Since I reviewed my first SSD, three things have happened. 1) Controllers have improved significantly. My personal favorite, SandForce’s SF-1200, can outperform the original X25-M by more than 3x in random write speed. 2) Consumer capacities have tripled. While the majority of SSDs sold are still under 100GB in size, you can now get 240GB and even 480GB consumer drives. 3) Prices have dropped. The first SSD I reviewed was Intel’s 80GB X25-M and it carried a $595 MSRP. OCZ will sell you a 120GB Vertex 2 for about half that today.

As a result of prices dropping, SSDs are being used for more than just expensive boot/application drives. Personally, I use a couple of old SSDs connected to Apricorn SATA-to-USB adapters as Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.6 install discs. Using an SSD instead of a DVD drive speeds up OS install time considerably. I can install Windows 7 from one of these SSDs to an SSD in just under 3 minutes (timed from the moment it starts installing to the first reboot).

OCZ was the first to produce an interesting SSD for external use. The Enyo was an Indilinx Barefoot based SSD, much like the original Vertex, but paired with a SATA to USB 3.0 bridge in a very sleek package:

The aluminum housing is eerily reminiscent of Apple’s unibody MacBook Pro design, it feels very similar. Even the Enyo’s packaging is very Apple-like.

Since this is a USB 3.0 drive you have the requisite USB 3.0 cable. The micro-B connector on one end is unique to USB 3.0 devices (don’t lose the cable) while the other end will work in both USB 2.0 and 3.0 devices.

The resulting performance was pretty incredible for an external drive:

OCZ Enyo Performance
	Sequential Read (128KB)	Sequential Write (128KB)	Random Read (4KB)	Random Write (4KB)
OCZ Enyo 128GB USB 3.0	178.1 MB/s	169.6 MB/s	21.9 MB/s	7.9 MB/s
OCZ Enyo 128GB USB 2.0	35.0 MB/s	31.1 MB/s	7.8 MB/s	7.4 MB/s
Corsair Nova 128GB SATA	222.1 MB/s	184.0 MB/s	37.5 MB/s	14.4 MB/s

It’s fast enough to pretty much do anything on, and close to the performance of an internal Indilinx based SSD. There’s no TRIM support, but you do get idle garbage collection assuming you have it plugged into your computer and have at least some free space on the partition. In my testing the garbage collection worked with NTFS partitions, I couldn’t get it working with HFS+ partitions.

OCZ Enyo, clean performance

OCZ Enyo, after torture

OCZ Enyo, after drive has been idle for several hours

The Enyo continues to be unrivaled in the market, but its pricetag is tough to justify:

OCZ Enyo Pricing
	64GB	128GB	256GB
OCZ Enyo	$199	$305	$715

At $305 for a 120GB drive, you could actually buy a faster 120GB SandForce SSD and pair it with an external USB dongle. Of course it wouldn’t look as nice and it wouldn’t be as fast given that most SATA to USB dongles don’t support USB 3.0.

If you do have a use for it however, the Enyo gets the job done. I’d love to see OCZ cram a SandForce controller in there instead of the dated Indilinx controller though.

OCZ has traditionally gone after the high end of the SSD space, so the Enyo makes a lot of sense. But if you want something a bit cheaper to plug into your otherwise unused USB 3.0 ports, Kingston has another option.

Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0, The Value USB 3.0 SSD

This is the DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0. It looks like a fat thumb drive:

While not quite as sleek looking as the Enyo, it’s far more compact. Other than the thickness, the DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 looks like your standard thumb drive. Its performance however is far from typical.

Inside the drive is a Jmicron JMF612 controller, the same controller used in Kingston’s value SSDs. Kingston connects the JMF612 via two ribbon cables to a separate PCB with four Toshiba NAND devices on it. Remember SSDs get their performance by reading from/writing to many NAND devices in parallel, so the use of four chips helps.

