by Andrey Kuznetcov
06/08/2005 | 10:19 PM
The words “Micro Vault” are subconsciously associated in the author’s mind with Sony. This association is so strong that the release of another clone of external drives of this series, even with the added Pro suffix, provoked no special emotions at first. But on a closer inspection the product proved to be quite original as Sony’s products generally go and deserving of a separate review.
Let’s start with what is outside. Out of its stiff plastic case, the drive resembles a certain flash-memory-based MP3 player widely available here. The metallic blue-colored case looks quite elegantly. The names of the manufacturer and model are labeled on the top panel of the case. The drive’s capacity is indicated on the small metallic-shine circle.
After you attach the drive to the computer, you realize that this circle is nothing else but a LED indicator of the operational mode that signals in blue about the functional activity of the device. The information about the device is printed on the smaller side panel, opposite to the retractable interface connector. The connector can be firmly locked in two positions for convenience.
Now we can move on to the technical characteristics of the device. These are largely determined by the characteristics of the employed hard drive. It is a miniature 1-inch ST650211 CF drive from Seagate of the format of a standard Compact Flash memory card. Its capacity is 5 gigabytes which permits to move around considerable amounts of data, like several videos in the MPEG-4 format or a single image of a DVD Video disc. The declared data-transfer rate of the drive is 12MB/s; the device connects via the USB 2.0 interface. The Sony Micro Vault Pro USD5G is operational under an ambient temperature of 5 to 35°C. The dimensions of the drive are 50x73x13mm; its weight is 57g. There’s a utility preinstalled on the drive for synchronizing files.
The accessories to the device include a protective case, a user’s manual, and a warranty.
The average retail price of the drive is $215.
I used FC-Test 1.0 and AIDA 3.95 as benchmarking tools. The testbed was configured like that:
I will compare the Sony drive with another external USB drive. It is the Seagate ST650211USB Pocket Hard Drive which we have discussed in one of our previous reviews called Seagate ST650211USB: External Hard Disk Drive to Fit into Your Pocket.
I used two patterns with FC-Test. One pattern contained 100 files, 1 megabyte each. The other pattern consisted of a single 100MB file.
The first diagram shows the measured read speeds for the 100x1MB pattern. As you can see, the Seagate ST650211USB is about 1MB/s faster than the Sony drive at reading.
The Sony USD5G couldn’t overtake its opponent at writing a hundred of 1MB files, either. Although the gap is rather small, I can’t but acknowledge that the drive from Sony is slower.
Well, the results of the first pattern have already hinted that the Sony USD5G is unlikely to outperform the “native” Seagate ST650211USB in the other test. Here, the drives process the 1x100MB pattern, and the first diagram shows you the read speeds. The results differ but slightly from the first pattern, and the Seagate ST650211USB is still considerably faster than the Sony.
The next diagram is about writing the 100MB file. The absolute speeds are higher than in the first pattern, but the Sony USD5G is still behind its opponent.
Besides the standard set of tests, I carried out a small investigation of the dependence of the speed of a miniature hard drive on the size of the processed file.
As you know, the speed of a hard disk drive does depend on the size of the file, unlike with drives based on flash memory. But how strong is this dependence? So I also tested the Sony USD5G using 400 and 900MB files.
The first diagram is about reading the files. As you see, the performance of the drive grows up as the size of the processed file increases from 100 to 900 megabytes. Yet, the value of this growth is rather small.
The second diagram is somewhat more interesting: you can see that the performance of the drive generally increases on larger files, but the drive processed the 400MB file faster than the 900MB one.
Using AIDA32, I took the graphs of linear reading and writing and measured the average access time. The results are presented in the following diagrams:
Linear read speed
Linear write speed
Average access time
The synthetic AIDA32 tests produce results which are generally similar to what we have seen in FC-Test. The average linear read speed of the Seagate ST650211USB is noticeably higher than that of the Sony drive.
This diagram suggests that the Sony USD5G has no chances to beat its opponent in our tests: its average linear write speed is much lower.
The last diagram shows the average access times. Quite expectedly, these are almost the same, the difference lying in the measurement error range.
So, we’ve made our acquaintance with the new external USB-interfaced drive from Sony, and I am personally much pleased with it. Undoubtedly, this pleasant feeling is largely due to the cute and handy exterior design of the product. I should also mention the plastic case for carrying the drive: it is stiff to protect the device from damage and has a lock to securely hold the device inside. That’s a trifle, of course, but such trifles combine to make up the good impression from a product. The elegant exterior will please the potential buyer. Lockable in two positions, the USB connector makes it easier to attach the device to the computer.
I took the Seagate ST650211USB drive as an opponent to the Sony USD5G in my tests. The reason for this choice was simple: both drives are based on the same 1” HDD from Seagate. They say a copy is always worse than the original, and this is true in this case. The Sony USD5G was slower than its opponent in every test I passed them through, both in reading and writing. Yet, it doesn’t mean a catastrophic failure. The difference between the results of the two devices isn’t crucial at all. The declared data-transfer rate of 12MB/s was not achieved in the tests, and I have no doubt I wouldn’t see it even if I used a 5GB file.
So, I have compared two products which are very similar in functionality and characteristics. What’s the better buy of the two? I think you should consider two points here. First, the design factor. The pocket drive from Seagate is round-shaped and looks like a small flying saucer. It also connects to the USB port via a flexible cable which is longer than the stiff connector of the Micro Vault Pro. The device from Sony is designed in the more traditional way as a rectangular compact-size box. It’s up to you to decide which variant suits you better. The second point is the retail price of the products, which can be varying. If you don’t care much about the design, the price factor may become the guiding one since the performance of these two drives is roughly the same.