Twintech Goodies - