A USB flash drive is almost like a wallet to me; I never leave home without it. In addition to any personal files I may want to move around, I almost always have a USB drive with my 'admin tools' attached to my key chain.
For me, flash drives are convenient and eliminate the need to carry around a CD wallet full of the various tools I might need. For others, flash drives are useful to backup their important files, or for keeping copies of their documents, images, or multimedia files with them. Lower capacity USB 2.0 drives may be adequate for many users, but when you start keeping large ISO images (for booting a recovery image) or other similarly sized files, you'll want to consider a higher capacity drive with the speed of USB 3.0.
What we have to review today is a USB 3.0 flash drive from
Patriot Memory, the Supersonic 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive. This is my first USB 3.0 device and I am anxious to see how much faster than a USB 2.0 flash drive it really is. In the promotional image above you can see the rather plain looking Patriot Memory Supersonic USB 3.0 flash drive which features white lettering on a black aluminum casing.
Before we take a closer look at the sample provided for review, take a look below at some
published information about the product from Patriot Memory's website.
Features and Specifications:
» Model: PEF32GSUSB
» USB Specification: USB 3.0
» Capacity: 32GB
» USB 3.0 compliant
» Quad-Channel technology for fast read/write performance
» Up to 100MB/s read*
» Up to 70MB/s write*
» Backwards compatible with USB 2.0
» Aluminum housing for shock resistance up to 15G
* based on internal testing
Packaging:
In the below left image we see that the front of the package looks pretty simplistic. There are a few industry logos - such as Quad Channel and USB 3.0, we see the read/write speeds prominently displayed, and of course we can see the flash drive clearly shown through a plastic bubble. In the below right image we can see the back of the package, and again it is simple with some benchmark charts, compatibility data, contact information, and reference to its 5 year warranty.
