14 DAY TRIAL // We may all already know that NAND Flash solid state storage technology is a lot faster than magnetic platters used in hard disk drives, but there's nothing like a tiny, removable USB device to show just how big the difference is.
Mach Xtreme Technology has revealed the MX-ES Ultra line of USB 3.0 flash drives, a collection that outruns SATA III HDDs despite not even being an internal storage unit.
It's generally accepted that removable media is slower than storage drives installed within a desktop or laptop chassis, as a trade-off for performance and power needs.
Input/Output interfaces have to balance speed with power, so as to allow flash drives, portable/external HDDs/SSDs to run without an AC adapter, though some still have the latter.
The convention falls apart when you compare HDDs to flash-based storage units though. Simply because NAND is much faster than HDD technology, and USB 3.0 is just 1 Gbps behind SATA III (which HDDs can't really use fully, not even close).
And so we reach today's topic: the MX-ES Ultra line of USB 3.0 flash drives, available in 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB capacities.
The 16 GB drive is not super-fast, but it still reaches a read speed of 185 MB/s, while the writing speed can go all the way up to 170 MB/s. Still better than most HDDs really.
The performance goes up with capacity, so the 32 GB drive can both read and write at 200 MB/s. As if that weren't enough, the 64 GB drive has a read/write speed of 210 MB/s. It's a bit odd that the speed difference is so small between the higher-capacity models, but we won't complain.
Interestingly enough, the MX-ES Ultra line of USB 3.0 flash drives is designed out of SLC NAND Flash chips, single-level cell memory as it were. This memory trades capacity for endurance, which makes the 64 GB storage space a bit of a shock.
Unfortunately, SLC technology is also quite a bit more expensive, which means you can expect the MX-ES Ultra line of USB 3.0 flash drives to really empty your wallet, no matter how normal the traditional two-piece design (body+cap) makes them look. Alas, we do not know exactly what the prices are.
In case you were wondering, the newcomers measure 69.0 mm x 17.0 mm x 8.0 mm / 2.71 inches x 0.66 inches x 0.31 inches. They also weigh between 32 g / 1.12 oz and 39 g / 1.37 oz.