12.06.09

The Speed of Flash Drives

Posted in General, Reviews at 6:05 pm by Nick

When buying my new graphics card I received a free 4GB flash drive. I didn’t realize this when I bought the product, but I was excited as you can never have too many flash drives! However, as I read its reviews I heard a great many complaints of it being slow. This made me wonder just how fast it would be, and how it compared to my other flash drives.

I was fortunate enough to be one of the first people to jump on the flash drive bandwagon. I bought (well, my mother bought) my first flash drive, a massive 128MB for over $120. That is a joke now days of course — you can obtain giant flash drives cheaply, and people routinely hand out “small” 4GB drives for free. And, as long as you plug them in once every twenty or so years they’ll retain their data!

Here I will detail the analysis of the flash drives I currently own, from my oldest, original 128 MB PNY flash to the newest free OCZ drive I have received.

In the order they were acquired, here is make / capacity (note that my original drive is the largest physically, even compared to the 16GB drive):

- 128MB PNY Attache (bought around mid 2004 or early 2005. It came with a Windows 98/ME drivers disc that I carry in my backpack to this day)

- 128 MB UNI ROTC – Special drive received from the department when I was in high school

- 2GB SanDisk Cruzer Micro – My first flash drive in many years. 2GB seems like a lot when you are used to 128MB!

- 16GB Kingston Data Traveler – Received from Distek, my employer, as Christmas gift in 2008.

- 4GB OCZ Diesel – Received as a free addon by NewEgg for buying two video cards.

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I will test using CrystalDiskMark 2.2 using a USB 2.0 port doing sequential reads and writes:

Drive Filesystem Read (MB/s) Write (MB/s)
PNY 128MB FAT 4.858 4.172
ROTC 128MB FAT 10.71 4.891
SanDisk Cruzer 2GB FAT32 30.51 8.950
Kingston Data Traveler 16GB FAT32 22.17 14.11
OCZ Diesel 4GB FAT32 17.84 6.498

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The conclusions are quite interesting. In comparison to similar technology, the OCZ diesel is indeed slow. There are many drives that function much faster then the ones listed here, though these are some of the more common drives.

It is interesting to me that write speeds increased dramatically, but now seem to wax and wane depending on what you buy. I also find it interesting that there was no clear winner here. The Kingston drive would be the obvious choice with good read speeds and the best write speeds, as well as superior capacity. However, the Sandisk drive has superior read speeds by a fair amount, and at 2GB will hold most anything I would want to carry around. I suppose these will be my primary drives depending on what I am trying to do.

As for the free OCZ Diesel… well, I think it is time to test ReadyBoost with all 4GB of it :)

12.02.09

Evelyn Glennie Shows How To Listen

Posted in Lectures / Talks, Reviews at 10:18 pm by Nick

Sometimes a talk turns into an experience, and Evelyn Glennie delivers. Evelyn is a Grammy-winning percussionist and composer who became almost completely deaf by the age of 12. Who better to teach you how to listen?


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Reviews — Logging My Thoughts

Posted in Reviews at 9:22 pm by Nick

For such a long time now I have bookmarked and otherwise hackishly cataloged some of the most interesting and persuasive material I have read or listened to. I have persistently and adamantly shared much of this with other people, and I often revisit them myself. I plan on reviewing much of this material in an effort to not only write more often, but to write down thoughts and ideas now on the things I am learning so my future self (and others) might analyze them later.

I plan to go through the many lectures I have bookmarked, and many of the best books and articles I have read. Much of the information is technology or entrepreneurship related, which makes sense if you know me. However, I think it is important to expose myself to the incredible expertise present in other fields. By learning more about art, music, politics, biology, physics, and anything else, I can develop an understanding that transgresses the fields themselves, and I will be a more well rounded individual.

I boldly support the idea that the more you learn, not just about one topic but about all things in life, the more unique your views will be and the better and more creative your solutions to problems will be. It is to your advantage to learn all you can about everything you can.

Note that many of these talks come from TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), an organization devoted to “ideas worth spreading”. You can find their web site at:

http://www.ted.com/

And it has also been posted on the right under “Links”