SanDisk Ultra Plus SSD Review (256GB)

ATTO DISK BENCHMARK VER. 2.46

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 specifications for the Ultra Plus are 530MB/s read and 445MB/s write and ATTO did provide high transfer speeds just under.  It was also encouraging to see high SATA 3 speeds at the 4k level, however, the better drives we have tested show a gradual and consistent climb in transfer speeds.

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. In the Ultra Plus, we have provided the result with random data samples as both results were extremely similar.

The low 4k write result of Crystal DiskMark is very encouraging, however, we might have hoped for a score above 100MB/s (that elusive plateau) with nCache.  Other than that, these are favorable results.

AS SSD BENCHMARK VER 1.6

Up until recently, AS SSD was the only benchmark created specifically for SSD testing and it uses incompressible data.  AS SSD, for the most part, gives us the worst case scenario in SSD transfer speeds because of its use of incompressible data and many enthusiasts like to AS SSD for their needs. Transfer speeds are displayed on the left with IOPS results on the right.

AS SSD results are a bit lower than CDM and we get a first look at IOPS which are almost right on par with listed specs.  We thought we might throw in the AS SSD Copy Bench as it is a ‘true to life’ example of transfer speeds as we might typically see them.

The Copy Benchmark simply transfers an .ISO, Program and Game from one spot on the SSD to another and monitors the highest transfer speeds reached and time to complete the transfer.  These are excellent results where all three transfers were completed very quickly and reached SATA 3 speeds.