SuperTalent announces a 128GB, USB 3.0 flash drive
This giant flash drive amazes not only with its capacity – it also supports USB 3.0. But is it worth it?
At first glance this new development from SuperTalent may seem like a fairly ordinary flash drive. But look closer and you’ll realize that the drive has a massive 128GB capacity and the new USB 3.0 interface with a data transfer rate of 5Gbps. That’s 10x faster than USB 2.0 hardware (480Mbps,) and quite impressive.
The drive itself is only 3.7″ by 1.4″ and half-an-inch thick, and is backwards compatible with standard USB 2.0 ports. Using a combination of RAID technology and a special USB Attached SCSI (UAS) driver, the RAIDDrive can apparently transfer 200MB/s, leading up to some insanely fast portable storage. SuperTalent hasn’t given out how much this thing will cost, but you can bet that it will be expensive. Not to worry; there are 32 and 64GB versions too. Mass production should start in December. Oh, and you’ll need a computer that supports USB 3.0 to use the super high transfer rate. I haven’t seen a single machine supporting the new interface, yet.
Of course, the question is who would actually need such a fast/big flash drive? I suppose those who need to quickly transfer huge data files as part of their job and don’t want to lug around a bulky external hard drive might want to invest in a RAIDDrive, but not a school kid like me! On a side note, the largest flash drive I’ve ever seen was a 256GB model from Kingston a little while ago. You can buy 1TB 2.5″ hard drives these days, and even one of those devices would probably be cheaper than that Kingston. Flash memory has a lot of catching up to do, both in price and capacity. Personally I would never purchase one of these RAIDDrives. I’m perfectly happy with my many external disks, and I, like most of the readers on here I’m sure, don’t have USB 3.0 support.
Anybody thinking of picking one of these up for the holidays?
USB 3.0 chipsets won’t be out until 2011 so unfortunately, there’s no point.
http://www.guru3d.com/news/usb-30-delayed-until-2011/
I’ve got an OCZ 32GB Rally2 (USB 2.0) and it’s incredibly fast (22+ MB/s). I use it with my media centre and 720p/1080p MKVs. As long as the drive can supply enough data for video, there’s really no reason to pay the price premium.
SuperTalent will probably sell a lot of these, and NOT because anyone really needs them right now. For many techies, having the newest “toy” matters more then actually using it, much like the stereotyped serious collectors who never take their prized acquisitions out of the original wrappers. These will also make great gifts – people want their gift to be special instead of something merely utilitarian.
Intel is not the only game in town. Both Gigabyte and Asus have boards with USB and SATA 3 coming out now.
NewEgg.ca has the Gigabyte board (P55A-UD6) but Asus has cancelled their board: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Asus-USB-3.0-Motherboard-PC,8368.html
Chasing after the latest toys is (usually) fun, but when no one else can play with you, it’s kind of useless. Reminds me of video calling on my smartphone, an arguably gimmicky premise to begin with. :p
I’m still waiting for an Intel X25-M G2.
I for one as a regular consumer who loves to pimp my toys am not willing for the sake of the latest to upgrade just for USB 3 so that I can then buy and over priced flash drive. I can however see my customers who are in the graphic arts, mathematical modeling, and other such intensively large file generators who would definitely save time (time=money) with several of these devices for use in-house and to carry to an off-site location.
For my personal system I have two eight GB and 1 four GB fully encrypted and I am not using half of the total capacity.
Like you say, a 1 TB 2.5 HD is relatively cheap…… Then again, that STP28GLXWU wood grain 128 GB USB drive is really sweet and it comes in a fancy pants box! Maybe if they cast one in solid 18-Carat gold, maybe, I would prefer 24-Carat gold. Santa Clause is real, eh?
I *may* get one of these:
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/exclusive_first_usb_30_and_sata_60_expansion_card_will_sell_30
Benchmarks:
http://pcper.com/article.php?aid=809&type=expert
:-)
~Bryan
I was thinking of getting one of those, too.