Good test results. Looking forward to Part II.

There has been dilema that 512MB sticks remained for such a long time for which it doesnt make sense. Consider the time for VCD/CDs what was required a 700MB stick to atleast one could port a CD in his pocket. Now when DVDs are very common 4GB sticks are getting common. Why is that users are kept bard from a more sensable capacities, then it was just short of 200MB and now from just 700MBs. though 1-GB stick time has passed. Manufacturers should make 5-GB with U3 sticks common atleast user could port a DVD with him.

Hi Andrey -

I just wanted to bring to your attention that the ATP TOUGHdrive has been consistently misspelled as TOUCHdrive in the article.

Good testing and benchmark. But what about the review of the software / utility that comes with the drive ?

Your top choice: Buffalo Ultra High Speed Flash Disk RUF2-S4GWH is not available through the manufacturer Buffalo. Nor does anyone online sell it. The part number is all but non-existent on Google. I'm wondering how you got your hands on one without the package, then put a picture of the package in the article? Did Buffalo provide the unit for your testing? If so, when will they start showing up at retailers? Thanks for the review.

It's nice to see Buffalo finally sell USB flash drive to North Americans. However, I was expecting the RUF2-R that has been sold since 2006, not RUF2-S... Anyway, I can't wait for the upcoming Patriot Xporter XT version 2 and Pretec iDisk 266X.

You do really GOOD work! Thank you. I will turn to your advice on many issues. Hala

About the unadvertised rate of CORSAIR Voyager, NewEgg listed the 4G version as 31MB read, 15MB/s write;[1] 8G version as 33MB/S read, 16MB/S write.[2]

[1] http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Page=2&b op=AND&Submit=SUBCATDEALS&SubCategory=522
[2] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E1682023 3037

Hope you can test the newer Corsair products, I see they released a model (CMFUSB2.0-8GBGT) which apparently does 34MB/sec and 28MB/sec read/write. It's not a paper release either as it is IN STOCK in a store local to me:

http://www.ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?ItemID=352 518

http://www.corsairmemory.com/corsair/flash_memory.html

I purchased the supertalent ALUMI-4GB-DH-S per the speed ratings in the
article "Roundup of USB Flash Drives with 4GB+ Storage Capacity".

I tried 2 drives on two different systems and the read/write speeds are
approximately 1/10th of those shown in the benchmarks. It took
approximately 4 minutes to copy a single 360MB file. Buyers beware of
super talent drives!!!

Sandisk Cruzer micro 4 GB is not compatible with Vista

You tested write speed for 512 byte writes. the Vista Readyboost spec specifies write testing at 128k byte write size. Most of these drives are plenty fast at 128k bytes.

The poor performance of even the best drives on 512 byte writes ensures long delays backing up small files unless we use file compression.
I hope the next generation drives will do small writes at least ten times faster.

AFAIK all flash drives write quickly the first time they are filled, then slow down to normal.
These benchmarks appear to show the ugly truth.
Do any of you know how to erase them completely for fast reuse?

This was a really thorough article but I was a bit disappointed to see that the Sandisk Cruzer Titanium wasn't included. It has done very well in many reviews and it would have been great to see it compete against all of these!

THE SOURCE for reliable Vista ReadyBoost information:
Tom Archer's Blog: Tom Archer is the Program Manager for the Windows SDK Tools and Build Environment.
http://blogs.msdn.com/tomarcher/archive/2006/06/02/615199.a spx

From that blog:
Q: What perf do you need on your device? (for ReadyBoost)
A: 2.5MB/sec throughput for 4K random reads and 1.75MB/sec throughput for 512K random writes

So it appears that your testing used 512 Byte writes instead of 512K Byte writes. As I recall, flash takes a long time to erase each block before writing so by doing 1000 times as many writes as the ReadyBoost requirements, you'll get numbers that aren't anywhere near the 1.75MB/sec requirement. If you can, try and retest using the 512K Byte writes.

Check out the TechCrater article on how to find Vista's rating of a ReadyBoost device. Note that factors like speed of your USB 2.0 port factor into this. (While USB2.0 is 480Mbps, if you tested this with a low performance chipset or through several USB 2.0 hubs, I suspect the numbers will be lower than they otherwise would be.)
http://www.techcrater.com/2007/04/06/how-to-find-readyboos t-speed-rating/

Here's a set of user submited speeds for their ReadyBoost devices since Windows makes this hard to find unless you know where to look in the Event Log and Manufatcurers typically don't publish these ReadyBoost performance numbers.
http://www.techcrater.com/2007/04/05/readyboost-flash-mem ory-speed-list/

I also suggest you add the Corsair TurboFlash (Windows Vista Accelerator) to any ReadyBoost testing you do since it was explicitly designed and optimized for ReadyBoost.

Notable results from the speed list link above. Looks like the drive ranked 9 below (9 THUMB ADATA PD7 (200x) 4000 NTFS 6471 15208) is one of the ones from your review. That user reported 15208 or 15.2 MB/sec writes for ReadyBoost.

Rank Type Brand Model Capacity (MB) File Sys RRead (KB/s) RWrite (KB/s)
1 THUMB Corsair TurboFlash 1000 FAT 8117 6982
2 THUMB ATP Petito UFD 1000 Unk 8090 7247
3 THUMB Apacer HT203 Handy Steno 200x 2000 Unk 8075 9977
4 THUMB Apacer HT203 Handy Steno 1000 Unk 8067 9396
5 THUMB Apacer HA202 2000 FAT 7779 9238
6 THUMB Corsair Flash Voyager 2000 Unk 6504 11842
7 THUMB Kingston DataTraveler ReadyFlash (Enhanced for Windows ReadyBoost) 1000 FAT 6501 8305
9 THUMB ADATA PD7 (200x) 4000 NTFS 6471 15208

Note that diferent capacities in the same flash drive porduct series will often have significantly different ReadyBoost performance. Even the same model can vary when manufacturers silently change the supplier for the flash memory controller chip in the flash drive. You'll also get variations depending on your machine. I tried on an old Celeron machine I have with Vista (Veerrrry slooooow...) and the machine was so slow it rated the same fast Corsair Turbo Flash as 2802/5742 compared to the rating from my dual core laptop rating of 8117/6982 KB/sec (random read/sequential* write). *- sequential is what the event log says, but there's substantial evidence it's actually random writes.

You may want to add winsat (WINdows Sytem Assesment Tool) to your test tools for ReadBoost
Here are command line utilities to check flash device read/write speeds.
To test read speed:
winsat disk -v –read –ran –ransize 4096 –drive
To test write speed:
winsat disk -v –write –ran –ransize 524288 –drive
The RBTest tool tests a device for “slow regions” on a device.
RBTest.exe –assess
http://www.techcrater.com/2007/04/06/how-to-find-readyboos t-speed-rating/

If you do talk to manufacturers, can you please get these jokers to put the ReadyBoost performance numbers based on the Windows Vista EventLog on their product packaging or at least the detailed specs on their websites. Who knows, they just might sell more drives if we can see that they are fast from these perfomance numbers!!

I had to gamble on the Corsair TurboFlash I purchased because I couldn't any numbers on it until I published mine at http://www.techcrater.com/2007/04/05/readyboost-flash-mem ory-speed-list/

Best Choice !

please test the Super Talent 2gb dh series

sp tttttttt eeeeeeeee

I just bought the Buffalo 2 weeks ago and now I know I made the right call.

mui buena