The result is a thumb drive that performs more like a value SSD rather than a traditional thumb drive. With the USB 3.0 connector built in, there’s no need to carry around an extra cable. Well, not exactly.

While I had no problems using the DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 in my test board’s USB 2.0 ports, the recommended method to ensure USB 2.0 compatibility is to use the supplied Y-cable. The USB 3.0 spec allows for more power over a single port than USB 2.0, I suspect on normal systems that don’t have higher powered USB 2.0 ports you’ll need to use this cable for the drive to function properly.

Carrying the Y-cable is a pain but one way or another you’re going to have to carry around some additional bulk if you want an external USB 3.0 SSD these days.

The performance Kingston’s drive delivers is respectable:

Performance
	Sequential Read (128KB)	Sequential Write (128KB)	Random Read (4KB)	Random Write (4KB)
Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 USB 3.0	89.7 MB/s	67.2 MB/s	5.6 MB/s	2.75 MB/s
Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 USB 2.0	33.2 MB/s	27.0 MB/s	5.6 MB/s	2.75 MB/s
OCZ Enyo 128GB USB 3.0	178.1 MB/s	169.6 MB/s	21.9 MB/s	7.9 MB/s
OCZ Enyo 128GB USB 2.0	35.0 MB/s	31.1 MB/s	7.8 MB/s	7.4 MB/s
Kingston SSDNow V Series 30GB SATA	181.8 MB/s	52.6 MB/s	9.4 MB/s	2.12 MB/s

Sequential writes were over 60MB/s on USB 3.0, pretty much on-par with a mainstream internal hard drive. Random access is still faster than any mechanical drive. Peak performance is much lower than a standard SSD simply because there aren't as many NAND devices to stripe reads/writes across.

Like the Enyo, there’s no TRIM support but the drive is fairly resilient. The HDTach pass below was taken after I filled the drive and ran a 4KB random write torture test for 20 minutes across all LBAs:

Kingston drive after torture

Read speed is mostly unaffected, and although minimum write speed has dropped you can see the drive is trying its best to clean itself up. Another pass of HDTach after being idle for 30 minutes showed a slight improvement in performance:

The valleys are still there, but they’ve all been pulled up a bit. Subsequent writes should continue to bring performance up.

You’ll notice from our internal shots of the DT Ultimate that Kingston uses a lot of thermal padding inside the drive. The good news is that the pads help, the bad news is that under load I recorded a maximum drive surface temperature of 100.4F. Kingston claims that the drive’s operating temperature ranges from 32F - 140F, and I never the DT Ultimate 3.0 come close to that 140F maximum. I have to admit the temperatures do bother me but Kingston warrantees the drive for 5 years. Just don’t use it for your only copy of any data and you should be covered.

The DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 is a more value oriented drive than OCZ’s Enyo, which is reflected in its pricing:

Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 Pricing
	16GB	32GB	64GB
Kingston DT Ultimate 3.0	$89	$138	$270

Unfortunately, cost-per-GB is actually higher than OCZ's Enyo. A 16GB drive will set you back $89, while the 64GB drive we tested today will run you $270. Unless you're absolutely married to the smaller physical size I see no point in going for the 64GB model as OCZ's Enyo is cheaper. The 16GB and 32GB drives reach price points that OCZ doesn't compete at however.

Final Words

We’re on the verge of seeing new SSDs for the high end consumer market and as we get them I’m certain we’ll see more products like OCZ’s Enyo and the DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 hit the market. Technology does trickle down and for those of you looking for fast external storage, we do have some competent (although pricey) options.

To put the sort of performance we're talking about here in perspective, you can copy a full dual-layer 9GB DVD image from an SSD to the OCZ Enyo in under 55 seconds over USB 3.0. Kingston's DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 will do the same in less than two and a half minutes.

It’ll still be years before we get this sort of performance at throw-away pricing, but at least you have the choice if you’re shopping today.