TEST
YOUR USB

SanDisk SDCZ80-016G

Extreme USB 3.0 16GB

Review

Model SDCZ80-016G-X46 Released Jun '12 - Specified read/write speeds 190/55 MB/s

Packaging, Dimensions, Build Quality, CrystalDiskMark Speed Test, ATTO Benchmark, AS SSD, Conclusion

Packaging & Contents Dimensions & Weight Build Quality CrystalDiskMark Benchmark Speed Test ATTO Benchmark Speed Test AS-SSD Benchmark Speed Test Conclusion

Packaging & Contents

The SanDisk Extreme usb3 ships in a small cardboard box. There are claimed maximum read/write speeds of 190/55 MB/s printed near the top of the box. SanDisk are also offering 2GB of free cloud storage. On the back of the box there is a lifetime warranty stamp and there are instructions on how to download SanDisks security encryption package. The serial number of the drive on test is SDCZ80-016G-X46.

SanDisk Extreme USB 30 16GB Box Front
SanDisk Extreme USB 30 16GB Box Back

Dimensions & Weight

The SanDisk Extreme measures 7.1cm long, 2.1cm wide and 1.1cm high. This drive is pretty much middle of the road in terms of dimensions and volume but due to its width it still might obstruct adjacent ports on a computer. You might need to get an extension cable if you have a lot of devices connected to the same cluster of USB ports on your PC. Weighing in at 12 grams the SanDisk Extreme is slightly lighter than average for a flash drive.

SanDisk Extreme USB 30 16GB Length Ruler

Build Quality

The SanDisk Extreme has a decent retractable mechanism which clunks satisfyingly into place. The shell of the drive feels just a little more hollow than we would have liked but its by no means a problem and still far sturdier than most of the other drives we have lab tested. There is a largish hole for fastening key chains at the back of the drive which is weaker than we would have liked and in our opinion puts the drive at risk of loss should you choose to use it. Finally there is a blue indicator light inside the shell that flashes when the drive is in active operation.

SanDisk Extreme USB 30 16GB Front
SanDisk Extreme USB 30 16GB Back

Test System

The test rig was a high end Core-i7 workstation kitted out with a 256GB Solid State drive and 16GB of RAM. The system was designed to be overclocked to 5GHZ but for the benchmarks, only the stock frequencies of 1.6GHz idle, 3.4GHz active and 3.8GHz turbo boost were used.
Motherboard ASUS P8Z68-V GEN 3
RAM Corsair Vengeance 16GB Dual Channel DDR3 (CML16GX3M4A1600C9)
Fixed Drive Corsair Performance Pro 256GB
CPU Intel Core i7-2600K
Operating System Windows 7

CrystalDiskMark Speed Test[FAQ]

CrystalDiskMark is a free disk benchmarking utility that is very simple to use. It takes eight measurements: the read and write speeds in megabytes per second (MBps) for sequential, 512KB, random 4KB and 4KB parallel disk operations. There are more screenshots from this benchmark posted on the web than any other, probably due to its clean and simple display. There is further information, including instructions on how to benchmark your own drives, on the CrystalDiskMark wiki page.

CrystalDiskMark Score

The SanDisk Extreme scored 196/62 MB/s in the sequential read/write tests. This set of results is nothing short of spectacular and is the highest read speed we have seen on a 16GB flash drive. The sequential write speed is also very strong but the real area of interest for this drive is the 4K random write speed. At 2.13 MB/s this is the highest 4K random write speed we have seen by a factor of 3, unfortunately we were not able to get consistent measurements for the 4K write speed but 2.13 MB/s is towards the lower end of the values we observed. Overall the performance of this drive was nothing short of stellar, there were no areas of obvious weakness in its performance profile.

