SanDisk Extreme 500 Portable SSD 240GB review: Price
The price of flash memory is slowly dropping, but we’re still a long way from a time when solid-state storage is as cheap as traditional hard drives. The Extreme 500 costs around 30p per GB and is available in 120GB, 240GB and 480GB capacities. If you need a drive that’s properly waterproof, there’s the Extreme 510, but this is only available in a 480GB capacity for £199 (slightly over 40p per GB).
SanDisk Extreme 500 Portable SSD 240GB review: Design and features
SanDisk’s portable SSD is so light, it almost feels almost like a toy. Its diamond shape casing is unusual, as is the position of the USB port on one corner. That port itself is unusual because – rather than using a modern, reversible USB-C – Samsung has gone for an older microUSB 3.0 connector. Also see: Best NAS drives.
This is protected from the elements by a rubber cover and on the opposite side is a loop so you can attach it to a lanyard, your keys or even your camera.
It comes with SanDisk SecureAccess. This is easy to setup and allows you to encrypt files with 128-bit AES encryption. By default the drive is formatted with exFAT – this makes it compatible with most devices. Note, though, that it comes with only a standard USB cable, so it’s not easy to connect to a phone.
SanDisk Extreme 500 Portable SSD 240GB review: Performance
Performance is in line with our expectations, and only slightly behind its competitors. In CrystalDiskMark’s sequential read test, it managed just shy of 400MB/s, and then roughly half that in the read test. Only Adata’s SE730 is significantly quicker at writing. Also see: How to build a PC. The Extreme 500’s 4KB performance isn’t too bad either, writing at 3.7MB/s and reading at almost 20MB/s. Again, it was outperformed in the write test by the Adata, but that drive also costs a lot more per GB.
