SanDisk Ultra II (240GB) SSD Review
by Kristian Vättö on September 16, 2014 2:00 PM ESTFinal Words
Samsung set the bar for TLC SSDs extremely high with the SSD 840 and further raised it with the SSD 840 EVO. Since Samsung set the base level of what to expect from TLC, now every TLC drive will be put directly against Samsung's offerings, and what Samsung taught us is that a TLC SSD does not have to be inferior to an MLC drive. Coming up with something better than Samsung is a massive challenge because Samsung has more control over what they do than anyone else thanks to vertical integration.
If there is one company that has the resources to take on Samsung, that is SanDisk. Despite the pressure, the Ultra II meets the high expectations Samsung set for TLC SSDs. Saying that the Ultra II is faster than the 840 EVO would not be accurate since the two trade blows in our benchmarks, but the truth is that the Ultra II is a tough competitor to the 840 EVO. The same goes for the MX100 – the Ultra II goes head to head with it, and some benchmarks are in favor of the Ultra II while the MX100 excels in others.
There are only two minor shortcomings that I see in the Ultra II. The first one is peak performance, which is not on par with the MX100 and 840 EVO. For very light workloads (web browsing, email, Office, etc.) that is not a concern, but users with heavier workloads (though not heavy workloads, just something more than basic web browsing and email; e.g. gaming and photo editing) may get slightly better performance with the MX100 or 840 EVO.
The other is the lack of hardware encryption. Both the MX100 and 840 EVO support TCG Opal 2.0 and eDrive encryption, so the fact that the Ultra II does not have any form of encryption support cannot go without a mention. Whether that is valuable is totally up to you – eDrive has fairly strict software and hardware limitations and thus is not important for the majority of potential buyers, but if you plan on utilizing encryption now or sometime in the future it is better to go with a drive that has the proper hardware support.
| NewEgg Price Comparison (9/15/2014) | ||||
| 120/128GB | 240/256GB | 480/512GB | 960GB/1TB | |
| SanDisk Ultra II | $80 | $110 | $220 | $430 |
| SanDisk Extreme Pro | - | $190 | $370 | $590 |
| SanDisk Extreme II | $75 | $150 | $480 | - |
| Crucial MX100 | $75 | $112 | $210 | - |
| Crucial M550 | $90 | $155 | $280 | $470 |
| Samsung SSD 850 Pro | $130 | $210 | $400 | $700 |
| Samsung SSD 840 EVO | $90 | $150 | $250 | $460 |
| OCZ ARC 100 | $75 | $120 | $240 | - |
| Plextor M6S | $80 | $130 | $280 | - |
| Intel SSD 530 | $85 | $140 | $250 | - |
It is clear that SanDisk is going after the MX100 in pricing. The prices are within $10 of each other and due to normal price fluctuations the two will likely switch places on a regular basis. I am inclined to say that the MX100 is still a better buy because not only do you get hardware encryption, you also get higher usable capacities since the MX100 features less over-provisioning compared to the Ultra II (7% vs 13%), so technically the price per gigabyte is lower. Of course, even a small drop in the Ultra II's prices will render the difference negligible at which point it boils down to whether you value SanDisk's SSD Dashboard over the MX100's hardware encryption.
The SanDisk 960GB model, however, is an obvious case because the MX100 tops out at 512GB, so the Ultra II is the best available option (unless you need hardware encryption in which case it is worth it to spend a bit more on the 840 EVO).
All in all, it seems that SanDisk is finally becoming more aggressive on the retail frontier. SanDisk has always been a big name among the OEMs, but I have felt that their retail drives have been a bit like second class citizens. I mean, the Ultra Plus and Extreme II were both good SSDs, but SanDisk never pushed them to the full potential that the drives could have had in the market. But I see a change happening.
The goal of the Extreme Pro was to be the fastest client SATA drive on the market, and it succeeded in that (before the 850 Pro came out, although the two are very close), plus the pricing was fair. With the Ultra II, SanDisk finally has a value drive that is competitive in both price and performance. I am glad that SanDisk is showing more commitment to the retail space because if there is one company that can challenge Samsung and Micron in all aspects, that is SanDisk.
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hojnikb - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
Some people with 840 basic are also reporting slow read..CrazyElf - Tuesday, September 16, 2014 - link
Factoring in the power loss protection and the fact that you get MLC, albeit at 16nm, I'd say that the MX100 represents a superior drive to this SSD. Oh, and the Ultra II does not support encryption.Arguably none of these shortcomings would be a problem for a consumer based drive for the average user, but this drive brings no real advantages over the MX100 in terms of pricing, performance, etc, and several drawbacks.
sweeper765 - Tuesday, September 16, 2014 - link
I wouldn't rush into buying a TLC based drive right now, seeing the problems 840 EVO series is having.There are hundreds of users reporting heavy read speed degradation of old written data, reaching only 50mb/s or even 2-3 mb/s in the most extreme cases. Might be a firmware bug but also could be a TLC issue. Who knows?
http://www.overclock.net/t/1507897/samsung-840-evo...
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=...
NA1NSXR - Tuesday, September 16, 2014 - link
So basically a wash, or even arguably a slight loss against 840 EVO, with 850 EVO on the horizon. I don't know if I would've personally given it a "Recommended by Anandtech".Kristian Vättö - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
The 840 EVO is more expensive and not just marginally. While the 850 EVO is coming and may very well be the best value drive when it does, at this point it is just another product in the pipeline. Making recommendations based on a future product that may or may not be faster wouldn't be far in my opinion.Gigaplex - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
The only reason I'd consider a TLC drive over an MLC drive is if it was significantly cheaper than competing MLC drives. It's no cheaper than MX100 at 512GB and below, and not that much cheaper than M550 at 1TB. At 50% higher bit density per cell, I was hoping for ballpark 33% cost reduction.hojnikb - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
Sadly, it doesn't work like that. Even though it has TLC, most consumers won't care. Sandisk obviously positioned the drive in a price bracked, similar to competition.rtho782 - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
In most of these reviews I see complaints about lack of encryption support.Why would I, as a home user, want to encrypt my drive? Does it not require additional software and/or motherboard support and mean I can't move the drive to another PC?
I know businesses like to encrypt their laptops, but I don't understand how encryption would benefit me.
jabber - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
Unless you really need it for business/legal needs then encryption is a liability in terms of you screw up your drive and then you want to pull any data off it. Certainly never encrypt a drive you use for testing/tweaking/overclocking a PC with thats asking for trouble. If you have a porn collection you want to hide then simply use encrypted file containers. Much safer than full disk for the average Joe. Even those that need encryption by law often don't actually have data worth looking at but it's there to save embarrassment. In 99.9% of cases encryption is only needed to stop the guy that found or stole your laptop looking at what's on there for 2-3 mins before a dodgy copy of Windows 7 or Linux is slapped over the top and the laptop is sold on.Kristian Vättö - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
Our readership is much more than just home users. Many IT managers come to AnandTech to aid their hardware buying decisions, so we want to cater more than just the typical enthusiast needs. Besides, hardware encryption is still a feature after all -- whether you need is up to you like I mentioned in the review. Since some drives in the same price segment have it and others don't, I think it is something that should be noted because having it is better than not having it in any case, even if you don't use as you never know if your needs change.