It is about 5 metres (16 ft) deep and is just to the south of the main shipping channel of Gage Roads.

On 28 November 1829, Success revisited Western Australia and ran aground on Carnac Reef, a shoal further to the south, causing extensive damage.

Two approximately 15-metre-deep (49 ft) man-made shipping channels, built for the Fremantle Port Authority to carry cargo and other deep water ships to and from Gage Roads through to Cockburn Sound, divide the sandbar.

[3] Success Bank is covered extensively with the seagrasses Posidonia and Amphibolis griffithii.

[4] The Success and Parmelia Banks were formed during the Holocene, more than 10,000 years ago, through the deposition of sediment which had been eroded from the Rottnest Shelf and the Garden Island Ridge.