Crystaldiskmark Benchmark

ATTO Disk Benchmark[FAQ]

The Atto Disk Benchmark has probably been around for longer than any other disk benchmarking software, and you can tell from its dated interface! The utility was designed to measure regular disk drive performance but it's more than up to the task of measuring both USB flash drive and SSD speeds as well. The utility measures disk performance rates for various sizes of file and displays the results in a bar chart showing read and write speeds at each file size. The results are displayed in megabytes per second (MBps). There is further information, including instructions on how to benchmark your own drive, on the Atto wiki page.
ATTO Benchmark

ATTO Score

The ATTO results for the SanDisk Extreme are broadly in line with the CrystalDiskMark scores and at 202/62 MB/s come in comfortably over SanDisks claimed read/write speeds of 190/55 MB/s.

AS SSD Real World Copy Speed[FAQ]

The AS SSD benchmarking program was recently developed specifically for benchmarking SSD's. The utility is able to take several measurements that are well suited to solid state drives. One of the tests, ISO copy, is also relevant to slower storage devices including flash drives. The ISO copy test places two large 500MB files in a folder on the drive and then times how long it takes to copy the folder to another location on the same drive. The result is reported in both MBps and time taken. It's a real-world test that gauges a drives ability to read and write at the same time. Drives that have a good balance between their read and write speed fare relatively well on this test. There is further information, including instructions on how to use it to benchmark your own drive, on the AS SSD wiki page.

Real World Copy Speed Score

This test shows that the SanDisk Extreme would take 50.4 seconds to create a copy of a large 1GB video file. Generally flash drives complete this test at roughly half their write speeds but in this case the SanDisk fell short of this and only managed a copy speed of 21.3 MB/s. This copy test proved to be the SanDisks weakest area of performance.

AS-SSD Copy Benchmark

Conclusion

The benchmark scores for the SanDisk Extreme were stunning. Until now every flash drive we have tested has shown a serious weakness in the area of 4K random writes. The SanDisk Extreme achieved a 4K random write speed of 2.1 MB/s which was over three times faster than the best of the rest, unfortunately we were unable to get consistent measurements but 2.1 MB/s was towards the lower end of the range (7.46 MB/s - 1.71 MB/s) we observed. We suspect the inconsistency relates to the way the controller batches page cleanup. The other benchmark observations were all consistent and to date this drive has the highest sequential read we have seen on a 16GB flash drive. The SanDisk Extreme has not been released in the UK. Our test unit had to be shipped from Hong Kong where we were able to purchase it at at an extremely reasonable price. We will update the price if/when the drive becomes officially available in the UK but until then we have calculated its value rating based on the price we paid (£18 including shipping) from Hong Kong. This drive is currently the best value flash drive on the market by a long way.

USBFlashPro
Avatar level
1,312
Original Review by:  
Updated 11 years ago.  
SanDisk Extreme USB 30 16GB Front

Average Bench: 62.1% (11th of 639)

Based on 2,906 user benchmarks.  Device: VID 0781 PID 5580 Model: SanDisk Extreme

The benchmark scores for the SanDisk Extreme were stunning. Until now every flash drive we have tested has shown a serious weakness in the area of 4K random writes. The SanDisk Extreme achieved a 4K random write speed of 2.1 MB/s which was over three times faster than the best of the rest, unfortunately we were unable to get consistent measurements but 2.1 MB/s was towards at the lower end of the range (10.8 MB/s - 1.71 MB/s) we observed. We suspect the inconsistency relates to the way the controller batches page cleanup. The other benchmark observations were all consistent and to date this drive has the highest sequential read we have seen on a 16GB flash drive. The SanDisk Extreme has not been released in the UK. Our test unit had to be shipped from Hong Kong where we were able to purchase it at at an extremely reasonable price. We will update the price if/when the drive becomes officially available in the UK ... [Jul '12 USBFlashPro]

Poor: 29%Average: 62.1% Great: 81%

Above average average bench

The SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 16GB averaged 37.9% lower than the peak scores attained by the group leaders. This isn't a great result which indicates that there are much faster alternatives on the comparison list.

Strengths

Avg. 4K-64Thread Write Speed 10.4MB/s
Avg. 4K Random Write Speed 9.18MB/s

Below average consistency

The range of scores (95th - 5th percentile) for the SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 16GB is 52.3%. This is a relatively wide range which indicates that the SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 16GB performs inconsistently under varying real world conditions.

