Sandisk Extreme SSD

[Donka]

For those looking for information on this drive, i installed the Sandisk Extreme 240GB model last night and it works fine. My MacBook Pro is the late 2011 13.3 i5 model.
In prep i downloaded all the latest updates, did a repair permissions on my original drive then took a Time Machine backup. Next I rebooted using the repair partition and hooked up the Sandisk drive using a USB caddy. Partitioned the drive and then did a restore from my original mac drive to the Sandisk, all using disk utility. Swapped them over and started up. The initial start up with the Sandisk Extreme took longer than expected - around 30 seconds. Once running, I restarted and this time it took ~ 10 secs to fully boot up. Subsequent boots have remained the same so I think the initial boot was to do with the system recognising there was physically a new system drive in place.
My drive had an older firmware on it so I downloaded the latest R210 fw ISO from the Sandisk site and burned this to a blank cdr using disk utility. Booted the Mac with this and updated the drive to the latest firmware and confirmed after a reboot.
This drive offers very speedy performance, negotiates @ link 6gb speed with trim working just fine. Not a single issue so far and all apps are loading almost instantly - bigger apps such as iTunes, Photoshop & Lightroom are loading in a single bounce on the dock. Others don't even get a chance to bounce.

 

[parish]

Thanks for posting this. Dabs.com here in the UK are doing a cracking deal on the 120GB SanDisk SSD - only a little over £0.50/GB

EDIT: the one dabs are doing is only 3Gbps, but since my MBP has only got 1.5Gbps that's not a problem but won't be as good for those with 6Gbps MBPs

 

[danpass]

Nice work

I'm rather surprised it took this long for Sandisk to get involved with SSD drives

 

[Donka]

Thanks for posting this. Dabs.com here in the UK are doing a cracking deal on the 120GB SanDisk SSD - only a little over £0.50/GB

EDIT: the one dabs are doing is only 3Gbps, but since my MBP has only got 1.5Gbps that's not a problem but won't be as good for those with 6Gbps MBPs

Yip, that is the Ultra model. The Extreme model uses the sandforce controller paired with toggle mode NAND flash and a custom firmware. I believe the Ultra uses a lesser quality NAND as well as the slower interface.