14 DAY TRIAL // Flash drives may normally be made just for data storage and transfer between PCs, but the RC4 created by Super Talent is definitely more than that, and it doesn't even have encryption technology.
The asset that Super Talent made a point of including in the USB 3.0 Express RC4 is the Windows 2 Go feature.
For those still unfamiliar with the technology, it allows people to install the Windows 8 operating system on a flash drive and then use it to boot off any PC.
That means that it doesn't matter what motherboard, CPU, memory, video card or other hardware components a PC uses.
It is a far cry from the way Windows doesn't boot when moving a system partition from one computer to another (boot failure happens).
There is no question that it helps to always have familiar OS settings when operating on a foreign PC.
Super Talent made it so that the USB 3.0 RC4 behaves like a fixed drive, a SSD as it were. The drive even has random read/write capabilities that the OS can recognize.
The drive owes that performance to SSD firmware with over-provisioning, better longevity and better performance than usual flash sticks.
As for power consumption, the Jmicron SSD/bride controller makes sure it is low.
"We are pleased to announce SuperTalent's second Windows To Go certified drive, the RC4. We are committed to providing our customers with a rich, consistent, and personalized Windows 8 experience even when they run Windows 8 from a USB drive. Super Talent continues to offer drives specifically optimized for Windows To Go to help us fulfill this vision," said Stella Chernyak, senior enterprise, Microsoft.
The Super Talent USB 3.0 Express RC4 has capacities of 32 GB, 64 GB, 128 GB and 256 GB. Needless to say, it is fully backwards compatible with USB 2.0 ports.