SanDisk Extreme PRO 480GB SSD Review

[section_title title=”Conclusion”]Conclusion

So the first ever SanDisk product featured at Play3r has been on the test bench, has been benched and it’s time for my final thoughts.  What a more apt product to feature than their premier SSD, the Extreme PRO and with a capacity of 480GB, it should surely please those who require blazing fast speed with plenty of capacity but the question begs, does the SanDisk Extreme PRO 480GB dominate or is it “another” SSD touting high performance and failing it’s duty?  Let’s find out…

Starting out with the main reason an SSD is more favoured over traditional mechanical HDDs, the performance, the SanDisk Extreme PRO certainly delivers and does it with affluent style.  Sequential read/write speeds were among some of the highest we have recorded so far and in ATTO, the Extreme PRO managed to top the charts in terms of write speeds (at time of this review).  That is an impressive achievement putting more expensive drives out of their misery; SanDisk’s passion for storage technology really pays off in the end for them this time round.

In two new additions to our storage testing methods (PC Mark 7 & a 4.7GB file transfer), the SanDisk Extreme PRO 480GB SSD out-performed the rest on test and in the 4.7GB file transfer, it totally decimated the Samsung 840 EVO; something some people might not have been expecting.  All in all, SanDisk have gone with a more consistent method of performance which should last for years to come with the nCache PRO technology that this drive implements.  It is worth nothing that the SATA3 interface is a limitation with new SSD technology and SanDisk with their equipped Marvell controller and components at hand have done exceedingly well this time round.

Performance isn’t the only great aspect about the SanDisk Extreme PRO 480GB SSD as the general look and feel is of a good quality; it might not be the most stylish drive on the market but it does look good, it has to be said.  The contrast of red and black is a nice mixture and colour compatible with ASUS ROG, MSI GAMING and even other red branded motherboards; red seems to be the dominant colour of choice for components currently and that just happens to be SanDisk’s colour of choice too!  The drive is made of full plastic and although there are no “metal” touches to be found like on drives such as the Samsung’s, it still feels good and overall, for a 7mm drive, it looks and feels as sweet as it is going to get.

Now of course another important factor is of course going to be how much this drive costs and coming in at £217.26 (at time of review), there are two sides to this coin that needs to be pointed out.  In terms of £/GB, you get roughly £0.45 per GB which isn’t the most cost effective drive in terms of pricing on the market but then you have a few variables that need to be considered.  The first is the whopping 10 year warranty which effectively destroys other brands and it was only until the Samsung 850 PRO that Samsung even considered offering such a warranty.  Secondly the drive is consistently one of the top performers in the graphs, even sitting at the top easily in some which begs the question, is £0.45 per GB a huge price to pay here?  Not in my book as you do get a value element and if you decided to go for the 960GB version, you get £0.39 per GB; this is in addition to the 240GB version which offers around £0.48 per GB.

Overall, the SanDisk delivers very consistently and with the nCache PRO driving the performance, this drive should have reduced degradation for many years to come and although the pricing isn’t as aggressive as some SSDs currently on the market, the best and top performing ones rarely do; well not at a cost of using cheaper components which compromises reliability.  Not SanDisk, their Extreme PRO 480GB SSD is my personal favourite offering a large capacity with the performance, reliability and peace of mind that money sometimes can’t buy; with SanDisk you actually can!

To sum it up, the SanDisk Extreme PRO 480GB SSD is a fantastic offering and with their top lineage in the NAND market, their offering today has impressed me so much that I am awarding it with our gold award, performance and of course editor’s choice; great job SanDisk!

A huge thanks to SanDisk for sending the Extreme PRO 480GB SSD in for review and I look forward to seeing more in the near future.