SanDisk Extreme PRO USB 3.0 Flash Drive Capsule Review
by Ganesh T S on November 27, 2014 7:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Storage
- USB 3.0
- Flash Drive
- SanDisk
Performance Consistency and Concluding Remarks
Yet another interesting aspect of these types of units is performance consistency. Aspects that may influence this include thermal throttling and firmware caps on access rates to avoid overheating or other similar scenarios. This aspect is an important one, as the last thing that users want to see when copying over, say, 100 GB of data to the flash drive, is the transfer rate going to USB 2.0 speeds. In order to identify whether the drive under test suffers from this problem, we instrumented our robocopy DAS benchmark suite to record the flash drive's read and write transfer rates while the robocopy process took place in the background. For supported drives, we also recorded the internal temperature of the drive during the process. The graphs below show the speeds observed during our real-world DAS suite processing. The first three sets of writes and reads correspond to the photos suite. A small gap (for the transfer of the videos suite from the primary drive to the RAM drive) is followed by three sets for the next data set. Another small RAM-drive transfer gap is followed by three sets for the Blu-ray folder.
An important point to note here is that each of the first three blue and green areas correspond to 15.6 GB of writes and reads respectively. Throttling, if any, is apparent within the processing of the photos suite itself. We found that the Extreme PRO unit exposed the internal controller temperature to the host OS, while the Extreme didn't. That said, neither the Extreme PRO, nor the Extreme throttled under these heavy loading conditions (a total of 127 GB of writes and 127 GB of reads within a 30 minute duration).
The Extreme PRO internal temperatures do seem to rise rapidly with heavy writes (reaching as much as 75 C at the end of our test routine). However, the cooling down during the short idle period (RAM drive transfer gap) seems to be fast, indicative of good thermal design. Internally, the Extreme PRO idled around 43 C.
Concluding Remarks
Coming to the business end of the review, the Extreme and Extreme PRO USB 3.0 drives continue SanDisk's tradition of improving the performance of their USB 3.0 flash drive every generation. The performance of the drives leave us with no doubt that they have been tailored to fit the traditional flash drive use-cases. It must be made clear that the Extreme and Extreme PRO are not candidates to consider for a portable OS or Windows-To-Go drive.
Since there is no TRIM support through the SATA - USB bridge, users are advised to format them in a file system suitable for flash drives (such as exFAT). The final aspect we consider today is the cost.
While the $28 SanDisk Extreme 64 GB is a no-brainer as a stocking stuffer or impulse buy, the $138 SanDisk Extreme PRO 128 GB is a bit more difficult to recommend (considering its price per GB). The write performance of the Extreme PRO is better than the Corsair Voyager GTX for large files, but the Voyager GTX manages better performance over-all (even for typical flash drive use-cases). Obviously, the caveat here is that we tested the 256 GB variant of the Voyager GTX, while the Extreme PRO tops out at 128 GB. All said, the performance that SanDisk has managed to put in a typical flash drive form factor is impressive. We look forward to the price per GB metric of the Extreme PRO being improved and larger capacities coming to the market.
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Bullwinkle J Moose - Saturday, November 29, 2014 - link
The Sandisk Extreme 64GB is PERFECTLY FINE for use as a Windows to Go DriveEven with Bitlocker Software Encryption Enabled, the Sandisk Extreme is more usable when playing Counterstrike on Steam than a Patriot Supersonic Boost 32GB running Linux Mint WITHOUT ENCRYPTION
Actual Write Speeds tested on Sandisk with Bitlocker Enabled
A single 5,693,912 KB Drive Backup copied to Encrypted Sandisk @ 7.23MB/sec (787 seconds)
152 MP3's @ 607 MB copied to Sandisk @ 7.49 MB/sec (81 seconds)
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Actual Read Speeds from Encrypted Sandisk
A single file 5,693,912 KB copied to Samsung 840 Pro @ 154 MB/sec
152 MP3's / 607 MB copied to Samsung 840 Pro @ 107 MB/sec
The real problem is that you will have no idea whether you are getting the Fixed Disk version or the Removable Disk version of the Sandisk Extreme when you order from Amazon
Both versions come in EXACTLY the same packaging but only the Fixed Disk works with Windows to Go
Sandisk switched back to "removable disk" without providing any usable way to identify which is which but they will offer to swap disks with you if you received the wrong one and you complain enough
digiguy - Sunday, November 30, 2014 - link
It would be interestinsting to know how these flash drives (I have the Sandisk extreme and the Corsair GTX 256) compare to the Diskgo Sonic (e.g. 240GB version http://us.edgememory.com/index.php/usb-flash-drive... ), which claims speeds that seem the best in the market, but looks like the throttled Ventura Ultra and Visiontek... Or to the slower but Windows to go certified Ironkey W700 (very expensive).Bullwinkle J Moose - Sunday, November 30, 2014 - link
Buying a rebranded Mushkin drives should give you the same results or worse than a MushkinCheck the warranty for a clue to them buying parts that diddnt meet the specs from mushkin or just read the mushkin reviews at newegg like this one>
Claiming "Read: up to 445MB/s Write: up to 440MB/s" on a device that starts at around 120 MB/s (acceptable) but then will drop to 20MB/s when it warms up is unacceptable.
