Conclusion:
Editor's Note March 12, 2014: The text below this note is how the original review read. The key additional "Con" to consider now is that the drive failed completely after 3 uses in about 2 weeks of ownership. This premature death may also explain the inconsistent benchmark results, as it was limping to an early grave. Reviews on Amazon.com and other stores indicate that I am not alone with this problem, and that perhaps everyone should just stay away from the Turbo series of flash drives from PNY...
At
$28 from Amazon.com, the price of the
PNY Turbo 64GB USB 3.0 flash drive will definitely get your attention. While the drive was able to perform fairly well, it fell short of the advertised speeds of 95MB/s (read) and 60MB/s (write). Some testing confirmed that it could hit just over 90MB/s while reading and almost 60MB/s while writing, but from test to test the results varied more than I have see before. Most drives perform at or better than the advertised speeds, and no matter how many different benchmarks you execute, they all confirm the same general range of transfer rates.
Despite not performing quite as advertised, this PNY Turbo flash drive is an appealing choice because it offers 64GB of fairly fast storage for just $28 (and free shipping). I haven't found a cheaper USB 3.0 drive with this capacity and overall the performance is acceptable. While I have definitely used faster drives, I would have been more satisfied with this one if the published specification was lower and it was able to actually achieve those speeds.
Pros:
» Low price
» Good bang for the buck
Cons:
» Didn't read or write as fast as advertised during testing
» "Cap" doesn't really protect the electrical contacts in the drive from dust, water, etc...
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