Computex 2015 has officially kicked off, and Sandisk is keen to show off the multitude of SSD’s they have slated for release later this year. This includes a wide variety of desktop SSD’s, but one of the most interesting set of products Sandisk is going to release is the new portable SSD line they have named the Extreme 900 series. These new, fast Sandisk SSDs promise both the incredible speed of SSD’s, and the massive storage that portable drives have offered in more traditional formats up till now.
Staggeringly fast Sandisk SSD Speed, Awesome size!
While the idea of putting an SSD into an external enclosure and using it as a portable drive has been around for quite some time, up until now there have been two big drawback that you would face: Speed limitations (due to the slow nature of USB 2 and 3.0 ) and/or size constraints (due to only being able to get up to 1 TB 2.5″ drives). With the Extreme 900 series from Sandisk, both of those problems have been solved. First, the speed of USB 3.1 is no longer a limiting factor for SSD performance, due to the fact that USB 3.1 is a 10 GB/s connection. Secondly, somehow Sandisk somehow managed to stuff into an external drive enclosure 2 TB of SSD storage! This is quite the feat, and makes the drive a very good option for an external drive. The performance of the 2 TB SSD is also nigh unheard of in the external drive market until now- with sequential reads of up to 850 MB/s, it is nearly as fast as some PCIE based SSD solutions out there.
Pricing and Availibility
At launch, the 2 TB version of the Extreme 900 SSD is going to cost approximately $999.99, but this will vary upon region and any sales that may occur. There are also lesser capacity versions of the Extreme 900 SSD, which is also available in 480 GB and 960 GB versions. These will cost approximately $399.99 and $599.99 respectively, and will offer similar performance – albeit with less storage capacity.
Conclusion
These fast Sandisk SSDs are quite the engineering feat, and they are in fact great performers. For the price tag, one may be better off just buying a number of smaller capacity portable SSD’s instead, but if you want the ultimate performance and capacity in an external drive these are the only way to go. What do you think? Are these drives the way to go? Or are they way too expensive? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
