OCZ Throttle eSATA/USB Thumb Drive

[mstp2009]

http://www.xcpus.com/GetDoc.aspx?doc=99&page=1

http://www.xcpus.com/Images/Docs/doc99/IMG_1327.JPG

This drive put up some of the best numbers we have ever seen from removable flash storage.

[largon]

Since it's clearly capable, why doesn't it run closer to the max bandwidth of USB2.0 (60MB/s) when connected via USB?

edit:
I hereby answer my question;

The theorical 60 MB/sec cannot be achieved, because of the margin taken between the sof's (125 us), so if a packet cannot take place before the sof, the packet will be rescheduled after the next sof. On top of that, all the USB transactions are handled by software on the PC. For instance, a USB host on a PCI bus will send or receive the data via the PCI bus; the stack will prepare the next data in memory and receive interrupt from the host."

http://www.everythingusb.com/usb2/faq.htm

[Particle]

USB controllers are abysmal. You will never get close to 480Mbps/60MBps with any device due to overhead and poor efficiency. For instance, with the 16GB Throttle I get about 25MBps read and 12MBps write in USB mode. In eSATA mode I get an average of about 80MBps read and 26MBps write. While using it in eSATA mode, I also found that next to a hardware RAM drive, it provides the fastest OS load performance of all the stuff I tested at about 15 seconds to boot Windows Server 2008 Standard. RAM did it in 14 seconds. WD5000s did it in 35 seconds. It has impressive read charactaristics for sure. I'd recommend the product to anyone with a powered, front eSATA port.

[AuDioFreaK39]

Wow, ~87MB/s reads, this thing could easily be a detachable full-speed OS drive.

[Particle]

^ Take note that while read performance is good, next to a hard drive writes are sloooooow. For instance: In my experience it took about 20m to install Windows to it while an old 500GB hard drive did it in under 12m. I wouldn't use it for any OS drive unless it is only going to be doing light duty work.

[mstp2009]

^ Take note that while read performance is good, next to a hard drive writes are sloooooow. For instance: In my experience it took about 20m to install Windows to it while an old 500GB hard drive did it in under 12m. I wouldn't use it for any OS drive unless it is only going to be doing light duty work.

Most OS drives don't do that many writes, unless you have limited RAM and swap to the disk often. For the most part, an OS is just reading/loading.

[Particle]

I suppose it depends greatly on what you consider normal usage. For me, it would be a problem.

[nox_uk]

i'm wondering... will these run off a decent raid controller... I don't see why not, would that make them more cost effective than than ssd?

Nox

[mstp2009]

i'm wondering... will these run off a decent raid controller... I don't see why not, would that make them more cost effective than than ssd?

Nox

The problem would be the eSATA interface. The plug is different.

If there was an eSATA to SATA converter available then there should be no reason why not.

[One_Hertz]

The problem would be the eSATA interface. The plug is different.

If there was an eSATA to SATA converter available then there should be no reason why not.

they are not meant for this type of work so longevity may be an issue.

[mstp2009]

they are not meant for this type of work so longevity may be an issue.

Very true. We have no idea what (if any) load balancing is built into the drive.

[Particle]

I would be shocked if there weren't wear leveling in the device. Even cheapie flash cards from two years ago almost all have some form of wear leveling in them.

eSATA isn't a problem. The plug is different, but it's still just SATA for I/O. There are many adapters that turn a SATA data and power connector into a powered eSATA port or just a SATA data cable into an unpowered one. One example for $5. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812189158)