Transcend TS16GSSD34E: SSD ExpressCard for those on the Go...
by Dave Robinet on October 25, 2007 12:15 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
HDTach and HDTune
While certainly not a threat to a conventional hard drive, the SSD34E shows synthetic numbers at or above its posted specifications. There is clearly ample bandwidth in the USB bus to support the device. The MXI ClipDrive 2.0 used for comparison purposes, while not exactly a world beater, turns in speeds approaching 10MB/second for both reads and writes.
File Write Performance
Our file copy test measures the time it takes to transfer our test folder that contains 29 files, 1 folder, and has 7.55GB of data from our source (WD Raptor) drive to the target test drive. This benchmark is disk write intensive and requires a fast storage system.
Where the SSD34E's performance suffers the worst is in the area of file writes. Our test showed it took 19 minutes and 7 seconds (1167 seconds) to write the 7.55 gigabytes of data. This measures out to be about 6.8MB/second, which is a fair bit slower than the posted specs for the device. As the 7.5GB file set was too large for our MXI Clipdrive, we were unable to include it in this test.
While certainly not a threat to a conventional hard drive, the SSD34E shows synthetic numbers at or above its posted specifications. There is clearly ample bandwidth in the USB bus to support the device. The MXI ClipDrive 2.0 used for comparison purposes, while not exactly a world beater, turns in speeds approaching 10MB/second for both reads and writes.
File Write Performance
Our file copy test measures the time it takes to transfer our test folder that contains 29 files, 1 folder, and has 7.55GB of data from our source (WD Raptor) drive to the target test drive. This benchmark is disk write intensive and requires a fast storage system.
Where the SSD34E's performance suffers the worst is in the area of file writes. Our test showed it took 19 minutes and 7 seconds (1167 seconds) to write the 7.55 gigabytes of data. This measures out to be about 6.8MB/second, which is a fair bit slower than the posted specs for the device. As the 7.5GB file set was too large for our MXI Clipdrive, we were unable to include it in this test.
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strikeback03 - Wednesday, October 31, 2007 - link
Any chance of comparing one of these to a 16GB Corsair FlashVoyager? The Corsair would seem to be more useful unless you always leave the card in a laptop, the Corsair is less expensive, and IIRC quotes higher speeds as well.Also the Extract Archive chart on page 5 - is that really supposed to say 4000 seconds?
JoeBleed - Monday, November 12, 2007 - link
What file system format was used on this drive and the regular USB memory stick?The reason i ask is that i find NTFS under 2k and XP to perform much better than FAT 32.
darkfoon - Saturday, October 27, 2007 - link
On page 5 of the article, at the bottom, the ClipDrive is called the "MSI ClipDrive" however, throughout the rest of the article its been called the MXI ClipDrive.I assume that MSI is a typo, however I've never heard of the MXI brand, so I'm a little confused, I suppose.
ksherman - Thursday, October 25, 2007 - link
This is an ExpressCard SSD, but uses the USB standard to communicate with the computer (even when in the ExCard slot)?! That seems odd, wouldn't the express slot provide faster performance?Dave Robinet - Friday, October 26, 2007 - link
Expresscard uses either USB or SATA as means for communication (page 1 diagram shows that a bit better), so not really - if they'd chosen SATA as the communication method, then it would have better throughput, though.Regardless, the card doesn't approach the maximum transfer rate of the USB bus, so it's a non-issue.
Thanks for reading!
defman - Thursday, October 25, 2007 - link
Some info on how this would perform as a Windows Readyboost device would be nice....dvinnen - Thursday, October 25, 2007 - link
I was thinking it would make for a good ReadyBoost device for the laptop as well. Some info on how it performs there would be nice.Also, is it USB2 that is holding the speed back? If so they really should of done a dual bus, cardbus for when in a laptop, usb for when using the adapter...
Dave Robinet - Friday, October 26, 2007 - link
No, USB isn't holding the speed back at all. You've got loads more room in the USB2 bus for additional performance from the card - it just isn't there.As for ReadyBoost... given the performance of the card, it's doubtful that it would have made an improvement worth spending the additional money on. Good suggestion, though - if we do another Expresscard device in the future, I'll make sure to include it.
Thanks for reading!
-dave
Weiman - Thursday, October 25, 2007 - link
My thoughts exactly.yyrkoon - Thursday, October 25, 2007 - link
One one hand you have the ability to have more storage with potential for less power draw, fast access times, and the ability to just connect it and not have an external power source to worry about.On the other hand, you had a VERY slow product, that barely outperform the average USB v2.0 device, with limited amount of storage potential.
Price does not look terrible though, but I would imagine you could just as easily buy a Corsair 16GB thumb drive for the same price, and not worry about one of these . . . although if this were bootable(did not see it in the article).