Final Words & Conclusion
Final Words & Conclusion
At roughly 90 EURO for 240GB these units are cheaper opposed to Samsung's T1 and recently released T3. That argument is relative though as the Extreme 500 definitely performs a notch slower. But in the grand overview of things, we are talking about something tied to a USB 3.0 port with writes in the 300 MB/sec range. The overall performance is as expected and advertised, at the maximum levels the SSD can handle if it has the right circumstances. You'll be hovering at roughly 300 to 350 MB/sec for writes over USB 3.0 on average and well, there's nothing wrong with that. That does work out best for bigger linear and sequential written files. once you have hundreds of small block-sized files, the performance will obviously take a hit. Next to that USB 3.0 obviously adds a little latency so in that sense it is not fair to compare the product with an SSD like we do in our charts. But technology is evolving so darn fast that we are getting close to SATA3 performance. So you will see great sustained and linear performance, while small size IOPS performance being lower.
Key to this release are three things; the aesthetics, an added security level you can use and of course performance. And on all three key factors the Extreme 500 manages to do a sufficient job. I say sufficient as we also have 10 Gbps USB 3.1 (also labeled as USB 3.1 Gen 2) these days, allowing for even faster devices. The upcoming Extreme 700 for example we lookout to very much. The Extreme 500 unit is simply ultra thin, light-weight and very easy to carry around. Armed with its dark design looks it offers the right aesthetics while easy to carry around. The weight as well, I mean 79 grams. And the best thing yet, you don't need to power is externally. Simply plug it into a USB 3.0 connector with preferably Windows 8.1 / 10 and it will feed of the host controller as incredible speeds.
For those that need a layer of protection, you can secure the unit with a 128-bit encryption. Where you need fast read performance, the unit will do its job just fine. Copying many smaller MP3 files resulted at 200~250MB/sec, which we find a hint low for a USB 3.0 device like this. Once you move on-wards to big sized files and content speed will picks up real fast. Copying an ISO for example would get you great write speed at roughly 350 MB/sec (depending on the source). When we fire off synthetic tests at the storage unit we see it max out at roughly anywhere from to 300 to 450 MB/sec if you give it the perfect conditions. That is just really nice. Each and every test we performed confirms these findings.
Concluding
The SanDisk Extreme 500 matches its advertised read speed and writes, but as stated it will be slower with small write files, however small file I/O operations in terms of IOPS for a USB 3.0 unit overall remains normal to good. Pricing wise you are looking at 120 GB - 75 EUR, 240 GB - 90 EUR and 480 GB costs 160 EUR. Keep in mind if you can’t find a USB 3.0 port, it will work just fine at USB 2.0 port with speeds 10x slower, but still in the 30 MB/sec range. The Extreme 500 series will be fast device for what it needs to be, easy to carry around and you get a 3 year warranty. The 240GB model as tested today will sell for roughly 90 EUR, we think that is a fair amount of money and cheaper opposed to what Samsung offers with the T1 series. We had no problems whatsoever with it and it is just a very handy and easy to carry around portable storage unit. As such we can highly recommend.
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