Conclusion

With its SandForce SF-2281 based Extreme SSD 120 GB, SanDisk doesn't reach the performance values they advertise in the specifications by a small margin. We measured the following peaks: 507 MByte were possible when writing and 523 MByte/s were reached reading sequentially. Still, on average the 120 GByte Extreme SSD is a quick drive, especially compared to the other 120 Gigabyte drives available on the market. At this point we have to mention that 240 GByte drives in general are faster than smaller 120 GByte or even 60 GByte drives which is because of the wear levelling algorithm that works more efficient the bigger the drive is. 

If we take a closer look at IOPS performance SanDisk promises sustained values of 83'000 IOPS for 4k writes and 23'000 IOPS for 4k reads. During our tests we measured about 53'000 IOPS regarding random writes. Concerning random reads you get a solid 22'000 IOPS. These values are significantly lower then the numbers advertised by the manufacturer.

The delivery of this drive is quite poor. We would really like to see a 2.5 inch to 3.5 inch adaptor to install the drive properly also in cases that do not have 2.5 drive bays. Furthermore many manufacturers put a key or a CD regarding a disk cloning software in the box. With the Extreme SSD from SanDisk there is nothing like this.

If you should be looking for a well performing 120 GByte SSD which comes with a Toggle NAND flash then the SanDisk Extreme SSD120 GByte will be the right choice for you.
The SanDisk Extreme SSD 120 GB gets four out of five stars.

Page 1 - Introduction / Specs / Delivery	Page 7 - Random read KByte/s
Page 2 - Impressions	Page 8 - Sequential write ops
Page 3 - How do we test?	Page 9 - Sequential read ops
Page 4 - Sequential write KByte/s	Page 10 - Random write ops
Page 5 - Sequential read KByte/s	Page 11 - Random read ops
Page 6 - Random write KByte/s	Page 12 - Conclusion

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Authors: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch