Re: I'm designing a Thumb Drive

On Jan 11, 1:05 am, ChairmanOfTheBored <RUBo...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On Thu, 10 Jan 2008 01:42:55 -0800 (PST), Martin Brown

<|||newspam...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I previously asked this question on comp.system.ibm.pc.storage and got
zero answers, but since this newsgroup contains a large number of
computer savvy folk with the right sort of kit and an inclination to
test things as opposed to believing the manufacturers marketting hype.
Here is a repost:

  It is NOT "marketing hype", dip***.  There are many many reviews on
the product, AND I own one, and it DOES run JUST THAT FAST.

I don't have a problem with the read write speeds for large files. I
can well believe them.

What worries me is that random access speeds shown for the smaller
Corsair products in the only online review made with a reliable
benchmarking tool. I am sure that for large files a GT will max out
around 30+MB/s (and the cheaper one 20MB/s). The big question is what
is their seek time for random access. 30ms is glacially slow!

I want to know the measured seek time for small sector random access.
A number that I have not seen quoted in any reviews online, in the
trade press or in any of the comics. If you can point me at one
reviewing 8GB flash drives properly then I would be very interested. I
am in the UK so US magazines are rare but can be found if necessary.

Failing that how about proving your drive performance with one of the
standard benchmarks :

http://www.storagereview.com/php/tiki/tiki-pagehistory.php?page=Benchmarks&diff=2

h2benchw 3.6 (German magazine) and HDTach 2.xx are both linked from
that page - either would do. The number I am most interested in is the
seek time. Bandwidth for large sequential transfers is not in doubt.

As I pointed out in the original post I was alarmed by the huge
apparent seek times of the smaller Corsair drives and I have not been
able to find any competent reviews at all of larger USB flash drives.
There are endless reviews of classical disk platters (where
manufacturers publish performance & avg seek time anyway). But USB
flash drive manufacturers specs are deliberately vague about these
important parameters.

I am now toying with the idea of putting together an ad hoc RAID0
array using a pair of the cheapest possible USB drives. Effectively
doubling their bandwidth although others trying this approach have
encountered some snags.

Regards,
Martin Brown
.