Editor Note: After this article was published we learned that TRIM was not working on our test system at the time the Extreme 240GB was tested. A follow up article has been published with accurate benchmarks. Please read it here.

SanDisk Extreme 240GB SSD

Here we get our first look at the new SanDisk Extreme. There isn't a lot of info on the front of the drive other than the SanDisk logo.

The back of the drive has a wealth of information on it. Our sample drive was manufactured just 19 days before our sample arrived. The model number, SDSSDX-240G-G25 and serial number are both listed here. The serial number shown ends in 2349 so it is a safe bet that SanDisk is pumping these drives out at a fast pace.

The standard mounting points are on the side of the drive. This is a 9mm height drive so it will fit in most notebooks without issue. There are a growing number of ultrabooks that call for a 7mm height and this won't fit in this small but growing market.

The SATA power and data ports are offset to the left side as they should be.

Finally the moment we've been waiting for, 24nm goodness. The SanDisk Extreme uses the LSI SandForce SF-2281 flash storage processor. This is a term we are hearing pretty often these days instead of controller.

The Extreme uses eight SanDisk branded 24nm Toggle Mode flash chips, four on each side.

We suspect the 480GB model will populate all 16 flash slots. Till that arrives the high density 24nm chips will give us something to analyze.

The PCB is a SanDisk design and it looks a little different when compared to some of the other designs on the market. Most of the small surface mount components are located on one side of the PCB.