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Installation
While Super Talent does not "officially" list
its support on various operating systems, nor does its packaging, this drive
was tested on both a Windows XP SP2 machine, as well as on a Windows Vista
Ultimate machine.
The Super Talent Pico_A installed flawlessly
on both systems and quickly and properly identified under Device Manger.
Another good sign that your new flash drive
will impress is whether or not Windows Vista will offer the AutoPlay option
to speed up your system. After months of working with Vista and
testing a number of flash drives with this troublesome OS, I found that not
all drives work well at all. In fact, based on its somewhat strict
requirements to take advantage of its ReadyBoost feature, some drives that
are clearly capable of this cannot be used this way. I won't go into
detail as to why, but for further info, you can read my ReadyBoost article
found
here.
Performance
As with all flash drives of this size, I go
into each review with low expectations. The reason being that many
simply don't perform well enough when compared to a majority of other
standard-sized drives. However, there are some exceptions here and
some can indeed impress. Is this one of the rare few?
As I do with all flash drives, plenty of
testing is done using a number of tools to measure its overall performance.
This includes synthetic benchmarking suites as well as tools designed to
simulate real life performance. The same tools were used here and the
results are shown below. To offer the best results possible, all test
were run a maximum of three times to capture overall scores and also
includes results from its only competitor, the PQI Intelligent i810.
Performance Results - SANDRA 2008
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.
The Sandra results were not entirely a shock
to me. While no match to the tiny PQI drive, its endurance factor is
actually much higher than many standard-sized drives, including some high
quality ones. Overall, I was satisfied with these results, considering
I was expecting much worse.
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. However, based on a
number of tests with a variety of flash drives, I found the results to be
misleading in terms of "actual" performance results. Regardless, this
utility is good to capture transfer rates from beginning to end and see if
it is able to perform according to specification.
Once again, it was no match against the PQI
i810. Maximum transfer rates were just under 20 and averaged in at
about the same. While the PQI performs significantly better, the
Pico_A can maintain its maximum speed throughout the entire write process,
somewhat keeping its performance acceptable when compared to many other
drives on the market.
Actual Performance Results
Synthetic benchmarks are one thing and despite
how impressive this tiny drive managed to perform, it is actual performance
that will confirm all results above. With that said, there is one particular
tool I consistently use for storage device reviews that will provide you
with the most accurate results possible. 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 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 without the aid of any tools, it is simply the most
accurate utility to capture reliable read/write times of any storage
product.
It was these particular tests that proved this
drive does struggle a bit in terms of overall write speed. Some who
have purchased this drive have commented on this and while they are indeed
correct, for its size, these results are somewhat acceptable considering a
number of much larger 2.0 drives I have tested through the years actually
perform much worse.
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