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Performance
Now, keep in mind that the n-Tegrity Pro is
not marketed as a flash storage drive and as I have already shown you by
now, it is clear that it is not intended to be used solely for this
capability. However,
it is a multi-purpose drive and does have storage capacity and will function
just like your average flash drive. With that said, performance tests
are needed to give you all an idea of its speed and what to really expect.
Unfortunately, this was really the only area where this product does fail to
impress and you are definitely better off sticking with your high performance
drive strictly for storage.
As I do with all storage devices including
flash drives, plenty of testing is done using a number of tools to measure
its overall performance. This includes popular synthetic benchmarking suites
as well as tools designed to simulate real life performance. To provide the
best results possible, all tests were run a maximum of three times to
capture the highest scores, those of which I will also provide a comparison
against other flash drives on the markets.
Performance Results - SANDRA XII
Before showing you the SANDRA results though,
I will once again briefly cover both of the benchmark tests conducted.
Starting with the "Combined Index", these results are based on standard file
operations typical with these storage devices. This consists of writing to
the drive, reading from it and then finally deleting it from the flash drive
itself. The results, based on a set number of file sizes, will give you the
Combined Index, all of which are based on operations per minute.
The other main "score" SANDRA will provide you with is the drive's
"Endurance Factor". While skeptical to many, including myself, these tests
basically represent the wear and life expectancy of a flash drive. How?
Well, the results are based by dividing the drive's average performance over
the lowest performance. I will not get anymore technical, but when you
research this heavily, the whole logic behind it does actually make sense
and like all products, they are prone to malfunction. While many rely on
flash media as a means of achieving the highest reliability, the truth is
that even these products are prone to "wear and tear" and while extremely
rare, they are still capable of complete malfunction after excessive use.
Its performance here was a mixed bag.
The Combined Index results were significantly lower than any of the other
flash drives featured. However, its Endurance Factor was actually not
that bad when compared to other low quality flash drives.
Performance Results - HD Tune
The next set of tests I like to perform are
with HD Tune. For those unfamiliar with this small yet practical utility, it
is a tool primarily designed to measure hard disk performance. However, you
can use it with removable storage devices as well to get a better indication
as to how the drive performs. What's nice about this tool is that it is
similar to Nero's CD-DVD Speed in the sense that it will provide you with a
clear look at how the disk "behaves" during the entire testing process.
I have found that it tends to behave oddly with some hard drives or flash
drives but it is still much better than a number of other options out there.
The results here were unimpressive.
Writing starts at a very low 10MB/s before eventually hitting its average
write speed of just over 15MB/s. This was clearly slower than not only
the drives featured in the comparison above, but practically all other flash
drives I currently own as well.
Actual Performance Results
As I like to do with these products, I deviate
from synthetic benchmarks and like to provide actual performance results so
that most will have a much better idea at what you can actually expect in
terms of overall transfer speeds. These tests are always done with the
excellent DiskBench Utility. Once again, for those who are unfamiliar with
this application, DiskBench is a utility designed to measure real life
transfer rates. Unlike synthetic benchmark utilities, this application will
allow you to create an image file of a user specified size and allow you to
transfer it to and from the device you are testing in order to capture
real-time read/write transfer rates and times. Other than running these
tests on your own, it is simply the most accurate tool to capture reliable
read/write times of any storage product.
It was these tests that truly confirmed its
extremely poor performance. In fact, the results here were quite
unacceptable and this is clearly not one you should double as your primary
flash storage drive. You're talking roughly 2.8 minutes to transfer
over 50MB and a painfully long 29 minutes to write 500MB. Looking at
the chart above which compares the results from other drives, you'll clearly
see it is simply not suitable as a primary storage device.
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