By: Jonathan Kwan
July 12, 2013
In the car world, there are words or letters manufacturers append to standard model names to indicate something better. Honda has Type-R, Mercedes-Benz has AMG, BMW has M, Dodge has SRT, Chevrolet has SS; the list goes on. Actually, many marques share the similar trim designations as well; such as option packages named Touring or Technology. In the elementary school world, if you want to make something better, you would add terms like 'super', 'ultra', 'epic', 'hyper', 'plus', and 'extreme' to whatever you are trying to make. Appending numbers to the end will improve your credibility even further. So rather than naming your creation the Big Green Monster, you would call it the Big Green Monster Super Ultra Plus Epic Hyper Extreme Edition 9000 instead. Earlier this year, we have reviewed the SanDisk Ultra Plus 256GB solid state drive. With its compact size and competitive pricing, that SSD was, without question, a winner in our books. Recently, SanDisk's latest entry into the performance storage market landed at our doorstep here at APH Networks. Following their Grade 5-inspired naming scheme, the SanDisk Extreme II 240GB promises advanced performance that competes among the bestest in the market today. But how much credibility does its name represent? We quantified the results, and plotted them on the charts. Read on to find out what we have found!
Our review unit of the SanDisk Extreme II 240GB solid state drive arrived in a medium sized, UPS branded cardboard box. It seems everyone uses them nowadays, so this is definitely something we have gotten used to seeing, haha. Being one of the hundreds of packages that arrives here at APH Networks Calgary from California, USA every year, everything arrived in excellent condition for our review today. It took less than twenty four hours for it to land at our doorstep via the Saver service, so we really did not have to wait all that much. With the SSD safely in our hands, we took a knife, cracked open the package, and got straight to work.
Whoa... what is this? Inside the ordinary UPS package is certainly something out of the ordinary. Designed to look like a really big SanDisk Extreme II SSD, our evaluation sample did not come in a retail box. Instead, the company provided us a press kit, since we are one of the first media outlets to receive their latest flagship product. Obviously, we are not the first ones to review it, as we were quite bogged down in the last little while. From the photos I have seen, the retail packaging of the Extreme II is not a whole lot different than the SanDisk Ultra Plus 256GB. Its retail box features down-to-business approach is made possible by a background composed of several different shades of black and grey, an all-serious font highlight its model name at the top, and a bullet list of feature highlights right under. An image of the SSD itself can be found boldly across the middle. Occupying a big part of the bottom is SanDisk's logo that you simply cannot miss. The drive capacity is located near the upper right hand corner. Our specific model is the 240GB variant, in case you have missed it.
Before we move on, let's take a look at the SanDisk Extreme II 240GB solid state drive, as obtained from the manufacturer's website:
- Available capacities: 120 GB, 240 GB and 480 GB
- Dimensions: 2.75 x 3.96 x 0.28 in. (69.85mm x 100.5mm x 7.0 mm)
- Operating temperature: 32ºF to 158ºF (0ºC to 70 ºC)
- Storage temperature: -67ºF to 185ºF (-55ºC to 85ºC)
- Interface: SATA Revision 3.0 (6 Gbit/s)
- Shock: Resistant up to 1500 G @ 0.5 m/sec
- Vibration (Operating/Non-operating) : 5 gRMS, 10-2000 HZ / 4.9 gRMS, 7-800 HZ
- Power Consumption (active): 0.22w
- Support: Five-year limited warranty in the US; five-year warranty elsewhere
- Performance: Seq. Read (up to) 550 MB/s, Seq. Write (up to) 510 MB/s, Rnd. Read (up to) 95K IOPS, Rnd. Write (up to) 78K IOPS
- MTBF: 2.0M hours
Since our review unit came in a press package, its out of the box contents differ from what you will get in a retail package. That said, rest be assured the performance of the SSD itself will still be the same, as it is equivalent to a production unit. We got a SanDisk Extreme II 240GB SSD, Cruzer Fit 4GB USB flash drive containing a reviewer's guide and pictures, as well as a printed reviewer's guide. What you can expect when you pick one up at the store depends on the variant you purchase. Like some Kingston SSDs we have reviewed in the past, if you are buying a desktop kit, it will come with a 2.5" to 3.5" bracket, SATA cable, and installation screws. If you are buying a laptop kit, it will come with a 7mm to 9.5mm shim, just like what we have seen packaged with the SanDisk Ultra Plus 256GB we have reviewed back in February.
Page Index
1. Introduction and Specifications
2. A Closer Look, Installation, Test System
3. Benchmark: AIDA64 Disk Benchmark
4. Benchmark: ATTO Disk Benchmark
5. Benchmark: Crystal Disk Mark 3.0
6. Benchmark: HD Tach 3.0.1.0
7. Benchmark: HD Tune Pro 4.60
8. Benchmark: PassMark PerformanceTest 7.0
9. Benchmark: PCMark Vantage
10. Conclusion
