SanDisk Extreme Pro SSD Review – Great Speed & 10 Year Warranty

PCMARK 8 EXTENDED STORAGE WORKLOAD

CONSISTENCY TESTING

For our last benchmark, we have decided to use PCMark 8 Extended Storage Workload in order to determine steady state throughput of the SanDisk Extreme Pro.  This software is the longest in our battery of tests and takes just under 18 hours per SSD.  As this is a specialized component of PCMark 8 Professional, its final result is void of any colorful graphs or charts typical of the normal online results and deciphering the resulting excel file into an easily understood result takes several more hours.

There are 18 phases of testing throughout the entire run, 8 runs of the Degradation Phase, 5 runs of the Steady State Phase and 5 runs of the Recovery Phase.  In each phase, several performance tests are run of 10 different software programs; Adobe After Effects, Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop Heavy and Photoshop Light, Microsoft Excel, Powerproint and Word, as well as Battlefield 3 and World of Warcraft to cover the gaming element.

  • PRECONDITIONING -The entire SSD is filled twice sequentially with random data of a 128KB file size.  The second run accounts for overprovisioning that would have escaped the first;
  • DEGRADATION PHASE – The SSD is hit with random writes of between 4KB and 1MB for 10 minutes and then a single pass performance test is done of each application.  The cycle is repeated 8 times, and with each time, the duration of random writes increases by 5 minutes;
  • STEADY STATE PHASE – The drive is hit with random writes of between 4KB and 1MB for 45 minutes before each application is put through a performance test.  This process is repeated 5 times;
  • RECOVERY PHASE – The SSD is allowed to idle for 5 minutes before and between performance tests of all applications.  This is repeated 5 times which accounts for garbage collection; and
  • CLEANUP – The entire SSD is written with zero data at a write size of 128KB

SanDisk PCMark 8 Consistency Test

We did not include the results of every test in our graph as that would have delayed the report by a few weeks.  We have included the throughput from testing in Photoshop – Heavy, as well as all of the tests combined.  We decided to display the Photoshop result as it clearly depicts the fresh drive being pushed down into steady state, before being allowed to recover through garbage collection.  The results a typical user would normally see are the Recovery Phase results.

Examining the throughput of all tests combined, we can see that the SanDisk Extreme Pro exhibits great consistency throughout, and actually, its steady state performance is more akin to what we would normally see in an enterprise SSD as just above 200MB/s steady state throughput.

Total Throughput

Incidentally, did you wonder just how much was written to the SSD in order to complete these tests?  If you would believe it…an incredible 3.29TB.  We guess PCMark 8 completion, in itself, speaks to the quality of the SSD.

REPORT ANALYSIS AND FINAL THOUGHTS

Perhaps the most valuable things that have transpired as a result of the SATA 3 bottleneck are the ways that manufacturers have tried to show the value of their 6Gbps SSDs drive in and above that bottleneck of 550MB/s.  First we saw throughput reach its operational max, and then IOPS, followed then by some warranties bumping from 3 to 5 years, the inclusion of power failure protection in some drives, and most recently, performance consistency levels above what we might have seen in enterprise drives not so long ago.  Add to this the juggling of components that allowed pricing to drop to all time lows, forcing other SSD manufacturers to follow suit.

SanDisk Extreme Pro SSD Extra3.png

SanDisk has hit several of the right chords with their new Extreme Pro SSD family and perhaps the most shocking is their limited 10 year warranty which they just dare anyone else to match.  Most manufacturers won’t even touch five-year warranties, while others have back stepped from 5 to 3 with the advent of newer, more cost-effective NAND flash memory.  Such a warranty is the strongest way that a manufacturer has to demonstrate confidence in their own product and SanDisk absolutely annihilates the competition here.  Kudos on their decision to have a 10 year warranty and let’s hope others follow suit.

When looking at performance, there is no doubt that the Extreme Pro has bettered the performance that we saw in the Extreme II, and then some.  In the original Extreme II, we saw higher performance at smaller file sizes, but then we saw a drop in read performance at higher file size.  The Extreme pro seems to have pulled out all the stops, except for IOPS where we could not get our IOPS high to match that of listed specs.    This is not to say that it wouldn’t occur in another test environment and the battery of tests that we did in this report portray the Extreme pro as an upper tier SSD that would be an asset in the hands of gamers, PC enthusiasts and media professionals.

SanDisk Extreme Pro SSD Extra.png

Lastly, we have the consideration of price where the Extreme Pro has a decent MSRP, but retailers are taking advantage of this being a new release and increasing the price on their end, some as high as $100 for the 512GB capacity.  Even if we look at MSRP alone, it would be nice to see SanDisk bring prices down to the level we recently saw in the Crucial MX100, taking into account of course that the MX100 is not available at 1TB and only has a 3 year warranty.  It just seems that, as a NAND flash memory manufacturer, SanDisk can afford this tradeoff where they would realize the same revenue through increased sales at the lower value point.

FINAL THOUGHTS

So the question at the end of the day would have to be whether we would tell you that this drive is worth the extra money you will pay in comparison to the low-end SSDs that are popping up daily.  Truly, it appears that the price wars between the NAND flash manufacturers has begun.  Firstly, enough can’t be said about a companies confidence in their product through a 10 year warranty.  This in itself speaks leaps and bounds for SanDisk.

Next, SanDisk has created a top-tier (and potentially the best yet) SATA 3 SSD that has been tuned to what we might consider the best it can be; even its consistency wreaks of enterprise qualities.  Simply, any SSD that can survive PCMark 8 Consistency Testing deserves to be counted. Unlike the others, SanDisk is not trying to fit their NAND flash memory into that smaller and cheaper mold.  This SSD is built on quality where the components speak as highly as the warranty.  As far as we are concerned, watch the price for a bit and BUY IT!

