Overall and Final Verdict

Well coming in I wasn’t really expecting much, both the previous WD and SanDisk portable SSD drives that I tested last year were quick and with this still being based on a SATA M.2 drive there is only so much headroom. But I was impressed with the performance bump that the Extreme Portable SSD showed. There is now no big gap between running this over the USB interface than the drive inside being plugged into M.2. That in itself is a big accomplishment, even if it is overshadowed a little by announcements this week of NVMe based portable drives. I did have some weird numbers when it came to write speed IOPS, but beyond that, it outperformed the other drives by a large margin.

The form factor is also a lot better than the last SanDisk portable drive that came into the office. The 510 was a good drive, especially if you need something to take a beating. But this new design is a lot easier to slide into your pocket or into the pocket of your laptop bag. The new design still seems to be as durable and the rubber coating is easier to hold on to than the WD design as well. The move to type-C is welcomed just to avoid those weird issues where it takes three tries to plug in the USB plug the correct way up. Including the adapter is also important as well, only I hope I don’t lose it this time. I wish they would design a way to keep it attached to the cord when not being used as well.

The big eyelet or hole in the drive is perfect for use with a carabiner and I think that is one thing they could improve. Including a carabiner would continue to push the “extreme” focus of the SanDisk line and allow you to hook it right to your laptop bag.

As for pricing, the 1TB model that I tested today has an MSRP of $299.99 but it is available both directly from SanDisk and from Amazon for $279.99. Compared to a spinning portable drive that isn’t cheap, but I was curious how it would compare to some of the other SSD based drives. The WD Portable that I reviewed is currently $249.99 for the 1TB model, the Samsung T5 is selling for $279.99 and the ADATA SD700 1TB is $219.99 but its speeds are a little lower. In other words, the Extreme Portable SSD 1TB seems to be priced about right when compared to the rest of the market. The 250GB model can be picked up for $94.02 if you need durable storage with SSD speeds at a lower price point, but I think most people who need the transfer speeds will also need the 1 and 1 TB capacities. If not a flash drive might do what you need it to do.

fv5recommended

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Author Bio
garfi3ld
Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org
Editor-in-chief
You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.

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