14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that Computex did not go by without Super Talent revealing its newest flash device, although one can safely say that what it delivered doesn't exactly perfectly fit into the flash drive or SSD categories.
At first glance, the USB 3.0 Express RC8 is a flash drive like any other, but there is a reason why its maker seems to call it simply USB 3.0 drive.
The product is, of course, a flash drive unit, but its performance and capacity, not to mention the chip used in its making, are reminiscent of solid state drives.
The SandFroce SF-1222 controller chip is the main asset of this product, delivering very high read and write speeds.
Theoretically, it should enable transfers of over 200 MB/s, and the tests shown by AnandTech seems to support this, at least to some extent, since writing is done at a far lower speed that reading 9ome test had scribing being done at 32 MB/s).
That said, such transfer speeds would probably work well for copying large files, but the comparatively low writing rate might not do for hasty people.
On the flip side, the fact that data can so easily be read makes the USB 3.0 Express RC8 quite suited for running or installing applications off of it. Even more, it will be possible to run an entire operating system off the product.
For those that want more hardware details, there are four NAND devices inside the small aluminum frame, plus 8 channels, two for each 25nm chip.
Availability is scheduled for June 15, 2011, although there has, so far, been no word on pricing. Either way, the fact that 25 GB, 50 GB and 100 GB capacities are being prepared makes it clear that Super talent is trying to appeal to as many end-users as possible.