Weaknesses

Avg. Sequential Mixed IO Speed 38.3MB/s
Avg. Sequential Write Speed 43.6MB/s
ADVERTISEMENT

Average Bench

(Based on 2,906 samples)
Rank 1162.1%
Min Avg Max
29.9 Read 151 236
15.4 Write 43.6 58.9
16.3 Mixed 38.3 64.9
18.8 SusWrite 44.1 58
75.6% 69.3 MB/s
Min Avg Max
4.9 4K Read 10.1 13.1
4.6 4K Write 9.18 11
3.95 4K Mixed 7.12 8.6
592% 8.79 MB/s
Min Avg Max
8.98 DQ Read 11.5 13.7
8.58 DQ Write 10.4 12.1
6.9 DQ Mixed 8.59 10.3
689% 10.2 MB/s
User Benchmarks BenchSequentialRandom 4kDeep queue 4k
The fastest USB (mainstream) averages a speed of 100%
6GB free, PID 5580
Operating at USB 3.0 Speed
SusWrite @10s intervals: 59 58 59 59 58 59 MB/s
64.5% Good
Read 178
Write 57.7
Mixed 35.9
SusWrite 58.5
90% 82.4 MB/s
4K Read 8.6
4K Write 7.8
4K Mixed 6.3
512% 7.57 MB/s
2,906 MORE »

 Prices

If you buy via one of these links, our site may earn a commission

MSRP ≈ $23 @ launch in Jun '12
AmazonUS $172 years
Send price feedback
Custom PC Builder (Start a new build) Build your perfect PC: compare component prices, popularity, speed and value for money

CHOOSE A COMPONENT:

CPU GPU SSD HDD RAM MBD
How Fast Is Your USB? (Bench your build) Size up your PC in less than a minute

Welcome to our PC speed test tool. UserBenchmark will test your PC and compare the results to other users with the same components. You can quickly size up your PC, identify hardware problems and explore the best value for money upgrades.

UserBenchmark of the month

Gaming Desktop ProGaming

How it works

  • - Download and run UserBenchmark
  • - CPU tests include: integer, floating and string
  • - GPU tests include: six 3D game simulations
  • - Drive tests include: read, write, sustained write and mixed IO
  • - RAM tests include: single/multi core bandwidth and latency
  • - SkillBench (space shooter) tests user input accuracy
  • - Reports are generated and presented on userbenchmark.com
  • - Identify the strongest components in your PC
  • - See speed test results from other users
  • - Compare your components to the current market leaders
  • - Explore your best upgrade options with a virtual PC build
  • - Compare your in-game FPS to other users with your hardware
USB Flash Drive Rankings (Price vs Performance) April 2024 USB Rankings

We highlight the best USB flash drive in terms of balanced performance and value for money using current prices, sequential read, sequential write , 4k read and 4k write speed. The speeds are combined to form a single effective speed which measures performance for tasks such as copying photos, music and videos. Effective speed is adjusted by current price and capacity to yield value for money. Finally thousands of individual user ratings are used to validate our benchmark figures. [USBFlashPro]

ADVERTISEMENT

Group Test Results

  • Best user rated - User sentiment trumps benchmarks for this comparison.
  • Best value for money - Value for money is based on real world performance.
  • Fastest real world speed - Real World Speed measures performance for typical consumers.

 Comments

ProdEntryBot
Avatar level
196

Official site www.sandisk.com/...

Spend less time waiting with the Cruzer Extreme...

  • Available capacities: 16GB, 32GB and 64GB
  • Performance/speed: Up to 190 MB/s** ; write speed lower and varies by capacity.
  • Dimensions: 2.79" x .84" x .45" (70.87 mm x 21.34 mm x 11.43 mm)
Added 11 years ago.
USA-User
Avatar level
9,832

Poor (edit your comment) Add link

2 months ago.

Bad, spend money on fpga instead so much more value

Comment 

Fast yes, but it is too big. It's 2014 and they still make a flash drive this big is a shame and the main reason I won't buy it. I hope they trim it down then I'm all in.

