Thursday, August 25, 2011

Super Talent 32 GB USB 3.0 Express Drive ST3U32EDK


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Super Talent 32GB USB3.0 Express Drive ST3U32EDK

This review is from : Super Talent 32 GB USB 3.0 Express Drive ST3U32EDK
Most Bang for the Buck . There are plenty of flash drives that are fast by USB 2.0 standard, but they hover around 30MB/s. USB 3.0 (aka SuperSpeed USB) achieves the much higher performance by way of a number of technical changes. Perhaps the most obvious change is an additional physical bus that is added in parallel with the existing USB 2.0 bus. This means that where USB 2.0 previously had 4 wires (power, ground, and a pair for differential data), USB 3.0 adds 4 more for two pairs of differential signals (receive and transmit) for a combined total of 8 connections in the connectors and cabling. These extra two pairs were necessary to support the SuperSpeed USB target bandwidth requirements, because the two wire differential signals of USB 2.0 were not enough.

Furthermore, the signaling method, while still host-directed, is now asynchronous instead of polling. USB 3.0 utilizes a bi-directional data interface rather than USB 2.0's half-duplex arrangement, where data can only flow in one direction at a time. USB 3.0 opens up the laneways and provides more headroom for devices to deliver a better overall user experience. Where USB video was barely tolerable previously (both from a maximum resolution, latency, and video compression perspective), it's easy to imagine that with 5-10 times the bandwidth available, USB video solutions should work that much better.

Without getting into any more technical mumbo jumbo, this all combines to give a ten-fold increase in theoretical bandwidth, and a welcome improvement noticeable by anyone when SuperSpeed USB products hit the market. PQI's second revision of their USB 3.0 flash drive is able to stream data at up to 105MB/s. A-Data calls its USB 3.0 flash drive the Nobility N005 and has an advertised transfer rate is 85MB/s. This Super Talent drive has an advertised transfer rate is 125MB/s and has been tested at 129.8MB/s in a USB 3.0 slot and at 43.23MB/s in a USB 2.0 slot. This drive is the reigning speed champion in its class for both USB 3.0 and USB 2.0.

This 32GB Super Talent drive offers the most bang for the buck. I found it at another vender for $89 with the discount code of "DONUT1610". Don't buy obsolete USB 2.0 technology, if you need a flash drive this is the one to get. If your mother board does not support USB 3.0 you can add a USB 3.0 2-Port PCI Express Card to your current computer for about $30, if you have an open slot compliant with PCI-Express revision 1.0a or higher. If not it's still the fastest when used as a USB 2.0 flash drive until you get a new computer.
Super Talent 32 GB USB 3.0 Express Drive ST3U32EDK Reviews
Very Fast Flash Drive/ Some Drawbacks . It was time to replace my 2GB Lexar Lightning Jumpdrive. Back when I when I obtained it the Lexar Jumpdrive was fast. Maybe still is compared to a number of flash drives. But there are also much better flash drives available now.
The SuperTalent Express 3.0 is currently the only 3.0 flash drive available other then the SuperCrypt also by SuperTalent. The SuperCrypt is supposed to be even faster then the Express and comes with built in encryption software. However the SuperCrypt is even bigger and bulkier and nearly twice as expensive. Since I don't need encryption software, I got the Express version. I sprung for the SuperTalent Express 3.0 even though I don't currently have a motherboard that supports usb 3.0. It is backwards compatible and works just fine plugged into a usb 2.0 port. It is supposed to be faster reading and writing then any 2.0 flash drive even when used at 2.0 speeds.
I have only been able to use the drive at 2.0 speeds and it is still far faster then any other drive I have owned. A folder full of almost 4,000 word documents took less then a minute to copy to the Express drive. A folder full of almost 400 songs also took less then a minute to copy. Individual video files copied in 1-3 seconds. It is indeed a speedy drive. A blue light flashes on the end of the drive when it is in use. A turbo program comes installed on the drive which is supposed to make using the drive faster. You don't have to turn it on, but why wouldn't you?

The express drive is made of black metal and feels solidly built, however it is not without its faults. The drive casing is a bit bulky, not as much as the SuperCrypt, but enough that I had to unplug the usb port next to it in order to allow it to fit. Depending how your usb ports are spaced you may have to unplug one or even two slots to use this flash drive.
Worse, the metal casing on the drive drive gets very hot when the drive is in use. I mean almost burn your fingers hot. Heat and electronics do not mix well. This makes me question the long term durability of the drive. I was thinking about leaving this drive plugged into my TV usb port to access pics, vids and music. The heat issue nixed that idea, I wouldn't recommend leaving this plugged into any device when not needed. A firmware update was supposed to fix that issue, but I have not been able to test it yet.
Also the design of the drive is nothing to get excited about. The cap pops off and is easy to lose. There are no innovative design features to keep the cap attached, or the end protected that you can find on a number of cheaper drives. The drive has no rubber coating and/or special shock or waterproof protections. It also comes in cheap packaging, the kind you would find if you bought a cheap flash drive off the rack at a Best Buy.
If you search online you can find discount codes to get the Express 3.0 drives at bargain prices. The 16GB version can be had for less then $50 and the 32GB version for less then $85.

