Two Fast and Functional USB Flash Drives

Memina Rocket 4 GB

The Memina also does not hold back on speed ratings: It specifies a read transfer speed at 200X, and write speed at 160X. Those speed ratings are based on the original rotational speed of a CD player; 1X delivers 150 kiloBytes per second, so those numbers translate into 30 megaBytes per second (MB/s) when reading, and 24 MB/s when writing. One might presume these numbers to be inflated, but one might be surprised.

In any case, our tests were bedeviled by minor problems. On a system with a KT800 Pro chipset and Windows XP SP2, the performance we measured was only one miserable megaByte per second. We suffered similar results on another computer with an nForce4 chipset, though not on all the nForce4 systems we tried.

On our new reference system with the Intel E7520 chipset, as well as on other computers with 900 series Intel chipsets, the Rocket flash drive did its duty with admirable dispatch: the promised 30 MB/s claim proved to be no exaggeration! But in our new benchmark, which combines concurrent read and write activity, the Memina unit did not keep pace with Kingston's competitive offering.

Following our new rating system, we give the new Rocket 4 GB 3.5 out of a possible 5 stars, because the performance problems on several systems were never resolved, and because performance could have been better under high demand in our new benchmark. The product itself was otherwise fabulous and even its high price - it normally retails for $270-300 - shouldn't deter hardware enthusiasts.