Comment 

Verry fast, even on usb 2.0 it can write at around 20MBps which is very important to me. I work in IT for the city and many computers that I service do not have USB 3.0 yet. —Aug '15

GBR-User
Avatar level
5,778

Liked

3 years ago.

Comment 

Done my own benchmarks and they are similar to the ones in this article. Good Drive, got it for 4k I/O, works as expected. Bit hard to get into USB slot without accidentally letting it retract again though.—Dec '14

DEU-User
Avatar level
5,743

Good

12 days ago.

Not useable for operating systems

HKG-User
Avatar level
5,504

Excellent

2 years ago.

4K Read amd write speed is very fast

CAN-User
Avatar level
4,956

Good

2 years ago.

fast write speeds, even quick enough to serve as the root file system in Linux on usb2.

Review  www.legitreviews.com/...

Legit Reviews took a look at the 64gb version, verdict: The SanDisk 64GB Extreme USB 3.0 Flash Drive is one of the fastest USB drives that you can buy today and we were impressed by the numbers that we were able to reach. To see sequential data transfer numbers hitting 215MB/s read and 189MB/s write in CrystalDiskMark was simply amazing. This drive is the fastest offered by SanDisk and is also one of the fastest USB 3.0 Flash drives to be offered by any company.

RUS-User
Avatar level
4,776

Excellent

6 years ago.

Never overheats, with encryption software. Pretty fast.

Deal  rostov-na-donu.dns-shop.ru/...

Память USB 3.0 Flash Sandisk 16 Gb Extreme Код: 154427 Купить память usb flash Sandisk за 990 руб.

Discussion  forum.ixbt.com/...

Я вот месяц назад тоже рискнул купить не глядя флэш "приличной" фирмы типа трансценд(64Гб jf700 usb3.0) - результат 3ю неделю лежит в сервисе, издох после 2ой недели эксплуатации, пришлось таки попользовать поиск Сандиск экстрим конечно чуть подороже на 700-800руб но скорость в сравнении космическая да ещё и без подтормаживаний , реальной разницы по скорости между ней и системным сигейтом SATA3 на 2Тб я не ощущаю. Попалось бы раньше на глаза такое сравнение, не попал бы впросак

IND-User
Avatar level
4,768

Disliked

13 days ago.

Deal  www.ebay.in/...

Rs. 1,300 - 1,900 with free shipping.

ROU-User
Avatar level
4,615

Excellent

4 months ago.

Comment 

The speed is awesome, it's reliable, Only downside is when inserting it don't put the hand on the slider or it might not go in.—Sep '14

FRA-User
Avatar level
4,573

Liked

5 years ago.

Discussion  www.geekzone.fr/...

Je cherche à m'équipper d'une clé USB 3 de capacité 32 ou 64 Go. Vous avez des conseils à donner ou des retours à faire sur tel ou tel modèle?

ITA-User
Avatar level
4,067

Disliked

6 months ago.

Discussion  www.hwupgrade.it/...

Se a qualcuno può interessare ho trovato qui: http://www.whoratesit.com/Best-Flash...arison/1#rank4 delle recensioni abbastanza recenti (agosto 2012) su alcune pen drive da 16 gb. Avendo necessità mi sono comprato una Sandisk Extreme USB 3.0 però da 32GB:

AUS-User
Avatar level
3,948

Disliked

9 months ago.

Comment 

16GB Under $16 Aust you would be a mug not to buy a couple —Sep '14

ESP-User
Avatar level
3,729

Excellent

4 years ago.

Discussion  www.forocoches.com/...

Mejor memoria usb 3.0 - ¿esta kingston? Wenas, Como muchos de vosotros voy detrás de la memoria usb 3.0 que mejor relación velocidad/precio da, y he encontrado este modelo de la marca Kingston que escribe a 70mb y lee a 100mb. Es de 32gb y tiene un precio un poco alto, aunque estas tasas lo compensan. Aquí lo podéis ver:

Discussion  www.forocoches.com/...