Telling me that it was designed to do that is insulting.
It will be snowing in hell before I buy a Mushkin product again.
An utterly disappointing experience. Stay away from this thing.
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Sandisk 64GB turned out to be the best buy/GB/quality/consistency of them all in my opinion
Bullwinkle J Moose - Sunday, November 30, 2014 - link
forget edge memoryjust "TRY" to find the warranty info from the warranty link at Tiger Direct
If you enjoy hurting yourself, The mushkin branded version at newegg is $45 cheaper anyway
Bullwinkle J Moose - Sunday, November 30, 2014 - link
Forget Mushkin as wellNewegg has changed the content of complaints that were on the site just a few months ago for damage control
Customers were complaining that their Mushkin drives were incredibly slow, registering 120MB/sec and lower when they received this response>
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Manufacturer Response:
Hello, Unhappy!
Is this USB being plugged into an USB 3.0 port? From our experience, these USB Drives will not function at listed speeds in an USB 2.0 port.
If you continue to have issues, please contact us at Support@Mushkin.com so we can address your concerns.
Thank you, and be well!
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Any Manufacturer that questions if you are using USB 2.0 to get the slow speeds of 120 MB/sec is not to be trusted with my money as USB 2.0 tops out around 45MB/sec
digiguy - Sunday, November 30, 2014 - link
So you are basically saying that Mushkin, Visiontek and Edge are basically the same product, like sold as different brands or very similar products made buy one manufacturer and sold by different companies. It could well be possible, especially as Anandtech has found that Mushkin and Visontek are comparable in terms of throttling. I was however not going to buy. I am already more than happy with my Sandisk Extreme and Corsair Voyager GTX 256 (the fastest flash drive on the market...)Chromatin1 - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
I'm not sure where you found the Sandisk 64 GB extreme for $28, as even the page link of the article come in at $68. The cheapest price I can see after a brief look on the internet is around $48. Maybe this was a black friday sale? A little pricey for me as a stocking stuffer.RyuDeshi - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
Yes, a couple stores had it for $28 for a few days before black Friday. Not sure why they are talking about it like that is the normal everyday price.McMillan24 - Friday, December 5, 2014 - link
Anyway, I once used a SanDisk flash drive from which i lost all data out of the blue. However, I was lucky to recover back each and every file with the help of a recovery software that i found in this tutorial video - http://youtu.be/FYFyWUWn5CgGadgetsRGrt4All - Saturday, December 6, 2014 - link
I bought the Sandisk Extreme Pro 128 a couple months back for around $100. No complaints about the cost for the storage size, and I like the metal casing and retractability. Performance is top-notch, and my disk speed testing agrees with the manufacturer's top speed estimates. Love how fast it copies huge files, which was my main reason for the purchase. I primarily work on OSX10.10 platforms, with W7, W8, and CentOS Linux virtual machines. So I would want to see Anandtech demonstrate the effects of different operating systems, i.e. W7, W8, OSX10.9, OSX10.10, Linux, and their respective best disk formats, on the performance metrics. Until that is broken out, I'm not sure how much value to derive from what was presented here.