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ATTO Disk Benchmark is perhaps one of the oldest benchmarks going and is definitely the main staple for manufacturer performance specifications. ATTO uses RAW or compressible data and, for our benchmarks, we use a set length of 256MB and test both the read and write performance of various transfer sizes ranging from 0.5 to 8192kb. Manufacturers prefer this method of testing as it deals with raw (compressible) data rather than random (includes incompressible data) which, although more realistic, results in lower performance results.
Listed specs for the Extreme Pro are 260MB/s read and 240MB/s write, both speeds of which have been surpassed in ATTO. It will be interesting to see how the device performs while transferring incompressible data as we might see in media files.
CRYSTAL DISK BENCHMARK VER. 3.0 X64
Crystal Disk Benchmark is used to measure read and write performance through sampling of highly compressible data (oFill/1Fill), or random data which is, for the most part, incompressible. Traditionally, LSI SandForce controlled SSDs did better with highly compressible data than that of incompressible data. Let’s take a look at the results, compressible on the left and incompressible on the right.
REPORT ANALYSIS AND FINAL THOUGHTS
In checking the price and user opinions on the SanDisk Extreme Pro 128GB Flash Drive, we discovered something that you don’t often see; its user reviews are all top-notch, every buyer awarding this drive with a 4 or 5 star rating. In fact, the only knock anyone seems to have is the fact that it is priced at around the $150 mark…and I guess that can be expected when purchasing a flash drive or any similar item. When you examine all that this drive offers, however, we might think that price is just a bit lower than what we would have expected.
Take it’s warranty for instance. Lifetime limited warranty for ANY flash device is just about impossible to find, and for SanDisk to place it on the Extreme Pro, they definitely have to have confidence in their product. From there, we also finally get a ‘user friendly’ way to secure our data with SanDisk SecureAccess and without the requirement to encrypt the entire drive. If you want to have complete 128-Bit AES encryption of your sensitive data, simply enter your password to open the Vault and drag and drop any files that need protection. If they don’t, the drive functions as any other would. Simply, you have regular storage space and secure folders within that area.
It is not often that we speak of any solid state device without highlighting speed. The SanDisk Extreme Pro USB 3.0 128GB Flash Drive is 60x faster than a USB 2.0 flash drive and capable of transferring media files at 260MB/s read and 240MB/s write. That says much for the caliber of this device as it means that only premium NAND flash memory was used, unlike a few others that have used asynchronous memory, dropping write performance significantly when transferring media files. The Extreme Pro was built for having your media on the go.
From a personal vantage point, I work a lot with sensitive files and this has become my favorite flash item as of late. In fact, our company has seen the purchase of several of these, based solely on the simplicity and value of the encryption software alone. Accounting for this, its lifetime warranty as well as capacity and the SanDisk Extreme Pro receives our Gold Seal.
Check Out SanDisk Extreme Pro Flash Drive Pricing at Amazon
Good one Les! Looks like a finally useful USB drive. I may get one.
Check Out the links added!
LoL “single piece of solid aluminum” it’s wrapped in foil.
Not quite, this aluminum shell cannot be damaged; we tried.
This is using the same controller as their budget line of ssds (sandisk ssd), right ?
Unfortunately, we cannot get inside the flash drive without destroying it…we have requested the answer…
Well, i was checking the older 64GB model and it seemed, they are using their SSD controller (one found in their entery level ssd) coupled with usb3 to sata bridge chip.
So unless they redesigned the controller to have usb3 aswell (which seems highly unlikely when looking at the random speeds) i think they are indeed using the same setup as their older ones.
Interesting flash drive , Does it have an LED activity light ?
Although SanDisk flash drives are interesting they have annoyingly been excluding LED activity indicator lights from them which I think is bad and makes their drives look like dull pieces of metal and plastic with a USB connector !.
I like the question at the start of the review about how long will these drives last because interestingly enough I still have my very first ever flash drive from 9 years ago, I left some data on it to see if I could access it in the future since the manufacturer promised it would retain data for 10 years …..fingers crossed for a few more months on the experiment…
Well, jedec states, that flash need to hold data for a minimum of 1 year, so … 🙂
Data is probobly still there, epecially if the drive was used afterwards 🙂
Yes, it is just above the ‘USB’ on the top…
Right now (June 8, 2014) Costco is selling this for under $100 and they have an open return policy. The picture on their site is incorrect, but it is the Extreme Pro 128gb and describes the aluminum body. The savings on this one item pays for the annual Costco membership. I took back a 32GB Sandisk to Costco that wasn’t working right and I had used it six months. Most places are still selling them for a bit under $150.
This drive does have an activity led and measures up to its specs. I am very happy to have purchased this from amazon for only $99. It definitely measures up to its specs.