Upgrade your laptop for better performance and extend its reliability by replacing your hard disk drive with the SanDisk Extreme SSD. You’ll enjoy faster boot-ups and open files compared to a 7200 RPM hard drive. The SanDisk Extreme SSD is backed by rigorous shock and vibration testing and a 3-year limited warranty. The SanDisk SSD features no moving parts, quiet operation, and low power consumption as compared to a 7200 RPM hard drive.
$ 369.89
[wpramareviews asin=”B006EKIQYM”]
I LOVE this drive. Cool. Fast, fast, fast.,
I saw this on Amazon’s “Today’s Deals” and at $119 for a 120GB SSD, I said, “Why not give it a try?”
I installed this SSD on a laptop with Windows 7.
Wow! this laptop is now really fast. Everything runs so much quicker. Windows Experience for the hard disk went from 5.9 to 7.7
I’ve never seen Windows load so fast before. Applications and data load significantly faster.
I was so impressed with the speed improvement, I then bought another SSD and installed it on my desktop computer using Windows XP3.
[July 25, 12 UPDATE: I just received this Raytek MT6 Non-contact MiniTemp Infrared Thermometer. The ambient temperature next to the case computer running XP3 was 77 degrees. The Sandisk SSD is only 82 degrees (no cooling fan). On a laptop, the coolest temperature I could measure on the back of the laptop running Windows 7 was 86 degrees – the laptop was on my wife’s lap for hours so a lot of the heat came from her. Opening the back cover of the laptop, the Sandisk SSD was only 93 degrees. This is in a room that’s 77 degrees.]
Using HD Tach,
The burst speed for the SSD: 4027MB/s.
Random access: 0.2ms
CPU Utilization: 2{b81fbfd19e1fca5890798868c0714c408bbd5ec471654b6f9630c0fffa6e7eb3}
Average speed: 270MB/s
The burst speed for a WD drive (WD1002FAEX) with 64MB of cache: 245MB/s
Random access: 12ms
CPU utilization: 1{b81fbfd19e1fca5890798868c0714c408bbd5ec471654b6f9630c0fffa6e7eb3}
Average speed: 113MB/s
Numbers and benchmarks aside, the overall computer responsiveness is dramatically better. Suspending the computer now takes just a few seconds and waking it up is also extremely fast.
[June 10, 2012 update: I’m now using Lightroom, Nik Dfine and Nik Sharpen which involves transferring >100MB files back and forth. There’s only a brief hesitation in-between each step.]
Cloning from a hard disk to the SSD using Macrium Reflect v5.0 Free Edition worked perfectly.
Out of simple curiosity, I installed XP3. XP3 installation took just 7 minutes. The 100+ Windows updates took only a few minutes.
After running the SSD for a few hours, the SSD is barely warm. I can remove the hard disk fan and make the computer even quieter.
My wife is a user. She doesn’t know or care about hardware or benchmarks. She does, however, makes unsolicited remarks from time to time how much better the laptop runs. The laptop used to drive her nuts since it was so slow. Now she’s happy.
We’re absolutely delighted with the SSDs. Buy it. You’ll love it.
These are the step-by-step instructions to clone your Windows 7 disk to the SSD:
1. Download and install Macrium Reflect v5.0 Free Edition.
2. Shut-down Windows
3. Unplug laptop (if plugged into electrical outlet)
4. Remove laptop battery
5. Install SSD (in my laptop, I just had to remove a panel in the back and plug in the SSD). Note: You’ll have both the original hard disk and the new blank SSD installed.
6. Put battery back into computer and plug laptop into an electrical outlet
7. Start Windows
8. Launch Macrium Reflect v5.0 Free Edition
9. Clone partitions from hard disk to the SSD (this works even if the SSD is smaller than the original hard disk). In my case, this took about an hour. Note: Cloning the hard disk to the SSD with Macrium is simply dragging the Windows partitions to the SSD. Partitions are automatically resized if necessary.