Cita: Originalmente Escrito por fcuevas27 l0rk, mirate la guia, vale la pena leerselo, para estar al tanto mas que nada... http://www.whoratesit.com/Best-Flash-Drive/Comparison/1 el elite lo he probado y es rapido, y me costo 16€ en tienda, barcelona. Le echo un vistazo, muchas gracias

PHL-User
Avatar level
3,358

Poor

3 years ago.

I'm getting myself two 32GB versions of this baby. ;)

CZE-User
Avatar level
3,344

Disliked

17 months ago.

Discussion  forum.zive.cz/...

Výběr nového flash disku - 16/32 GB (vč. připojení k TV)

ISR-User
Avatar level
2,338

Good

7 years ago.

read and write 43 Mb's with usb 3.0 on my mac

Discussion  www.fresh.co.il/...

משפחת המוצרים הזו היא הטובה ביותר מסוגה (בהפרש משמעותי) ומחירה דומה למוצרים אחרים מגיע בגדלים של 16 או 32 או 64 ג"ב 200 מ"ב כתיבה וקריאה (כאשר המקור או היעד לא מגביל).

NOR-User
Avatar level
2,290

Disliked

7 years ago.

Info  usb.userbenchmark.com/...

Świetna jakość oraz osiągane prędkości. Bardzo ładnie wygląda, a praktyczny, wysuwany port USB działa za każdym razem tak samo i po wsunięciu wraca na swoje miejsce. Zainstalowałem na nim GTA5 i działa aż miło. Cóż można dodać.. jeden z najlepszych pendrive jakie wyprodukowano, ale nie ma co się dziwić - Sandisk ma chyba najdłuższe doświadczenie (zarówno dla użytkowników prywatnych jak i przemysłu czy nawet wojska :D) Polecam!

SGP-User
Avatar level
1,990

Disliked

7 years ago.

Discussion  forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/...

Long discussion on the pros/cons of the drive including the best places to buy it in Singapore.

LKA-User
Avatar level
1,904

Excellent

5 years ago.

Served me well. Spring mechanism was the downfall of the drive.

SAU-User
Avatar level
1,874

Poor

4 years ago.

this is very nice ,Ihope to buy it near days

USBFlashPro
Avatar level
1,312

Outstanding

11 years ago.

Review  usb.userbenchmark.com/...

Read my full review and see the lab test results.

Image  www.userbenchmark.com/...
CrystalDiskMark Benchmark Test

CrystalDiskMark Benchmark Test

MKD-User
Avatar level
1,302

Good

8 years ago.

Just bought it today and it's AWESOME!

NGA-User
Avatar level
796

Good

8 years ago.

4K write speed is a dealbreaker for USBs copying minute system files

Yodabest
Avatar level
541

Excellent

11 years ago.

This flash drive is great value for money. It's almost the best performing and significantly cheaper than most of the competition. Pros: Exceptional small file write speed. Cons: The build quality could be better.

Zefram
Avatar level
78

Excellent

11 years ago.

This drive beats the rest hands down. Even the Kingston HyperX 3.0 vs. Sandisk Extreme : no contest ... The HyperX 3.0 has a very slightly faster headline read speed (240 vs 215) MB/s but loses to the 64GB extreme in every other benchmark category (512k, 4K, 4K QD32), and by a long way. The Extreme also costs at least 20% less than the HyperX. I do daily incremental backups of a directory containing 40K files and 3K folders, it takes a few seconds on the extreme compared to around 30 seconds with every other flash drive I have tested. The key strength of this drive is its real world usability.

Discussion  www.userbenchmark.com/...

An in depth analysis of the sandisk's 4K write speed. "After having done some further testing with Iometer, we observed that the Sandisk occasionally freezes for up to a second, this is not a noticeable problem for typical users who use the drive as external storage, they will only care about the average speeds which are still very good. The freezes may however be a big problem if the drive is used as a system drive for an OS."

Info  forums.macrumors.com/...

Some macbook pro users are reporting compatibility problems with the 64gb & 32gb sandisk extreme drives. You might have to format the drive on a windows machine before it works in a MBP

Batman
Avatar level
18

Poor

11 years ago.