Still Depending on your needs there are a number of 2.0 drives available that may better suit you. The fastest 2.0 drive is the Corsair Voyager GTR. The 32GB version of the Voyager GTR can be had for about the same price as the 32GB version of the Express 3.0. The Voyager drives also comes with a durable rubber coating and some water and shockproof capabilities the Express lacks.
Other very fast 2.0 drives include the OCZ Rally 2, the Corsair Voyager GT, the Patriot Xporter XT, and the A-DATA Xupreme. There are some other fast drives as well.

In addition you may need to consider whether you need a flash drive at all. External hard drives have gotten so cheap they are not much more then a good flash drive. The are light and portable, though you will need a usb cord as well, and obviously they do not fit in your pocket like a flash drive. However you can get the Western digital My Book 3.0 1TB version for around $120. That's an entire TB of space at 3.0 USB speed. If you do not have a motherboard supporting usb 3.0 the My Book works just fine with a 2.0 connection. But it also comes with a PCI card you can install in your computer to use the drive at 3.0 speed. Considering the amount of space your are getting for your money, its a much better buy then a flash drive if you don't really don't need the pocket portability.
Super Talent 32 GB USB 3.0 Express Drive ST3U32EDK Opinions
Super Talent 16 GB USB 3.0 . Running CrystalDiskMark 3.0 X64 on a Lenovo W701 with USB 3.0 the Super Talent 16 GB scored 119.6 MB/sec read and 43.4 MB/sec write on the sequential read/write test. Not bad!
125 MB/sec? Not Quite... . Off a USB 3.0 port on a ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme...

# uname -a
Linux Workstation 2.6.38.3-CUSTOM....x86_64 AMD Phenom(tm) II X6 1100T Processor...

# hdparm -tT /dev/sdf1
Timing cached reads: 10596 MB in 2.00 seconds = 5299.79 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 224 MB in 3.01 seconds = 74.45 MB/sec

Runs hot during transfers, maximum of 94?F @ 73?F ambient according to a Fluke 62 Mini...
Four stars as there is currently no other USB 3.0 alternative at this size/speed/price...
Verified Linux compatible, no issues auto-mounting using standard udev rules...
Fast! . I connected this drive to one of the USB 3.0 ports on my Lenovo ThinkPad and proceeded to transfer some video and music files. As expected, the transfer was very fast. Very pleased. The drive gets surprisingly warm but it does not seem to affect its operation.
Best price/performance USB flash drive on the market . A little backstory...

I had been waiting 6 months to replace my old and defective 1GB USB flash drive. It had degraded to providing horrible performance, to the tune of taking 5 minutes to write 100MB to it. After doing research, I decided that a 4GB SLC-based drive would be perfect. SLC flash memory USB drives had the highest performance and durability of all USB drives. Durability of SLC memory is rated 10x greater than MLC, and read/write performance was much greater, too. Unfortunately, it had become all but impossible to find SLC USB drives, since no company manufacturers them, anymore, due to high costs and lack of demand. If you can even find one, expect to pay upwards of $50 for a 4GB SLC USB flash drive.

I was disappointed, thinking I would have to settle for one of those high-capacity, low-peformance USB drives, that every manufacturer was now making. Then, I read about Super Talent's upcoming USB 3.0 drives, which offered amazing performance and were still USB 2.0 compatible. The initial drives were their RAID drives, which, while extremely fast, cost a fortune. Shortly after, however, they announced their USB 3.0 Express Drives, which fit what I was looking for, almost perfectly.

I ordered the 16GB Express Drive, as soon as it was available from Amazon. Upon receiving it, I was a little disappointed at the overall quality of the packaging and drive, itself. I didn't think to take a picture, before I quickly ripped the drive out of the thin cardboard and plastic packaging it was in. The drive body is all metal, and gets very hot to the touch, while plugged-in, even when it's just idling. As for performance, I didn't run any benchmarks, but I was able to write a 6.5GB folder, which a mixture of small and large files, to it in about 5-6 minutes. It took roughly 3 minutes to write it back to the local HDD. So, that's roughly 18MBps write and 35MBps read. This was through USB 2.0. I don't know how it would perform through a USB 3.0 controller. So, performance-wise, I'm no longer yearning for a SLC-memory flash drive. Durability-wise, I'll have to wait and see.

