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Results: Copying Small Files

31 USB 3.0 Thumb Drives, Tested And Reviewed
By , Achim Roos

When we look at peak read and write performance using a synthetic benchmark, you already know that you'll rarely (if ever) see those numbers in the real world. Practically, you're more likely to load a thumb drive up with a handful of big files and a bunch of smaller ones. This negatively affects performance. Our copy benchmarks should give you a much better idea of how these drives will behave in practice.

Copying Pictures

Our first real-world test reads and writes 790 pictures with a combined size of 2 GB to and from the thumb drives. Interestingly, the finishing order is about the same for reading the pictures as it was for sequential read performance in CrystalDiskMark. Transfer rates are slower across the board, though.

The Patriot Supersonic Magnum wins this metric with a transfer rate of 250.8 MB/s. Four other drives also achieve speeds in excess of 200 MB/s: the Toshiba TransMemory-EX 32 GB, Toshiba's TransMemory-EX 64 GB, the Kingston DataTraveler HyperX 3.0, and SanDisk's Extreme. Only the drives in the lower third of the field read our picture files at less than 100 MB/s. Last place is almost a draw between Adata's S102 Pro 64 GB with 40.2 MB/s and the Patriot Supersonic Boost XT with 40.1 MB/s. Unfortunately, those numbers aren't much better than last generation's USB 2.0-compatible thumb drives.

The Mach Xtreme MX-ES writes our workload fastest, averaging 106.9 MB/s. It’s followed (though not very closely) by SanDisk's Extreme, which posts 79.4 MB/s.

Copying MP3s

The results for copying 356 MP3 files with a combined size of 2 GB are, perhaps not surprisingly, similar to those for copying pictures. The same five USB 3.0 thumb drives achieve speeds of more than 200 MB/s in our read test: the Patriot Supersonic Magnum, Toshiba's TransMemory-EX 32 GB, the Toshiba TransMemory-EX 64 GB, Kingston's DataTraveler HyperX 3.0, and the SanDisk Extreme.

Patriot's drive takes the crown in reads by averaging 259.5 MB/s. The Mach Xtreme MX-ES wins the writing benchmark once again by hitting 134.6 MB/s. This time, though, it’s followed closely by SanDisk's Extreme, which posts 122.2 MB/s. The Patriot Supersonic Magnum and the Transcend JetFlash 780, which share third place in this benchmark, are quite a bit slower at 82.0 MB/s.

Copying Many Small Files

There's not much left of these drives' impressive sequential write speed once we start sending a lot of really small files through them (22,704, with a combined size of 350 MB, to be exact).

A good thumb drive should at least maintain bearable performance under these conditions, and three of the products in our round-up do get there: the Mach Xtreme MX-FX, which actually writes faster (at 15.0 MB/s) than it reads (11 MB/s), Adata's N0005 at 9.0 MB/s, and the SanDisk Extreme, achieving an acceptable 7.9 MB/s.

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Top Comments
  • 13 Hide
    rolli59 , July 21, 2013 9:38 PM
    It would have been nice to see price performance index as well but good article.
Other Comments
  • 13 Hide
    rolli59 , July 21, 2013 9:38 PM
    It would have been nice to see price performance index as well but good article.
  • 4 Hide
    psikick , July 21, 2013 10:17 PM
    It's not a surprise the Sandisk wins because this USB drive is actually a small SSD.. It uses the same controller used in Sandisk's ReadyCache SSD drives... the great thing about it is it is priced reasonably considering.. :) 
  • 0 Hide
    Madn3ss795 , July 21, 2013 10:27 PM
    Been using this usb3.0 *SSD from Sandisk for half a year and I haven't got disappointed.Great device for the price. The only drawback I found is that its enclosure gets quite hot after 15mins of heavy use ( benchmarking ) because heat might reduce a SSD' durability.
  • -1 Hide
    razor512 , July 22, 2013 1:29 AM
    The sandisk extreme works well.