Worked well initially then started playing up. Copy speeds were a joke. They would begin at 30 Mb/sec then quickly freeze to 16 Kb/sec and stay on that for up to 10 minutes. Then comes up on windows 7 as Error code E0x80070570 when you try and delete the half copied file. Will not buy SanDisk again for my USB 3.0 system.

Bruce427
Avatar level
8

Good

11 years ago.

No question this drive is fast. But that's not the complete story. Customer comments are pointing to a significant rate of failure -- both initially and after several weeks/months of use (you even see "follow-up" comments here about a minor freezing issue). On newegg.com the 1 Star reviews out number the 5 Star reviews. Also, on Amazon.com there are numerous comments about failures. Additionally, if you examine the "comments" section (here), you will see that not everyone has been able to reproduce those stellar 4K read/write speeds and even the sample reviewed here was not able to repeat them on a different test. Currently, I decided to spend more and go with the Lexar Triton instead. However, when SanDisk gets these issues resolved, I plan to buy one. I will follow the customer comments for another few months before making a decision. I have had good luck with SanDisk in the past.

pphu15
Avatar level
4

Good

2 years ago.

Too pricey, but it give you an outstanding performance. No perfect and rare for Vietnamese user, but it will cut a last second down to make almostly ETA seconds only for installing Windows 7/8/8.1 and 1 minute for Windows 10/11. I didn't use the product, but it's so perfect for you. Nice if you use ReadyBoost or if you reinstalls Windows every month, but AVERAGE if you play games from USBs.

Your
opinion?
▲Like ▼Dislike
Ready to retire
Age: 11 years

Speed Comparisons

vs SanDisk Extreme 16GB
vs SanDisk Ultra Fit 16GB
vs Verbatim Store n Go V3 16GB
vs Adata S102 Pro 16GB
vs Kingston DataTraveler R3.0 16GB
vs Transcend JetFlash 780 16GB
vs Kingston DataTraveler SE9 USB 2.0 16GB
vs Lexar JumpDrive P10 16GB

639 Drives (Compared) Thousands of user benchmarks compiled into one comparison list

See how consistently different USBs perform with varying real world conditions. The charts also illustrate overall performance, popularity and rank.

 Frequently Asked Questions

Storage Devices FAQ
What is sustained sequential write speed?
What’s the difference between SLC, MLC and TLC?
What is 3D XPoint and how fast is it?
What’s the difference between SATA, PCIe and NVMe?
What’s the difference between NAND and V-NAND?
What is sequential write speed?
What is sequential read speed?
What is incompressible data?
USB Flash Drives
How do you install an OS from a USB flash drive?
What is the Flash Drive value for money rating?
What is effective USB Flash Drive speed?
Why should USB 2.0 Flash Drives be avoided?
File system considerations?
Do dimensions matter?
What are the main factors to look out for?
16GB USB Flash Drives
Why is bigger better?
ALL FAQs »

 Best User Rated
The Best.
CPUGPUSSD
Intel Core i5-13600K $279Nvidia RTX 4060 $300Crucial MX500 250GB $40
Intel Core i5-12400F $134Nvidia RTX 4060-Ti $385Samsung 850 Evo 120GB $80
Intel Core i5-12600K $184Nvidia RTX 4070 $409Samsung 860 Evo 250GB $52
HDDRAMUSB
Seagate Barracuda 1TB (2016) $39Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3200 C16 2x8GB $40SanDisk Extreme 64GB $72
WD Blue 1TB (2012) $35Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3000 C15 2x8GB $43SanDisk Extreme 32GB $28
Seagate Barracuda 2TB (2016) $51G.SKILL Trident Z DDR4 3200 C14 4x16GB $351SanDisk Ultra Fit 32GB $16
If you make a purchase via one of these links, our site may earn a commission
Today's hottest
Amazon Ebay
deals
CPU GPU SSD HDD USB RAM MBD
Build Test EFps
Can You Run It?
►
YouTube
*NEW*
About  •  User Guide  •  FAQs  •  Email  •  Privacy  •  Developer  •  YouTube Feedback