Hands-on testing
| Drive test - 6.15GB large-file read speed | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time in seconds, lower is better | |||||
| Patriot Xporter Magnum 128GB | Samsung 160GB 7,200rpm 2.5in (eSATA) | Corsair Voyager GT 8GB | Corsair X128 SSD (SATA) | Corsair X128 SSD (eSATA) | Samsung 160GB 7,200rpm 2.5in (USB) |
| 207 | 76 | 204 | 64.5 | 66.9 | 204 |
Large-file reading speed is consistent amongst the USB-connected drives. The 207s time translates to around 30MB/s.
| Drive test - 6.15GB large-file write speed | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time in seconds, lower is better | |||||
| Patriot Xporter Magnum 128GB | Samsung 160GB 7,200rpm 2.5in (eSATA) | Corsair Voyager GT 8GB | Corsair X128 SSD (SATA) | Corsair X128 SSD (eSATA) | Samsung 160GB 7,200rpm 2.5in (USB) |
| 417 | 75 | 282 | 64.8 | 68.5 | 265 |
As per the CrystalDiskMark results, large-file writing isn't quite so hot, averaging around 15MB/s. As a comparison, the eSATA-connected mechanical drive averages 82MB/s, whilst the SATA SSD rips along at 95MB/s - held back by the host drive.
| Drive test - 123MB small-file (1,971) read speed | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time in seconds, lower is better | |||||
| Patriot Xporter Magnum 128GB | Samsung 160GB 7,200rpm 2.5in (eSATA) | Corsair Voyager GT 8GB | Corsair X128 SSD (SATA) | Corsair X128 SSD (eSATA) | Samsung 160GB 7,200rpm 2.5in (USB) |
| 6.3 | 1.8 | 6.6 | 1.6 | 1.7 | 2.8 |
Reading small files is a cinch for all drives.
| Drive test - 123MB small-file (1,971) write speed | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time in seconds, lower is better | |||||
| Patriot Xporter Magnum 128GB | Samsung 160GB 7,200rpm 2.5in (eSATA) | Corsair Voyager GT 8GB | Corsair X128 SSD (SATA) | Corsair X128 SSD (eSATA) | Samsung 160GB 7,200rpm 2.5in (USB) |
| 98.2 | 1.9 | 48.1 | 2.6 | 3.2 | 13.1 |
But writing them is painful on USB drives. Waiting 1m 38s for the 123MB to transfer over is annoying: the Windows 7 progress bar barely seems to move as it hits the sub-4K files.
Lastly, looking at capacity-filling performance, it took 2hrs 16m to fill the drive with an assortment of movies and mp3 files, and 1hr 6m to read them back to the host system.
