Testing Methodology
To test the flash drives we have included a number of popular synthetic benchmarks such as CrystalDiskMark, AS SSD Benchmark, HD Tune Pro and Atto Disk Benchmark. In addition we will be focusing on our own custom file transfer tests which are designed to measure copy, read and write performance.
Our 6GB ISO test mimics the performance you will see when transferring large files such as movies and games. The program copy test is made up of many small non-compressed files (6104 files totaling 2.75GB). The game copy evaluation is comprised of a mixture of small and large files. There are 1336 files in this test for a total size of 2.70GB.
To avoid any bottlenecks we are reading from a Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB SSD and then writing the data back to this drive, which is considerably faster than any of the flash drives we are testing.
We have also tested all three drives on a USB 2.0 port, so it becomes easier to draw a line on what the speed advantages are with the newer interface and also in comparison to any run-of-the-mill pen drive sitting on your desk right now.
Test System Specs
- Intel Core i7 2600K
- x2 2GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 (CAS 7-7-7-20)
- Asus P8P67 Deluxe (Intel P67)
- OCZ ZX Series 1250w
- Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (SATA 6Gb/s)
- GeForce GTX 580 (1536MB)
- Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
- Nvidia Forceware 266.58 WHQL