Update November 15, 2023
The Sandisk Extreme Go failed after very little use. I mostly used smaller sticks for little data transfers and SSDs for anything bigger. The 64 GB Go failed after writing just 16 GB.
USB ID
The device USB ID is 0781:558b and has the description "SanDisk Corp.".
Device formatting
There is a 17 MB of space wasted at the start of the device then a 63 GB exFAT partition. I immediately change that to a 100% Ext4 partition for use with modern operating systems.
Files on the device
The device arrives with the following useless files. Never use the software provided on USB flash drives.
SanDiskSecureAccess/DownloadForMac_SanDiskSecureAccessV3.01.pdf
SanDiskSecureAccess/SanDiskSecureAccessV3.0_QSG.PDF
SanDiskSecureAccessV3.01_win.exe
SMART data
No. There is no SMART data provided. What a waste for a device that is described as a flash drive. All storage devices should provide SMART data.
Benchmark
The following chart shows string read times for everything. The advertised read speed is "up to 420 MB/s". The benchmarks show a minimum read speed of 350 MB/s for tiny files and 441 MB/s for large files where access time overheads are not important.
The write times are good until the device hits what is probably a temperature limitation. The advertised write speed is "up to 380 MB/s". The benchmarks show a minimum of 213 MB/s for tiny files and 290 MB/s for larger files where access time overheads are not important.
The last test shows a huge slowdown part way through. There is no SMART data to show the device internal temperature, removing our only way to know what really happened. While reads continued at full speed, writes slowed down to 30 MB/s.
| Sample size (MB) | Samples | Writes (MB/s) | Reads (MB/s) | Access time (msec) |
| 1 | 1000 | 93.0 | 195.5 | 0.65 |
| 10 | 1000 | 133.9 | 70.7 | 0.65 |
| 100 | 1000 | 113.2 | 161.6 | 3.14 |
| 1000 | 100 (first 50) | 170.0 | 210.0 | 2.81 |
| 1000 | 100 (last 10) | 39.0 | 85.0 | 2.81 |
Heat
In a subsequent copy of 30 GB to the device, the write speed slowed down to 3.9 MB/s. Heat is killing the device. The plastic case locks in the heat. You cannot use the device for any serious copy of more than a few GB.
Conclusion
Do not buy a USB flash memory stick with a plastic case if you want to write more than a few GB. You might use this stick if you want to write something small then add small bits to it with 10 to 20 minutes between writes so the device can cool down.
Do not use it as a backup or only copy of anything as it is too unreliable.
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