Check Out SanDisk Extreme Pro Pricing at Amazon!blank

TSSDR Gold Seal Opt

Review Overview

SSD Build
SSD Performance
SSD Consistency
SSD Warranty
SSD Price

Incomparable 10 Yr Warranty!

With enterprise performance, great components and a 10 year warranty, SanDisk has created the SSD to beat in todays flash product market, The SanDisk Extreme Pro SSD has withstood some of the toughest we have thrown at any SSD to date, and come out the victor!

User Rating: 2.97 ( 27 votes)

13 comments

  1. blank

    IDE, PATA, SATA, SATA II and SATA III.
    Sand Force 2281, Jmicron Controller etc..
    That is enough.
    A consumer do not need a 10 years of warranty.
    Producers are making very little and unnecessary updates for their products.
    They change the NAND or controller… They change the warranty period…
    But SATA III is same. 550 read 520 write is same.
    Consumers want real renovations.
    The producers must focus on new speeds and forms.
    SATA is out of date by now.
    SATA IV or SATA Express will never occur.
    The new solution, the only solution is PCI-e.
    The best example is 2.5-inch Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVM Express) PCIe SSD.
    Surpassing 3000 MB.
    SATA became unnecessary after PCIe.

    Not only about SSD but also other devices.
    For example Flash Memory.
    Toshiba announced UHS-II Flash Cards. The fastest cards ever.
    That means UHS-I speed is out of date by now.
    But producers still focus on UHS-I cards.
    They still try to make up UHS-I. They announce UHS-I U3 cards!! Min. 30 MB guarantee.
    UHS-I and UHS-I U3 became unnecessary after UHS-II.

    Technology companies do not want to provide the best solutions to the consumers. They only think about marketing! and money! So They move very very slow about replacing old technologies. They only focus on unnecessary making up operations.

    • blank

      > SATA is out of date by now.
      SATA IV or SATA Express will never occur.
      The new solution, the only solution is PCI-e.

      sata express is based on pci-e and will happen anytime now.
      And i don’t see the issue if a drive has more warranty.

      • blank

        SATA has followed to twice the speed.
        1.5 Gb/s, 3Gb/s and 6Gb/s.
        People wait a 12Gb/s SATA with the name of SATA IV or SATA express.
        I know, sata express is based on pci-e. But not same.
        But pci-e will not twice the SATA III.
        It will not follow the twice speed process.

        And Please say me what will you do with 10 years of warranty?
        Are you going to be able to use this SATA III drive in 2024?
        Please say me that do you have a chance to replace the new SATA II HDD of your laptop with a 8 yer old IDE hard drive? Is an 8 year old IDE drive compatible to your new laptop?

        Will this SSD be compatible to the laptops or PCs of the nine or ten years later?

        This SSD or any SSD will be useless after 4 years maximum.

        I am sure and you can be sure that; technology is not updated for the consumer profits. It is upfdated only for the money. Proof? Intel always renews the Sockets with its new CPU models.

      • blank

        > SATA has followed to twice the speed.
        1.5 Gb/s, 3Gb/s and 6Gb/s.
        People wait a 12Gb/s SATA with the name of SATA IV or SATA express.
        I know, sata express is based on pci-e. But not same.
        But pci-e will not twice the SATA III.
        It will not follow the twice speed process.

        Regular sata is already scrapped and everything from now on will be based on pci-e. Sata 6gbit is the last version of sata that will use its own signaling.

        It doesnt matter what speed it follows. Sata express is already almost 4 times faster (pci-e 2.0 x4 2GB/s). I really dont see the probleme here.

        >And Please say me what will you do with 10 years of warranty?
        Are you going to be able to use this SATA III drive in 2024?
        Please
        say me that do you have a chance to replace the new SATA II HDD of your
        laptop with a 8 yer old IDE hard drive? Is an 8 year old IDE drive
        compatible to your new laptop?

        It doesnt matter how i will use it. Sandisk has its edge with 10 year warranty and i see nothing wrong here. Its always better to have more warranty than less

      • blank

        Hey Benjamin I am not an ignorant fanatic youngster.

        But you are a REAL consumer like Intel & Sandisk and others want.

        Producers can remain to sell a product to you for decades with little unnecessary updates.

        You are ready to be defrauded.

      • blank

        What ?!
        What you just said makes no sense whatsoever.

      • blank

        I said “producers only make up the old technologies”
        You say that “sata express is based on pci-e”.
        Is not this a make up for the SATA?
        It is BASED on pci-e.
        It is not new!

      • blank

        Who cares if its new or old… Its MUCH faster than previous version (4 times). If they used a shortcut (by using pci-e) instead of developing new signaling protocol (which is way more time consuming and brings no benefit over pci-e) i see no issue here. With pci-e, speed bumbs will be much quicker (because all they need to do is bump the number of lanes or just use the latest version of pci-e)

  2. blank
    MargaretRLavallee

    Another interesting spec lies in active power consumption of .13W for the 240GB capacity and .15W for the 480 and 960GB capacity. https://merky.de/805fcc

  3. blank

    So is this drive worth the extra $70 vs. a Samsumg 840 Evo with 20GB more storage? I am looking at the 480 and 500 GB models. Can spend either $225 (evo) or $295 (extreme pro)…

    • blank

      It depends on your needs entirely. Do you want a performance SSD or a typical user SSD? Do yoiu need the capacity more than performance?

      • blank

        I would say performance is #1 as a gamer. But I am wondering if the Sandisk is really worth that extra cash. Is the difference THAT noticeable? I will be coming from a 5400 RPM 1TB drive… More space is always better, but I don’t think 20GB will make or break me.

  4. blank

    final thoughts 1st para, bad english/grammar

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