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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Highlanderix - Thursday, June 26, 2014 - link
Well, I don't understand very well how or why the SanDisk Extreme Pro and SanDisk Extreme II finish in front in AnandTech Storage Bench 2013 when it seemed to me that Samsung 840 Pro outperforms the SanDisk Extreme II by some distance (according to other websites) in terms of 4K write I/O operations. I saw 90K against 30K for the SanDisk in one test and 90K against 60K in another.Is it the mix of both types of operation (read/write) that makes the difference or is the AnandTech Storage Bench 2013 using more intensively non-4K read/write operations where perhaps the SanDisk SSDs perform better ? And would it be possible to have some results for the Samsung 840 Pro 256Gb in AnandTech Storage Bench 2013 please if the SSD is still available for testing ? :) Thanks :)
Highlanderix - Thursday, June 26, 2014 - link
And finally, I hesitate between the SanDisk Extreme Pro 256Gb (150€ here in France) and the Samsung 840 Pro 256Gb (165€). 10 year warranty sound really good but which one is better in terms of pure performance ? Which one should I take ?Phreedom1 - Sunday, June 29, 2014 - link
I don't understand. In this review it says that the Sandisk Extreme Pro is the fastest SSD available yet when you go to the "Bench" area of this website, pick the Extreme Pro and put it up against something like the Samsung 840 Pro, the Samsung wins in many of the benchmarks. Even when put up against the Sandisk Extreme II the newer Extremem Pro loses out in many of the marks. I'm just looking for the all around fastest 240/256GB SSD but it seems every site I go to has a different opinion.himem.sys - Monday, June 30, 2014 - link
Some people complain about real-world difference between ssd drives (because drives are fast enough). Nah, thay arent :). I can tell that my 240GB hyperx is better than most 7k rpm drives, but its a turtle wgen compared to ramdrive. I cutted off 25GB partition from 32Gb of total memory to do some special things and i see huge difference. Installation a windows 2012 r2 with sql 2012 on hyper-v? Its a matter of minutes (i7 3770 @ 4.1). Benchmarks? Who needs them when you have powershell [get-counter -Counter '\process(_total)\io data operations/sec']. I used ramdrives on dell r820 filled with ram and can tell this: the slowest part of pc/server is and will be cpu :).Tornadotuan - Friday, July 8, 2016 - link
Hi Hardware Community,I know this article is quite outdated right now, nevertheless the actual topic of the authors "Final Words" bug me right now. Especially now that enough time for longtime-endurance tests has passed.
Anyway, I can´t choose between the Samsung EVO 850 1TB v2 (289€) and die SanDisk Extreme 960GB (281€).
So pricewise the "Pro" is even cheaper right now compared to the Samsung. But there are some obvious differences:
- TLC 3D V-NAND vs. MLC Planar
- 5 years vs. 10 years warranty
- 150 TBW vs. 80 TBW
- higher Peak vs. consistency
- Samsung Bugging vs. sudden death drives
My usage:
- Client for everything: gaming, programming, office, multimedia - averything
- gonna split it in system and data-partition
- gonne be in laptop that´s used as desktop
- battery is wasted, so no concern about power consumption
So, usually I use hardware until it´s broken so meaning about 8-10 years.
Still I want steady performance without sudden decline in speed like with the EVO 840 :C
I´d be really glad, if you could tell me your opinion on this :)