SanDisk Extreme SATA III 240 GB SSD Review

Inside The SanDisk Extreme

We found the screws hiding behind the rear sticker so no chance of cracking this baby open surreptitiously.

Four nice holes in the sticker show where the screws were removed and then the backplate came right off.

One open, the PCB holding the goodies came out as well without any screws or clips holding it in.

The first side of the PCB merely contains four flash chips which is means these are higher density and probably pretty speedy.

A closer inspection reveals SanDisk branded MLC flash 24nm synchronous Toggle Mode NAND Flash, each being 32GB in density for a total of 256GB on board. Good stuff.

Around the other side we find the remaining four flash chips as well as the trusty SandForce controller.

This is the part where we extoll the virtues of the SandForce SF-2281, being the only part of the drive that’s not SanDisk made. It’s a proven competitor, powering some of the fastest drives on the market. With its DuraClass technology, it takes care of drive life by employing complex wear-leveling algorithms, managing write amplification, and handling error correction. It also compresses and encrypts the data real-time. The compression is where it makes hay by dramatically increasing write performance. Bored yet? Let’s have a look at the test system and comparison drives before hitting the benchmarks.