X-bit labs

USB Flash Drives Roundup with 1GB Storage Capacity. Part II (page 13)

Category: Memory

by Andrey Kuznetcov

[ 01/05/2007 | 10:45 AM ]

Performance in FC-Test

FC-Test 1.0

FC-Test will help us examine the flash drives under real-life conditions. The test writes and reads a few file-sets and measures the time it takes to perform each operation. This helps calculate the speed of the drive and see how it depends on the number and size of the processed files. We use three file-sets that differ in the size (1, 10 and 100MB) and number (1, 10, and 100) of files included. Practice suggests that a 100MB file is large enough to reveal the maximum performance of a USB flash drive and using a larger file doesn’t affect the results much.

The first diagram shows the speed of writing a hundred 1MB files and the Kingston Secure is an indisputable leader here. It is far ahead of the second-best Apacer HA202. The A-DATA PD3 is third. The Transcend V60, PQI U190 and A-DATA PD0 are the three slowest drives in this test.

It is the Apacer HA202 that wins the test of reading the 100x1MB file-set. It has exchanged places with the Kingston Secure which is second here. Lower down the diagram is the Pretec ChaCha. This trio has a considerable lead over the rest of the participating drives among which there are no obvious outsiders. You can note, however, that the A-DATA PD0 and the TwinMOS R3 are the only drives that have a read speed of less than 10MB/s in this test.

The Kingston Secure proves to be the fastest of all when writing ten 10MB files, but it is very closely followed by the Apacer HA202. The difference is very small. The A-DATA PD3 takes third place again, but is considerably slower than the two leaders. The Transcend V60, PQI U190 and A-DATA PD0 again have the lowest speed of writing.

There’s a tough fight for the top place in the test of reading the 10x10MB file-set. The Apacer HA202 comes out on top, outperforming its closest rival Kingston Secure. The Pretec ChaCha is third, but is closely followed by the A-DATA PD3. The other drives have similar speeds, but the A-DATA PD0 and TwinMOS R3 are again the slowest of all.

It’s with a single 100MB file that the drives can reveal their potential in full. The Apacer HA202 takes the least time to write that file – this drive improves its speed greatly when it comes to processing fewer, but larger files. The Kingston Secure is second. The A-DATA PD3 is third and is rather far from the leaders. There are no changes at the bottom of the diagram: the Transcend V60, PQI U190 and A-DATA PD0 are still the slowest at writing.

The last diagram in this section shows the speed of reading one 100MB file. There is in fact little difference in the read speed between the file-sets we use. The Apacer HA202 outperforms the Kingston Secure and takes first place. The Pretec ChaCha is third, and the A-DATA PD3 is fourth. The other drives deliver similar performance and are considerably slower than the leaders. The A-DATA PD0 and the TwinMOS R3 still cannot accelerate even to 10MB/s.