Memory Sticks
I'm an unashamed gadget fan.
The trend today is away from desktops, with mobility being the phrase
used most commonly.
People are buying laptops, netbooks, I-phones and other web connected
devices.
On holiday, I keep in touch with British news by using the browser on
my mobile (just for instance).
One of the downsides is the amount of data that you can save on all
these.
So, most people now have a USB memory stick, and I'm no exception.
My most recent was a generic 8Gb one from the ever friendly
Budget Computers
However, this has now been superseded by a Maxell Xtreme 16Gb pen stick.
As a gadget fan, I didn't have any option,
it cost less than the 8Gb had and it was shiny!
The grab above doesn't do it justice, the stick is 2mm wider than the
USB plug each side and 2mm deeper than the plug each side.
As you can figure, it's extremely slim.
It's also light and has an aluminum casing.
A thing of beauty indeed.
The unit comes with a lanyard, and there is security software on the
stick as well.
It's plug 'n' play as expected.
Lifetime warranty from Maxell, you just know this will be a reliable
unit.
However it has a major drawback.
As seen, I used the
Flash
Memory Toolkit to determine speeds on the stick
The tool has a standard version (free) which sufficed for me to
try out the drive.
For some of the other features the software can do, you need to buy it.
The Maxell at best , achieved 3.7mb/s write speed, although read speed
was a shade over 19mb/s.
Above is the test run on the generic 8Gb stick.
The best write speed was just under 7mb/s, while the read speed was a
shade under 25mb/s.
You don't need to be a mathematician to realise which one performs best.
The Maxell is advertised as high speed, maybe it was, but it has
clearly been overtaken by quite a margin.
Now, I like the drive, because of its size, quality of build and
capacity, it's just a pity it's so slow.
I'm sure you'll see the ads for this drive all over the net at a very
attractive price (currently around £12-13), just be sure that you
can spare the time to fill it!
