Some of the industry's biggest names are continuing to drag their heels in adopting the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 standard, but the high-speed successor to ubiquitous USB 2.0 has nonetheless grown in popularity since its arrival on the market in late 2009.
Today, buy any new laptop or PC, and there's a good chance you'll get USB 3.0 connectivity as standard. And that's a good thing, for USB 3.0 is significantly quicker, more power efficient, and backward compatible with USB 2.0.
But is USB 3.0 really that much better when used with the cheap-and-cheerful pen drives that so many of us carry? The standard is ideal for pocket-sized storage devices - and it's proven to be mighty quick on premium flash solutions - but is there any real advantage at the opposite end of the market, say, under £25? To find out, we're putting ADATA's S107 USB 3.0 flash drive through its paces.
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The S107, pictured above and available in your choice of red or blue, is, in many ways, a lot like any other pen drive. It's compact, measuring 61.8mm x 18.7mm x 10.7mm, suitably light at just 13.6g, and available in 8GB, 16GB and 32GB capacities, priced at around £14, £21 and £43, respectively.
All right, so that's roughly double the price of an equivalent USB 2.0 drive, but ADATA's S107 does offer a little extra. It's rugged and waterproof, for starters, and, as a result of its USB 3.0 pedigree, it's able to operate at far greater speeds. Our 16GB review sample touts maximum read and write speeds of 100MB/s and 25MB/s, respectively, while the 32GB drive will go even quicker at 100MB/s and 50MB/s.
The overall look and feel of the device is pretty nice, too. The light-blue styling and rubber shell provides a sporty feel, as well as a shockproof rating that ADATA tells us is in line with U.S. military regulations, and there's a handy activity LED, too. It's a robust little drive, and one that should survive an accidental run through the washing machine - our 16GB sample certainly didn't mind being submerged under water for 15 minutes.
And, if you're prone to misplacing your pen drive's caps, you may appreciate the fact that the S107's lid can be stowed in the loop at the back of the drive. A useful idea, but the cap itself could be better. We found the fit to be a little on the loose side, and the cap - on our sample, at least - flies off when you shake the drive violently.
As a consequence, it doesn't feel quite as robust as Corsair's near-identically priced Flash Voyager, but it's more than a match in the performance stakes.
Using AS SSD to measure maximum sequential read and write speeds, we can see that ADATA's S107 returned 99MB/s and 22.4MB/s, respectively. The numbers are practically in line with the manufacturer's quoted specification, and almost 30 per cent quicker than Corsair's equivalent Flash Voyager.
Painting more of a real-world picture, AS SSD's file copy benchmark simulates three common usage scenarios; ISO (where few large files are copied to the drive), Program (where many small files are copied to the drive), and Game (where a mix of small and large files are copied to the drive).
Once again, the 16GB ADATA S107 has the edge over Corsair's 16GB Flash Voyager, and, as expected, there's a huge performance gap between both of the USB 3.0 solutions and the generic USB 2.0 drive.
Bottom line: the ADATA S107 is smart in appearance, quick in use, and resilient against the elements. Factor in the lifetime warranty, and there's little reason not to recommend the S107 as an affordable USB 3.0 pen drive.
The Good
Considerably faster than USB 2.0 pen drives
Shockproof and waterproof
Affordable price tag
Lifetime warranty
The Bad
Cap could be tighter
HEXUS Rating
ADATA S107 USB 3.0 Flash Drive
HEXUS Awards
ADATA S107 USB 3.0 Flash Drive
HEXUS Where2Buy
The 16GB ADATA S107 Flash Drive is available to purchase from systo.co.uk.
HEXUS Right2Reply
At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.
