When SanDisk announced the
arrival of its Ultra Plus solid-state drive
(SSD) at CES two weeks ago, the
company made no bones about whom it was targeting: the consumer retrofit
market. In other words, this SSD was made specifically to replace that old hard
drive in your laptop or desktop.
SanDisk
Ultra Plus SSD
Right off the bat I liked
two things about this drive: It's extremely light (it only weighs 1.37 oz.) and
it's cheap -- as in very inexpensive. The Ultra Plus comes in 64GB, 128GB and
256GB capacities. On SanDisk's site, they sell
for $75, $110 and $210, respectively. The 256GB Ultra Plus -- which is the one
I tested for this review -- was selling for $170 on Thursday on Amazon,
although the price as of today is $216.
As I've said in past reviews, there is no
single upgrade that will give you a bigger bang for the buck than an SSD, and
it's all the better when it's an inexpensive one.
The Ultra Plus is a 2.5-in
drive that uses multi-level cell (MLC) NAND
flash and a SATA 3.0, 6Gbps drive interface. If you don't have the very latest
laptop or desktop model, you are likely still using a SATA 2.0, 3Gbps drive
interface, so the SSD won't perform quite as well for some applications. (The Apple MacBook Pro I tested
the drive on has the latest SATA drive dock; more information about my test
machine is in the next section.)
When SanDisk announced the
Ultra Plus, the company also announced an upgrade to its NAND flash density: it
went from 24-nanometer (nm) lithography to 19nm with the drive, which may
account for the low price. The smaller the technology used for the
semiconductor, the fewer chips are needed to build a drive.
The Ultra Plus sips power,
using just 0.12 watts when active.
Performance
testing
SanDisk's specification sheet (PDF)
states that the Ultra Plus has sequential read speeds of up to 530MB/s and sequential
write speeds of up to 445MB/s. Top random read speed clocks in at up to 82,000
I/Os per second (IOPS) and random write speed maxes out at 39,000 IOPS. As
always, those speeds vary greatly depending on the system and apps that are
being used.
For the benchmark tests, I
used an Apple MacBook Pro running OS X Mountain Lion, with 4GB of RAM and a
2.5GHz Intel Core i5 processor. To
measure data read/write performance, I used Blackmagic Disk Speed Test
benchmark software.
The Ultra Plus SSD displayed
blazing fast read/write performance -- among the fastest speeds I've seen on a
consumer SSD. For reads, the SSD clocked in with 433MB/s; for writes, the drive
reached 339MB/s., not as fast as SanDisk's spec sheet promised but still very
impressive.
With the Ultra Plus
installed, my MacBook Pro booted in just 14 seconds, which isn't bad.
(Interestingly, the time it took to shut down was a bit surprising. While, in
my experience, SSDs typically shut down in under 10 seconds, my laptop took a
whopping 24 seconds to shut down with the Ultra Plus installed. )
SSD and HDD performance test results
|
SanDisk Ultra Plus SSD
|
Intel 520 Series SSD
|
Western Digital WD Black
HDD
|
Capacity
|
256GB
|
240GB
|
500GB
|
Retail price (approx.)
|
$210
|
$245
|
$64
|
Boot time
|
14 sec.
|
9 sec.
|
21 sec.
|
Max. read speed (4K
blocks)
|
433MB/sec.
|
456MB/sec.
|
122MB/sec.
|
Max. write speed
|
339MB/sec.
|
241MB/sec.
|
119MB/sec.
|
Read/write
speeds tested using Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. Higher numbers are better.
How does that performance
compare? Last year, I tested Intel's fastest consumer drive, the 520 Series SSD. The Intel
520 Series clocked in with 456MB/s read and 241MB/s write speeds. That SSD also
booted in nine seconds.
However, while the Intel 520
Series is faster than the Ultra Plus, you'll also pay a bit more. For example,
prices for the 240GB model start at $245, as compared
to the 256GB Ultra Plus that can be found at $170.
I also compared the drive
with what would typically come in a laptop: a hard drive. I tested the same
MacBook Pro with a Western Digital WD Black 500GB drive, and saw maximum speeds
of 122MB/s for reads and 119MB/s for writes. Using the hard drive, the system
booted in 21 seconds, nearly double that of the Ultra Plus.
Of course, a hard drive is
also a lot easier on your wallet. The WD Black 500GB drive retailsfor just $64.
Bottom
line
Overall, I was impressed
with the SanDisk Ultra Plus SSD. The boot times were excellent, as were the
data transfer speeds. The shutdown time was a bit disappointing, but nothing
that would dissuade me from purchasing this affordable drive.
Moving your data
While
SanDisk sells an SSD conversion kit for $35,
which includes a USB 3.0 to SATA 3.0 cable and some installation software, I
recommend a different route when it comes to moving your data from your old
disk to the new.
StarTech's
Portable eSATA USB to SATA Standalone
HDD Hard Drive Duplicator Dock HDD makes drive duplication a fast,
no-brainer process; it's all hardware based. You plug your old drive into one
end of a SATA dock and the new SSD into the other end and hit
"start." That's it. There's no software, no muss and no fuss. The
device sells for $69.
You can
also duplicate your drive by using the SanDisk conversion kit to move data via
the USB 3.0 port, but it's far slower than going the StarTech route. [ComputerWorld]
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