Being that Super Talent is the only company currently making these USB 3.0 flash drives, I wouldn't recommend any other flash drive on the market, if you care about performance. However, I might hesitate, if you're one to treat your USB drives harshly, because it seems fragile.
hot product very hot! . Front Packaging: USB 3.0 Express Drive, 16 GB, SUPER*TALENT (Pretty simple and cheap packaging design)

Back Packaging: SUPER*TALENT, Features: Excellent for data, photos and music storage. USB 3.0 and 2.0 compatible.
Super Talent Technology. US Patent #6547130. Actual usable memory size is less than stated in
product specs due to formatting and internal functions. Logos are property of their respective
owners. Contact [...] for Windows 98SE driver.
[...], Made in China, ST3U16EDK, 8-78294-01828-1

Package content: Super Talent 16 GB USB 3.0 Express Drive ST3U16EDK only

Made out of: Metal (Aluminum?) body and Plastic

Real capacity: 13.9 GB

Usable capacity: 13.8 GB

Speed on USB 2.0 port: around 7 mins for 9 GB files or 1.3 GB per min or 22 Mbps (18 WMV format video clip)

Speed on USB 3.0 port: unknown, may need to install the add-on driver (high speed HDD driver) if you have 3.0 port

Temperature: Can barely boil an egg. Maybe an ideal hand warmer in winter.

Warranty: 2 years, stated on their website only

Size: A bit wider than the USB 2.0 flash drive. Use a cable extender if the size is too big for your usb 2.0 hub.
You might need a different kind of cable extender if it is a 3.0 port, probably not avaliable yet.

Blinking led: pointing toward the other end of the drive, with a transparent strap holder above it. Not too
bright, blue color.

Transfer speed type: Express 128 Mbps

Price: Got it from other place for 51 bucks after coupon code :D

Conclusion: There are 128 Mbps, 240 Mbps, and 300 Mbps available. I haven't test drive it yet with 3.0 port, I
will get the adapter sometimes in the future. At least it's a future proof drive, no more
complaining about 3 ~ 5 Mbps write speed on those 2.0 flash drives. XD It works on WD media player
live also. I think the price drop will be about 10 - 20 bucks in the next 2 years, so 51 bucks
won't really hurt. The last thing to worry about is, can it survive for more than 2 years?

Cons Review
Still not working! . I was one of the first customers for this product when it came out because I recently upgraded to a new computer with a usb3.0 port. I figured why not take advantage of the latest technology on the market but boy was I proved wrong! After only a month of usage, the drive for some odd reason started disconnecting from the computer by itself when transferring files. A week after that, the speed of transfer fell to a crawl, almost usb 1.0 speeds! Finally the drive died a two days after that when I was attempting to back it up so I can return it for another one. Frustrated, I went on their forum to figure out what the problem was, and to my amazement, I wasn't the only one! Apparently the software that was prebuilt into the drive was causing issues to MAC's and older Window OS's that don't have the right drivers. One of their support staff said that they would release a new version soon that would have the optional software. I waited patiently and the new version was released, I brought it yet again hoping there would be a change. Alas, two months into usage, the drive just died out of nowhere. Dismayed, I sent in the product to the manufacturer to take a look at it but they haven't gotten back to me yet...
Slower than spec interferes with adjacent USB top gets lost . This 32GB USB 3.0 comes two ways: with cache software and without.
Advertised speeds never attained. Disappointed.
The top is not attached and gets lost easily.
The body is too wide and interferes with adjacent USB slots.
The unit gets very warm when running.
Sells around the net for $59.
Does not work with a Mac no tools to remove extra partition . Just to let others know, there is no real backwards usb 2.0 compatibility. It does not work with Macs. I've been unable to reformat, delete the second partition, or mount this drive.

Sure, I can reformat on a windows pc, but no easy switching to a guid partition, hfs+ or anything other than FAT32.

if you want a 32gb fat32 drive with an annoying error message (because of the second partition) every time you plug it in, go for it. It's great at that.


Feature Super Talent 32 GB USB 3.0 Express Drive ST3U32EDK

  • Full compatibility with USB 3.0 and 2.0
  • Transfer speeds upto 125 MB/sec in USB 3.0
  • NAND Flash: MLC
  • Capacity: 32 GB
  • Hot plug and play; Functions like another hard drive; Slim and sleek casing style; HighSpeed Drivers Compatible with Windows XP, Vista and 7 (both 32 & 64 bit); LED indicates power, busy; More than 10 years data retention




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Product Details

EAN : 0878294018298
UPC : 878294018298
MPN : 0878294018298
Brand : Super Talent
Weight : 1 pounds
Height : 1 inches
Length : 6 inches
Width : 4 inches
Binding : Personal Computers
Manufacturer : MA Labs
Model : ST3U32EDK
Publisher : MA Labs
Size : 32 GB
SKU : ST3U32EDK
Studio : MA Labs

Where To Buy


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