SanDisk Lightning Enterprise SSD Review (LB 406S)

When SanDisk invested $327 million to acquire Pliant one thing was clear; SanDisk saw an opportunity to leverage their expertise in NAND and storage with Pliant's SAS controller knowledge and storage technologies to create class-leading enterprise SSDs that would excel in both performance and reliability. The current result is the SanDisk Lightning enterprise SSD family that includes both MLC and SLC SAS 6Gb SSDs. 

While it may be unique to market SLC and MLC SSDs under the single Lightning umbrella, SanDisk sees this as a benefit. To make qualifications more simple, all six drives (three MLC and three SLC) use the same firmware binary, controller and hardware components. They also offer a series of enterprise-grade features like write-through logging, support for T10 DIF and background error correction that is transparent and doesn't impact performance. Read on through the features list though and second from the bottom is a nugget surrounding endurance. 

While many have posted heady claims about write endurance, SanDisk goes one further with this note, "Lightning SLC NAND SSDs do not impose a daily limit on the amount of writes." Not only that but SanDisk rates the drives for 5+ years, which considered against the other SAS drives in the enterprise market, puts the Lightning on top for both endurance and longevity. To be fair, we'd expect other enterprise SSDs to be chugging along well after their 5 year warranties are up, but even so, SanDisk shows just how confident they are when it comes to write amplification and NAND management.

The SanDisk Lightning line is available with SLC NAND in 400GB, 200GB and 100GB capacities. The MLC versions ship in 800GB, 400GB and 200GB capacities. All Lightning drives leverage a SAS 6Gb/s interface in a 2.5" form factor. Our review unit is the LB 406S, the 400GB SLC Lightning.