Question 1

Is this the SDCZ80-064G-A46, which can obtain read speeds of 245MB/s read, or the SDCZ80-064G-A75, which has read speeds of 190MB/s? The data on this website seems to conflict itself.

Accepted Answer

The 46 and 75 are the codes for the different manufacturing plants producing these. They should have the exact same specs.

I looked at mine, including Windows hardware properties, and could not find any indication if I have a 46 or 75. All I can tell you is that I have a Rev. 1 and it was made in China. It is very quick on a USB 3.0 port.

The speed difference you list was very likely due to variations between testing hardware. Also, the code 75 plant seems to have had problems maintaining quality manufacturing these, at least early on. That is likely just going to make you neurotic. Sorry.

Question 2

SanDisk is in the process of switching these from "Fixed Disk" configuration back to "Removable Disk" configuration.

It sounds like they mistakenly interpretted some requirement for Windows 8 certification, which is why they originally switched to "Fixed Disk" configuration.  This rendered these drives unusable as boot drives.  (A boot drive must have "Removable Disk" configuration or the BIOS won't recognize it as a candidate for booting.)

I emailed SanDisk support to ask whether these drives at NewEgg represent newer stock with the "Removable Disk" configuration, or older stock with the "Fixed Disk" configuration.  They were unable to tell me for sure.

Can anyone at NewEgg answer this?

Or can anyone who has bought these from NewEgg since let's say June or July 2014 let us know if these drives show up as fixed or removable in Windows Explorer?  (You can click on "Computer" in the left nav of Windows Explorer, and the drive will show up on the right pane either under "Hard Disk Drives" or "Devices with Removable Storage".)

Here is the reply I got from SanDisk Support:

"Thanks for emailing SanDisk Technical Support. It is our goal to make sure you have all the resources you need to get the most from your product.
 
I understand that you would like purchase SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 drive and you want to be able to boot from it (For Window recovery, firmware updating of Hand drives, etc.). In this case unfortunately we can not make out what is the configuration of the drive without opening the package and connecting it to a computer. In addition to that we are also not sure what stock our resellers have because SanDisk is in the process of reverting back to producing USB Drives configured as removable disk but there may still be some fixed disk configuration drives in the channel."

Accepted Answer

I purchased my drive from Newegg on June 20, 2014, and it is listed as a removable drive and I have it set up as a boot drive.  This is with XP SP2.

Question 3

Has anyone tried running a linux OS from these by chance? does it run well if you have?

Accepted Answer

Yes, I've used in on Ubuntu (14.04) Desktop and Server (linux and windows file systems), and SuSe (SLES), but on SLES I could only use ext3.

I also tried it using SYSRESC (system rescue) just  to see if worked, and it did.

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