256KB File Read Performance

Read performance continues to go up as we look at 256KB files; all drives get faster, but some simply get faster than others.

256KB File Read Performance

The top four are quickly shaping up to be the Memina Rocket, OCZ Rally, Lexar JumpDrive Lightning and Kingston DataTraveler Elite.

The second tier of performance is once again led by Kingston's DataTraveler II+ and PQI's I-Stick Pro170, with SanDisk's Cruzer Titanium bringing up the rear.

The third and fourth performance tiers once again populate the 10MB/s and below area.

2MB File Read Performance

2MB File Read Performance

Performance really starts to hit its maximum with the 2MB file read test. The Memina Rocket drive lives up to its name and manages an incredible 30.5MB/s transfer rate in this test. The OCZ and Lexar drives follow Memina, while Kingston falls short at 22.8MB/s. But even the Kingston Elite drive is still 20% faster than the next closest competitor, the PQI I-Stick Pro170.

64MB File Read Performance

By the time that we've reached the 64MB test, these drives have all pretty much achieved their transfer peaks. While they all were horrendously slow at small file reads, by the time we made it to 64MB files, their performance truly peaked.

64MB File Read Performance

The Memina Rocket holds a 12% performance advantage over the OCZ, a 17% advantage over the Lightning and a 34% performance advantage over the Kingston DataTraveler Elite, but all three of those drives were able to deliver transfer rates greater than 22MB/s.

PQI's I-Stick Pro170 leads the second performance tier, averaging 19.7MB/s.

But, despite how consistent the standings were as we tested varying file sizes, the show is far from over. At this point, we're only looking at one half of the spectrum. In order to have data to read from these drives, you have to first write to them. And this is where things get complicated...

Read Performance Write Performance
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  • sprockkets - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link

    Although not reviewed here, I got the A Data key from newegg.com simply because they say it works with Linux on the package. I know any key will, but they are the only ones to have the guts to say it. Thanks for admitting Linux exists. Lifetime warranty too.
  • jgh - Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - link

    here is a link for another link, to an app that can make many (but probably not all) usb drives bootable and a couple of other hints/tips.

    http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/5735">link

    O.T. - for some reason i get a message that says i do not have permission to access this forum when i tried to create a new login with my e-mail address. did i get banned or something? i have only posted once (it was about the gta:lcs website). i also cannot log in with the origianl user name and password.

    p.s. - it is o.k. to post links like this right?
  • Toolsac - Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - link

    I just wanna say thanks to anand for bring us all so much info on every nook and crany of computing. When ever I am getting ready to upgrade or have a problem with my computer, Anand can help me. THANKS GUYS YOU ROCK!!!
  • GameManK - Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - link

    also curious about the memorex drives like the m-flyer
  • hoppa - Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - link

    Cool article, and a nice summary of the market (the intro stuff), but seriously, who really cares that much about the perfomance of these things when the entire thing can be written or read in <1 minute anyway. I do love benchmarks though (born and will die a stat-whore)!

    I have a suggestion for the article: can you post a single picture of all the drives (preferably with a key). I'd like to see what they all look like but I wasn't too crazy at all about clicking through 20 pages. In fact, I only made it through 4.



    -andy
  • vexingv - Friday, October 21, 2005 - link

    its an iomega 256mb and claims to be usb2, but is ridiculously slow compared to a generic 64mb drive i have. i've tried transferring about 20mb worth of portable firefox on the two drives side-by-side and the iomega drive took close to 5 minutes while my other drive took less than a minute.
    these benchmarks are really useful for that purpose of finding drives w/ faster flash memory controllers.
  • Souka - Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - link

    REad the article....less than 1 min? Read it....not happening.

    Write times had the biggest delta....upto 20x speed difference....

    So would you rather watch your drive write data for 3.5mins, or almost an hour?




    Far as "clicking through 20 pages" Click once on the "Print this Article"....then you just use page down(or equivalent button) to scroll through
  • Chriz - Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - link

    This was a good roundup, but I was also curious on some other drives that can be found on Newegg. Mainly interested in the Apacer drives and also the Memorex M-flyer...which got a good review in Maximum PC because of the retractable USB connector which seems convenient to me, but I am really not sure on the performance compared to other drives.
  • intellon - Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - link

    And why was iPod Shuffle excluded? Is it cuz of security matter/ bigger size/ higher cost? Cuz I use half of my shuffle for transfering files to and from - work, home and school.
  • jkostans - Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - link

    Because its an mp3 player. There are plenty of ipod shuffle type players out there which aren't included, some smaller and more compact. I'm sure they would be with the slowest of the slow.

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