SanDisk Extreme 120GB SSD Review – Performance at a bargain price

Final thoughts and the conclusion

User experience

A modern operating system such as Windows 7 rarely does one thing at time; it processes hundreds of threads at once. Just take a look at the processes and services that are running in task manager for an idea of how much is going on, even with the PC idling at the desktop. When you start running applications on top of this, the workload increases in line with the number and type of applications you are running. It’s also fair to say that many of these processes are already loaded into system RAM, but many are also loaded into and unloaded from RAM from the system drive as and when they are required.

The fact of the matter is this. If you are running a mainstream or high end modern PC with a powerful CPU and graphics card, and are still running a traditional HDD as a system drive, regardless of how fast that HDD is, it is still bogging the system down substantially. It has long since passed the stage where one can meaningfully debate if an SSD is really faster than a traditional HDD. The fact is they are, and not just by a little bit: they are much faster.

If we look at the 4 basic requirements for a really fast SSD, they are as follows.

• Small file threaded performance needs to be high.
• Small random file performance needs to be high.
• Sequential read and write speeds needs to be high.
• Fast access times. 

The SanDisk Extreme 120GB SSD has all of the above attributes, and feels as snappy as any other SSD I have tested this year.

Stability

I have only had the SanDisk Extreme SSD for a few days, so it’s not possible to comment on the drive’s long term reliability. But what I can tell you now is that during the testing period, the SanDisk Extreme has been 100% stable, with not a single issue to report.

The SanDisk Extreme is as “plug n play” as it gets. There are no special tweaks needed other than simply making sure that AHCI SATA mode is enabled in the system UEFI (BIOS) and installing the latest Intel RST SATA drivers if you want to get the best performance and compatibility out of this SSD.

Long term testing on the SanDisk Extreme begins now, and I will report back if I should encounter any reliability issues with the SSD.

Conclusion:

Let us summarise the most important positive and negative points below:

Positive:

• Silky smooth operation as a system drive.
• Excellent sequential reading performance.
• Very good sequential writing performance.
• Outstanding 4K random I/O performance at high queue depths.
• SATA 6Gbps support.
• TRIM support under Windows 7.
• Fast access times.
• Excellent price.
• Completely silent operation.
• Fast operating system start-up and shutdown times.
• 3 years warranty.

Negative:

• Including a 3.5 inch to 2.5 inch drive converter bracket, would have been a nice addition.

To sum up, this is what I would say:

Throughout this review, the SanDisk Extreme has gone head to head with the best and fastest SATA SSDs currently available. The SanDisk isn’t the fastest SSD in this article, however, it is the fastest 120GB SSD I have tested, and with very aggressive pricing, it is most certainly the cheapest SSD I have tested.

It’s been refreshing to be able to test an SSD at a price point that most mainstream users will be able to afford. As mentioned above, the 120GB SanDisk Extreme isn’t the fastest SSD, but it has competed extremely well in these tests, even when up against SSDs that cost up to five times more than the SanDisk Extreme 120GB SSD.

I’m very impressed.

Price

As I write this article, I found the SanDisk Extreme 120GB SSD available for £84.95 including VAT, which makes the 120GB SanDisk Extreme an absolute bargain.

The prices in Euro and US Dollar are derived from the current UK pound to Euro/US Dollar exchange rate.

The parting sentence is

“The SanDisk Extreme 120GB is an excellent performer, and with very aggressive pricing it’s an absolute bargain”.

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