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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  • BJL - Monday, October 16, 2006 - link

    Do the read and write speeds change for the 1gb and above models? Would I get the same performance, or should I stick with the 512mb?
  • NeoZGeo - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link

    what kinf of benchmark are you guys using? How come some of those drive write speed is sooooo low!? Like Trenscent, OCZ Rally, i've seen some reviews out there which says other wise.
  • NeoZGeo - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link

    here's the review by tom's

    if you look at the trenscend jet flash, it actually has the highest write speed average out at 23.3 mb/s vs anandtech's 8.7 mb/s !? what the hell?
  • NeoZGeo - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link

    haha oops, forgot about the link :D

    http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20050520/usb_f...">linky
  • quanta - Wednesday, December 7, 2005 - link

    It looked like Tom's test is testing the write speed between USB host and flash drive's controller's memory buffer, instead of actual write speed, which can only be verify by doing a read after writing is completed. There are also reports that http://www.auphanonline.com/articles/view.php?arti...">cluster size may affect the write access behaviour. BTW, Tom's http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/08/10/two_fast_an...">later review has simultaneous reads and writes benchmark, which slows Memina Rocket to a halt.
  • quanta - Wednesday, December 7, 2005 - link

    In addition, even when using buffered write in SiSoft Sandra, it is extremely unlikely that Transcend Jetflash 110 can write anywhere near 23.3MB/s. http://www.oc.com.tw/article/0510/readparticle.asp...">This benchmark shows that when doing random write with Kingston DataTraveler ELITE, write speed dropped more than a half compared to sequential write.
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  • TrueWisdom - Wednesday, October 12, 2005 - link

    I'm the in-house support for a university building and I've had absolutely horrible luck with Lexar drives. Lexar often fails to detect entirely on somewhat older machines (the Latitude C840, for example) and has also displayed a relatively high failure rate for me. I don't have any positive or negative impressions of Kingston drives, so I can't say anything there, but I will say that I've had by far the best luck with Sandisk drives. I've never had one fail on me, and I've seen them go through wash cycles, get run over by a car, and get left out in the rain. Compatibility has been universal as well. They may not be the fastest drives but they really are the only ones I've ever trusted.
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  • pendrivethis - Friday, October 7, 2005 - link

    i work for a flash memory controller maker and in all honesty the most meaningful performance test is random write. and no one really advertise that since sequential read speeds seem much more appealing and marketable. i can get a dual-channel & interleaving enabled usb 2.0 pen drive with micron or samsung nand-type flash to go up to 34mB/s in sequential read, but the engineer who designed this still tells me that he'd rather use and-type flash from renesas (formerly hitachi) since and flash has a better random write than nand flash.

    and knowing what i know, if you use your pen drive very often, and i suspect some of you may be in that boat, i'd check out some of the burn-in testing results especially since companies are not entirely using only samsung nand flash. certain new flash whether nand-type or ag-and-type and even some high-density samsung flash seem to be displaying a need for extra care in ecc. data-verify errors are fatal, especially if it's the only copy you got...

    anand, perhaps a little visit to some of the design houses for these controllers the next time when you're in taiwan is in order. computex is only 9 months away.

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