    I currently have the 16GB version (was $20 when I got it)
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/razor512/8272978749/
    does 200MB/s read and 57.3MB/s write

    not as good as the the 64GB version but it is still really good

    Read speed: http://i.imgur.com/TdcufSg.png

    Write speed: http://i.imgur.com/jQVkBCa.png
  • 1 Hide
    daveys93 , July 22, 2013 4:42 AM
    I have the 32 GB version of the SanDisk Extreme and it is a great thumb drive. The 16 GB version is a bit slow and the 64 GB is a bit expensive for some, the 32 GB is a good middle ground. Here are the benchmarks I used when trying to decide which USB3.0 drive to get:

    http://www.whoratesit.com/SanDisk-Extreme-USB-30-32GB/Rating/1466

    There is a toggle on that site that allows you to view the benchmark results for all three sizes.

    Here is the full whoratesit.com article as a complement to the Toms article: http://www.whoratesit.com/Best-Flash-Drive/Comparison/1#rank1
  • 1 Hide
    WyomingKnott , July 22, 2013 5:57 AM
    In my case the limiting factor is the controller / port. I've got three USB 3.0 controllers: On my notebook at work, built into the motherboard at home, and a PCI-E one. The PCI-E one is twice the speed of the lowest one in 4k random writes.

    If I were home I'd post the controller and the thumb drive model, but I'm not there so don't ask.
  • 0 Hide
    a1sealc4 , July 22, 2013 7:18 AM
    Very interesting read I assumed most 3.0 usb drives were similar in speed.
  • 0 Hide
    aznriptide859 , July 22, 2013 8:04 AM
    Why no Corsair Flash Survivor? :(  I love mine, albeit the write times aren't the speediest.
  • 1 Hide
    __-_-_-__ , July 22, 2013 10:18 AM
    finally a good article... -.- tkx
  • -1 Hide
    RedJaron , July 22, 2013 12:12 PM
    Quote:
    In my case the limiting factor is the controller / port. I've got three USB 3.0 controllers: On my notebook at work, built into the motherboard at home, and a PCI-E one. The PCI-E one is twice the speed of the lowest one in 4k random writes.

    If I were home I'd post the controller and the thumb drive model, but I'm not there so don't ask.


    Too true, don't forget the controller speed. The Etron controller in my old-ish Z68 board ensures my USB 3.0 devices rarely go above 25 MBps even though I can get double that performance on my newer work computer.
  • -1 Hide
    pjmelect , July 22, 2013 5:09 PM
    I wonder what the speed of these devices is when used with a USB 2.0 port. Do they max out at around 30MB/s or are they slower than this on a USB2 port?
  • 0 Hide
    Blazer1985 , July 22, 2013 5:36 PM
    Thanks to tom's charts I was able to buy the Sandisk Extreme 64gb and I love it. I think that usb sticks should have a rating, like sd / cf cards btw.
    No other site offers such thorough tech analisys. Thanks Tom.
  • -1 Hide
    spooky2th , July 22, 2013 8:40 PM
    Looks like USB 3.0 drives are not all created the same.
  • 0 Hide
    SirGCal , July 22, 2013 9:47 PM
    Newegg has a ton of reviews on that particular drive failing very rapidly which offers up some concern... They all said it was fast as heck until it went belly up. Then poof. Some warrantied it on their 3rd... Wounder if the manufacturer fixed the issue yet.. ???
  • 0 Hide
    Madn3ss795 , July 22, 2013 9:50 PM
    Quote:
    I wonder what the speed of these devices is when used with a USB 2.0 port. Do they max out at around 30MB/s or are they slower than this on a USB2 port?


    Maxed read speed ( 30-33mb/s ) but sequential write speed got capped at around 27mb/s only. Tested myself.
  • 2 Hide
    saymi , July 23, 2013 1:27 AM
    I bought 3 sandisk extrermes about a year ago and using them for different purposes. I installed Linux into one of them and it works flawlessly. Others are for storage and application usage. I did not considered buying an alternative. I have not had any compatibility issue with any hardware yet.
  • 0 Hide
    marraco , July 23, 2013 2:56 PM
    Nice. Now hack it, install windows and run benchmarks against common HD benchmarks
  • 0 Hide
    andy5174 , July 24, 2013 10:00 PM
    I had been waiting for this for ages!
  • 0 Hide
    BWMerlin , July 27, 2013 1:49 AM
    A really nice article, is there any chance of one about SD cards?
  • 0 Hide
    ronin2009 , August 2, 2013 8:54 AM
    no mention of the "Lexar JumpDrive Triton" ??! one of the fastest usb 3.0 keys out there
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