10. Shut-down Windows
11. Unplug laptop from electrical outlet
12. Remove hard disk from laptop and save it somewhere safe just in case you ever need a backup. Make sure you label the old hard disk.
13. Put SSD into original laptop hard disk bay
14. Plug battery in
15. Turn computer on
16. Computer will restart to complete software installation
17. You’re done.
I should point out that this is the first time I ever touched hardware in a laptop (complete newbie with laptops). The above may sound like a lot of work or complicated but I broke down the instructions step-by-step.
Important update: Windows 7 does not automatically recognize the drive as a SSD and you should disable the Prefetch feature. Update: Someone in the comments section wrote that running Windows Experience in Windows 7 will automatically disable prefetch.
I used the free TweakPrefetch utility for Windows to disable Prefetch. Google “TweakPrefetch Utility download” to find the URL (Amazon doesn’t allow URLs so I can’t give you the exact address but you’ll find it at Softpedia) and follow the instructions which involves clicking the SSD checkbox and rebooting.
[Update] My wife and I have been using these SSDs daily on our separate computers for the past two months and we’re still extremely happy with the greatly improved performance…
Read more
Was this review helpful to you?
|This drive can FLY,
My system basics:
Windows 7, 64bit
Dell Vostro 3550 about 6 months old.
Intel Core I5 (quad) 2.3ghz with turbo.
8GB dram
Sata 3 drive controller
Crucial M4 128GB SSD, Read 500MB/sec, write speed 200MB/sec (was originally WD 7200rpm 320GB)
My qualifications: Electronic Engineer/Project manager. PC owner for 25+ years.
Opening comments: I have owned pc’s for 25years. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY THE BEST BANG FOR THE BUCK UPGRADE YOU COULD EVER HOPE TO BUY!!!! IT IS EVEN BETTER THAN REPLACING A 2YR OLD COMPUTER OR LAPTOP AND OF COURSE CHEAPER!! Other benefits: windows is more stable. If you have a lot of programs open at the same time, the computer remains stable all day. Now, I rarely need to reboot.
I bought a Crucial M4 SSD (solid state drive) about a 2 month’s ago and was amazed at the speed. Can’t go back to mechanical hard-drives. I bought this one because it was spec’d faster than the M4 and I needed a back-up drive. This technology does not have a reliability track record for long term use as a computer drive. Once a week, I create clone drive copy as a back up. If the drive fails this clone can be popped in my laptop and I’m ready to go in 10 minutes. No restore needed except the few files I have added or changed.
Summary 1st: Both drives are excellent choices. (Sandisk Extreme and Crucial M4)
On my laptop, in every day use Sandisk extreme is slightly faster.
See posted photo’s for actual data.
a)According to “ASS SD” benchmark test. Crucial is much faster than this drive (Sandisk Extreme.)
b)According to “Benchmark” speed test: Sandisk Extreme is faster. SanDisk write speed blows away the Crucial M4.
Note: Electrical specs like statistics can be presented in a way that is deceptive.
Spec from SanDisk website for the Extreme (not in Amazon’s description)
Performance 120GB
Sequential Read (up to) 550 MB/s 550 MB/s 540 MB/s
Sequential Write (up to) 510 MB/s 520 MB/s 460 MB/s
I like this drive a lot. Great performance!! Definitely would recommend it to a friend.
I will update this review if there are any reliability problems.
Hope this helps you make an informed decision on what to buy.
Thanks to all those who have posted reviews on Amazon. They have been extremely helpful in making good purchase decisions on Amazon.
7-22-12 3month update: Drive has been performing flawlessly. No problems or issues. Love it’s speed and it’s quiet.
Was this review helpful to you?
|HOLY COW – don’t overlook this SSD!,
I’ll start by saying I’m not a techie, but I do my research and I understand computers fairly well, so understand that this review is coming from the perspective of an educated layman with just his personal experience (and what he’s read elsewhere) to go off.
