USB Flash Drive Roundup - 10/2005
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 4, 2005 11:28 AM EST- Posted in
- Memory
How We Tested
Originally, when we set out to compare the drives in this roundup, we wanted to do so with 100% real world tests that we would put together ourselves, which we ended up doing. We devised three separate tests consisting of 500MB of small files, 500MB of medium-sized files and one 500MB file. We performed read and write tests using each of the file groups individually, and recorded the time that it took for those tests to complete.
Alongside our own home-brew tests, we also took a look at SiSoft Sandra 2005's built-in Removable Storage/flash Benchmark, which measured performance of the drives at various file sizes. To be more specific, Sandra's test looks at performance of 512-byte, 32KB, 256KB, 2MB and 64MB file sizes. Much to our surprise, Sandra's results almost entirely echoed our own, all while providing more points of reference. So, we scrapped our tests and moved entirely to Sandra; not only were the tests easier to run, but they can also be run by our readers as well. Obviously, the test system does impact (to a certain extent) the numbers, but it is better than not having anything to which you can compare at all.
Since the vast majority of the Sandra tests focus on smaller-file write performance, we found that many manufacturers' claims weren't even remotely close to being true. While we expected that small file read/write performance would be significantly slower, we also seemed to surprise a few manufacturers in how poorly their drives did at some of the medium-sized file tests. It seems that most manufacturers tend to only pay attention to large file transfers, which are useful, but more users tend to copy lots of smaller files rather than one or two massive files onto these drives.
Case in point is something that we discovered when running our own real world tests. We copied about 2000 files, totaling 500MB in size, to some of these USB drives. Most of these files were digital camera photos, while others were small text files. The fastest drive completed the copy in just under two minutes, but the majority of drives took more than 8 minutes to complete the task! Keep this scenario in mind when you evaluate the usefulness of a drive that performs well at small file sizes as well as large file sizes.
We also looked at the impact that AMD vs. Intel systems had on the devices, but most drives exhibited platform-independent performance.
Test Hardware
Originally, when we set out to compare the drives in this roundup, we wanted to do so with 100% real world tests that we would put together ourselves, which we ended up doing. We devised three separate tests consisting of 500MB of small files, 500MB of medium-sized files and one 500MB file. We performed read and write tests using each of the file groups individually, and recorded the time that it took for those tests to complete.
Alongside our own home-brew tests, we also took a look at SiSoft Sandra 2005's built-in Removable Storage/flash Benchmark, which measured performance of the drives at various file sizes. To be more specific, Sandra's test looks at performance of 512-byte, 32KB, 256KB, 2MB and 64MB file sizes. Much to our surprise, Sandra's results almost entirely echoed our own, all while providing more points of reference. So, we scrapped our tests and moved entirely to Sandra; not only were the tests easier to run, but they can also be run by our readers as well. Obviously, the test system does impact (to a certain extent) the numbers, but it is better than not having anything to which you can compare at all.
Since the vast majority of the Sandra tests focus on smaller-file write performance, we found that many manufacturers' claims weren't even remotely close to being true. While we expected that small file read/write performance would be significantly slower, we also seemed to surprise a few manufacturers in how poorly their drives did at some of the medium-sized file tests. It seems that most manufacturers tend to only pay attention to large file transfers, which are useful, but more users tend to copy lots of smaller files rather than one or two massive files onto these drives.
Case in point is something that we discovered when running our own real world tests. We copied about 2000 files, totaling 500MB in size, to some of these USB drives. Most of these files were digital camera photos, while others were small text files. The fastest drive completed the copy in just under two minutes, but the majority of drives took more than 8 minutes to complete the task! Keep this scenario in mind when you evaluate the usefulness of a drive that performs well at small file sizes as well as large file sizes.
We also looked at the impact that AMD vs. Intel systems had on the devices, but most drives exhibited platform-independent performance.
Test Hardware
| CPU: | AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (2.2GHz/512KBx2) Intel Pentium 4 530 (3.0GHz) |
| Motherboard: | ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Intel D955XCSLKR |
| Motherboard BIOS: | ASUS: Version 1013 Dated 08/10/2005 |
| Chipset: | NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel 955X |
| Chipset Drivers: | nForce4 6.66 Intel 7.0.0.1025 |
| Memory: | OCZ PC3500 DDR 2-2-2-7 Crucial DDR2-667 5-5-5-15 |
| Video Card: | NVIDIA GeForce 7800GTX |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA ForceWare 78.01 |
| Desktop Resolution: | 1280 x 1024 - 32-bit @ 75Hz |
| OS: | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
| Benchmarking Software: | SiSoft Sandra 2005 SR2a-1060 |
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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'sif 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 :Dhttp://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.gaintstar - Wednesday, November 15, 2017 - link
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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.gaintstar - Wednesday, November 15, 2017 - link
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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.