I ordered this drive yesterday from newegg ($85) based off my own investigation, glad to wake up and see a fairly positive review. I gave away my Rage2 recently, and wasn't happy with its write performance, so i guess im still kind of stuck there tho...
These look decent, but a bit large for leave-in semipermanant storage. I was looking at the Sandisk Ultra Fit 128GB,but there are reports of it overheating and disconnecting after large transfers, otherwise that would seem perfect for me.
I would venture to say they are the same size. The Atom pictures you see have the cap on (i.e, the bigger segment is the one covering the USB port).
Also, I can guarantee that the Atom 128GB doesn't disconnect during large transfers (as you can see in the performance consistency section - there is no drop down to 0 indicating a disconnect - though I believe there could be a SLC cache in there).
Oh I didn't notice it was a cap, thanks. I'll have to investigate this more, if it's about the same size and doesn't have the overheating issues, it may be my winner over the Ultra Fit.
The Ultra Fit is a good flash drive, but it will get hot because there is less surface area to dissipate heat. A lot of people who use them for continuous backups will force the drive to run at USB 2 speeds to reduce heat buildup, since these types of backups do not need high speeds as much as they do compact form factors. If you need a drive that you will constantly be putting data on, removing, rewriting, etc., you may want to consider a 128gb MLC-based microSD card. I use Samsung's PRO and Transcend's MLC based cards for editing because they are much more reliable than TLC SD cards and flash drives.
I see those 4K writes in CrystalDiskMark at 0.051 (0.034 I think it is the speed of a 1.44MB floppy) and I know one thing. Never buying a Mushkin product before looking at much much better CrystalDiskMark scores in that category. Mushkin just got a nice place in my black list, regarding USB flash drives manufacturers.
That isn't a Mushkin issue, rather this is a USB 3 issue. Native controllers for USB 3 flash drives tend to do poorly with 4k writes. That leaves Makers with a huge issue...do you use a very high-end SSD controller to as much as double the price (and size, and operating temp) of your flash drive or do you accept the lower 4k speeds for a value-driven line? In this case, this drive favors endurance and value price given we have an aluminum-cased MLC drive priced lower than many of the plastic cased-TLC alternatives. In this regards, this Muskin product will have superior endurance, but lower random write speeds. There are Sandisk, Patriot, Toshiba, Samsung, Transcend, Micron, etc. products with this same issue...notice the products with the extremely high 4k write speeds are dramatically more expensive and big (due to the controller), and often use inferior TLC NAND. On my blacklist are TLC-based flash drives because, regardless of how fast they are, the endurance is far inferior to MLC/eMLC alternatives such as this, or other MLC drives. Also bear in mind that a benchmark is just that...it is a poor predictor of real-world speeds.
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11 Comments
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ingwe - Wednesday, February 24, 2016 - link
That is pretty cheap. I may end up getting one.LsRamAir - Wednesday, February 24, 2016 - link
Thanks for the great review.I ordered this drive yesterday from newegg ($85) based off my own investigation, glad to wake up and see a fairly positive review. I gave away my Rage2 recently, and wasn't happy with its write performance, so i guess im still kind of stuck there tho...
tipoo - Wednesday, February 24, 2016 - link
These look decent, but a bit large for leave-in semipermanant storage. I was looking at the Sandisk Ultra Fit 128GB,but there are reports of it overheating and disconnecting after large transfers, otherwise that would seem perfect for me.http://www.amazon.ca/SanDisk-Ultra-128GB-Flash-SDC...
ganeshts - Wednesday, February 24, 2016 - link
I would venture to say they are the same size. The Atom pictures you see have the cap on (i.e, the bigger segment is the one covering the USB port).Also, I can guarantee that the Atom 128GB doesn't disconnect during large transfers (as you can see in the performance consistency section - there is no drop down to 0 indicating a disconnect - though I believe there could be a SLC cache in there).
tipoo - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
Oh I didn't notice it was a cap, thanks. I'll have to investigate this more, if it's about the same size and doesn't have the overheating issues, it may be my winner over the Ultra Fit.ZapNZs - Monday, April 4, 2016 - link
The Ultra Fit is a good flash drive, but it will get hot because there is less surface area to dissipate heat. A lot of people who use them for continuous backups will force the drive to run at USB 2 speeds to reduce heat buildup, since these types of backups do not need high speeds as much as they do compact form factors. If you need a drive that you will constantly be putting data on, removing, rewriting, etc., you may want to consider a 128gb MLC-based microSD card. I use Samsung's PRO and Transcend's MLC based cards for editing because they are much more reliable than TLC SD cards and flash drives.yannigr2 - Saturday, February 27, 2016 - link
I see those 4K writes in CrystalDiskMark at 0.051 (0.034 I think it is the speed of a 1.44MB floppy) and I know one thing. Never buying a Mushkin product before looking at much much better CrystalDiskMark scores in that category. Mushkin just got a nice place in my black list, regarding USB flash drives manufacturers.ZapNZs - Monday, April 4, 2016 - link
That isn't a Mushkin issue, rather this is a USB 3 issue. Native controllers for USB 3 flash drives tend to do poorly with 4k writes. That leaves Makers with a huge issue...do you use a very high-end SSD controller to as much as double the price (and size, and operating temp) of your flash drive or do you accept the lower 4k speeds for a value-driven line? In this case, this drive favors endurance and value price given we have an aluminum-cased MLC drive priced lower than many of the plastic cased-TLC alternatives. In this regards, this Muskin product will have superior endurance, but lower random write speeds. There are Sandisk, Patriot, Toshiba, Samsung, Transcend, Micron, etc. products with this same issue...notice the products with the extremely high 4k write speeds are dramatically more expensive and big (due to the controller), and often use inferior TLC NAND. On my blacklist are TLC-based flash drives because, regardless of how fast they are, the endurance is far inferior to MLC/eMLC alternatives such as this, or other MLC drives. Also bear in mind that a benchmark is just that...it is a poor predictor of real-world speeds.masontula - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link
Yes, but can you provide me any proof for this or any other thing where I can trust on?http://www.menslifeline.com/
thanks and reagrds
XmppTextingBloodsport - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
"Why should not UFD be wrapped in neoprene analogues?"MarcoNele - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link
So there are very fast usb 3.0 flash out there but it is very hard finding out which ones exactly. I bought recently the Mushkin on davodo Seems good