And, before I start, let me give you my hardware specs first, just so you know: HP HDX18T laptop, Intel Core 2 Duo T9550 @ 2.66 GHz, 1080p HD res, 4gb ram (2 x 2DIMM), nvidia 130M card (does the job, but it’s my weakest link now, for sure!). Used to be a top-of-the-line system, but it’s about 3.5 yrs old now, and I haven’t really babied it at all, so the parts definitely have normal wear and tear.
Now, onto the review —
Performance: This SSD simply FLIES. My “disk data transfer” Windows Experience Score was 5.5 out of 7.9 before the upgrade (with a WD2500BEKT 250 gb hdd @ 7200 rpm). After installing the Sandisk Extreme 120 gb SSD, my score shot up to 7.7 out of 7.9!! That is a ridiculous improvement, and the real-life difference, it turns out, is EXTREMEly noticeable (see what I did there?). I didn’t precisely time the boot, shutdown, and application launch times before the upgrade, but with this drive, the boot and shutdown times are about halved, and the application launch time is basically instantaneous. Also, my computer is super quiet now very low fan speed, and almost no heat is being generated.
Price: I scooped this up for a mere $129.99 on one of amazon’s one-day price drops (for the past few weeks, it’s varied between $139-$149, so this was a nice deal). In fact, if you compare the cost of this SSD ($/Gb) to others, you’ll see this drive is far and away the best deal out there. Plus, this drive is Sata III (Sata 600) compatible, which is SIGNIFICANTLY faster than Sata II (Sata 300), assuming your computer can make use of Sata III, and it’s even cheaper than the same-sized Sata II drives! (Don’t worry: if your CPU can only handle Sata II, this SSD will still work, but just at the slower, Sata II speeds.)
Ease of installation: this is what put this drive over the edge for me in terms of customer satisfaction. Like I said above, I do my research, and from everything I read, I was a little concerned that this installation wouldn’t be super easy (cloning hard drives, moving the OS and programs and user files, transferring boot images, etc). Let me just tell you, this installation is EASY. Here’s what you do: transfer to another drive all of your data (pictures, music, videos, documents, and maybe any very large programs, especially if you use them infrequently). Now you should have just the OS and programs left on the main drive. If you have a 2 hard drive system (like I do), you disconnect the drive with all your data and, in its place, connect the Sandisk Extreme. Turn on the laptop and clone the main drive onto the Sandisk Extreme (I used the freeware Macrium Reflect to clone the drive). Turn off the laptop and disconnect the main drive, plug in the Sandisk Extreme where the main drive was just connected, and reconnect the other drive that has the data on it where the Sandisk Extreme was before. Assuming you cloned the drive correctly, your computer should boot right up without a problem. Windows 7 also recognizes this drive as a SSD, so it does all the tweaks you’d want it to do automatically.
Honestly, after using this drive, I won’t ever use a laptop without a SSD again. It’s that much of an improvement for that little of a cost.
I’ll update this review in a couple months to say how the SSD has held up, but my immediate reaction is that it’s the best upgrade I could have given my computer, and I’m completely satisfied with my choice.
Update (next day): just to be clear, a lot of the things I’m raving about for this SSD are also going to be true for other SSDs. The real take-away point is that this drive gives you all of the benefits of the top-of-the-line drives (like Intel) at a fraction of the price. Plus, Sandisk is no small fry in the flash memory game! So, realize that this drive is among the best available today, and it’s definitely the cheapest (at the time of writing this).
Update (4/11/12): just a hdd and ssd benchmark comparison I ran – PCMark7 with my 7200rpm hdd: Score = 1,948. With my ssd: Score = 3,017. Continue to love the drive’s performance, and heat generation has definitely gone down. My core temp doesn’t go above 45C now, and the ssd reads 43C — that’s a drastic improvement from my temps before which would be 65-70C (hot, I know!).
Was this review helpful to you?
|