What is the fastest USB flash drive for 2013? Well….as of August at least….
Someone brought us a 64GB ADATA Elite UE700 USB 3.0 flash drive and explained to us that it was the fastest USB flash drive on the market. That was quite the claim, so that triggered a need for a test.
We gave the little drive a crash test to see what kind of average readings we could get. Was it fast? Oh yes, it was indeed. Our average transfer speeds were 190-198MB/s read and 85-90MB/s write. That’s not too bad for a flash drive compared to recent years. Was it the fastest though?
Now our interest is perked! We got our hands on a 64GB ADATA Superior Series S102 USB 3.0 Pro Flash Drive to see how it would compare. It didn’t do so well, coming in at 90-100MB/s read and 20-25MB/s write.
Now let’s break out of the same-brand comparison and test some more! We snagged a few more drives to see how well they compare.
The next drive we tested out was the 64GB Lexar JumpDrive Triton USB 3.0 Flash Drive. We put it through the same benchmarks to see how it fared and got a surprising balance in speed. We were getting an average of 150-190MB/s read and 145-170MB/s write. The range was a little all over the place but the balance between the two numbers was good.
Finally we gave the 64GB Patriot Supersonic Rage XT USB 3.0 Flash Drive a try since it has received some ravings recently. It’s a simple looking drive, very small in size (slide action). We got an average of 130-170MB/s read and 44-48MB/s write, so this one didn’t fare so well either yet did better than the S102 by ADATA.
Conclusion!
The fastest of the flash drives is the 64GB Lexar JumpDrive Triton USB 3.0 Flash Drive. It’s read speeds fell a “little” under the average of which the ADATA Elite UE700 pulled off but the difference is small and more importantly the write speeds were almost twice that of the ADATA. A fast write speed is very important and we like to see it come close to the read speed when possible. It shows that the manufacturer is focused on the total quality of the drive’s performance and not trying to put everything into one braggable number.
Think about it. When most commonly using a USB flash drive in a pinch, are you in a panic to get the information off of the drive?…or backup the information *to* the drive? In most cases people tend to reach for a flash drive when they need a quick solution of transferring data and then running off with it. Same thing goes for buying SD cards (and other memory card types), you focus on how fast your device can write to it when it comes to comparing purchase options. If your buying it for a camera, do you want each picture to think for a minute while it saves or do you want it to save instantly so you can immediately take another picture?
Keep in mind that read/write speeds also depend on the source of which the information is coming from. Data can only write as fast as the information is being read and vice versa. We performed these tests using a SSD (Solid State Drive) hard drive as the data source in order to obtain maximum performance out of the flash drives, and used flash drive benchmark applications to obtain proper readings.
Are you a flash drive manufacturer who develops a drive faster than these and want us to test it out and review? Contact us and we can let you know where to send it and we will try it out.
