech.com) in a week or so if I forget :)Solid State Brain - Tuesday, June 17, 2014 - link
Ok, I will. FYI, I plan to submit that information to the CrystalDiskInfo author. After I sent him SMART attribute information for the Extreme II he promised to implement it in the next program version (so that they will not appear as "vendor specific" anymore).Seville Orange - Tuesday, June 17, 2014 - link
What happens to performance consistency if the drive has a few partitions?Say you have 50GB for Windows, 30GB for Linux, 10GB for Swap - if you use the remaining space as a partition will you then get max performance? or will the performance be reduced regardless because partitioning has the same effect as leaving spare area?
josquin - Thursday, July 10, 2014 - link
I also would like to get the answer to this question.croc123 - Tuesday, June 17, 2014 - link
Not to pick nits, but "SanDisk Extreme Pro SSD (240GB, 480GB & 960GB) Review: The Fastest Just Got Faster" seems to me to be a bit of hyperbole unsupported by the facts... A paid review, perhaps?Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, June 17, 2014 - link
The Extreme II was already the fastest SATA SSD, so in that sense "the fastest just got faster" because the Extreme Pro is essentially a tweaked Extreme II. I know we don't often use such headlines but I think in this case it's justified. Of course, feedback is always welcome -- do you prefer the general headlines instead?MrX8503 - Tuesday, June 17, 2014 - link
The tests show that it is the fastest. What kind of facts are you looking for?junky77 - Tuesday, June 17, 2014 - link
That's what I wanna get 4 years from now, with M.2 interfacejuhatus - Thursday, June 19, 2014 - link
That´s sarcasm right? M.2 PCI-E ssd are already 3x faster and with nvme, alot more.Comment on:
"All in all, the Extreme Pro is the only no compromise high-end SSD in the market." I would say high-end SATA SSD, this extreme pro is going to look like slow drive in 2015 with all the M.2 craze. So price is all that much more important factor, your going to pay hefty premium when there are multitudes faster products coming(and existing) and SATA/ACHI is capping your performance. Sata is dead, long live the new Sata :)
Im hoping my Z97 built this summer boots from M.2(or heck even pcie), any chance of getting article about that?