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USB thumb drives

muse108dc

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I have USB 3.0 capabilities I just need something to use it for are there any thumbdrives that take advantage of the speed, or, dare I hope, a portable harddrive or two.
 
There are couple thumbdrive mfg'ers out there now with USB 3.0. Not many but a few.

SuperTalent has three lines (express drive, supercrypt, raiddrive) that I KNOW are extremely fast. I have the express and supercrypt and the supercrypt hits well over 250mb/s on reads. Only down side is they get a bit warm (not HOT but warm) with extended use.

Adata has a couple as well. In both SSD w/sata AND usb 3 interface as well as flash drives with usb 3.0 interfaces. PQI has a usb 3.0 flash drive

Seagate has a bunch of portable hard drives. The goflex portable and goflex pro are 2.5" hdds based versions which come in many flavours including usb 3. The pro uses a 7200rpm and the portable uses a slower one, dif software package but that is basically the only big difs. Expect under 100mb/s performance. The goflex desk is a 3,5hdd which can come in many flavours including usb 3.0. The newest 3TB monster I own and its a 3TB XT beast in it. Hits 130-140'ish. The only prob with the seagate models is they run hot'ish (actually the 3tb runs VERY hot) as they are passive only and are enclosed in plastic.

Samsung has their S2 line of portable usb 3 drives.
Chain tech has a ssd based model. Same with OCZ and their sweet Enyo.

There are PLENTY of choices out there now....and more coming out everyday if you look around and are open to dif options. :)

IF you dont want to go the flash drive route a good alternative to a prebuilt is making your own. Pick up a usb 3,0 enclosure with a ASmedia chipset (avoid the JMicron crap) and stick your own drive in it. Wont be as fast as some of the NAND based units but will be much cheaper on a price per gb.

One nice bonus is most of the above are also faster on USB 2.0 interface's then a USB 2.0 model would be. Hell my ST Expressdrive out and out owns my corsair gtr on usb 2.0!

Oh and update your USB 3,0 controllers firmware and drivers! My NEC based pci-e adapter cards saw a HUGE performance gain when going with the latest ones....which usually are not availabe from the mfg'er brand. Afterwords it will show up as a Renesas Electronics usb 3.0 controller...which is perfectly fine as Renesas Electronics bought that division from NEC (IIRC)

I get mine here:
SONY/NEC firmwares

For example for my u3s6 those are MUCH better then the asus branded ones which have 140-150mb/s performance "wall". Which the firmware update....removes! My SF based SSDs on my SIIG hub now are about the same speed as when they are attached via SATA

YMMV
 
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Thanks AkG. My new rig will have USB 3 and you have answered a couple of questions I was about to ask. I don't know what Dell puts in thier rigs but it is USB 3.
 
Looked very where and google but can't find where to buy one. Any one here know where or when they will be for sale? In Canada? Thanks.
 
Which brand and model?

Seagates usually come with usb 2 std but the upgrade kit is only about 40 bucks. Aviailbe everywhere even direct from the mfg'er. :)

OCZ?...everywhere

SuperTalent? IIRC pricecanada has them.

Kingston? A bunch of places. amazon, direct dial, pc canada, etc

If you mean USB 3 enclosures....everywhere. NICX is usually where I get mine. Or the egg.

Hope that helps. If not let me know what brand and model you ARE looking for and I'll see what I can dig up for ya. :)
 

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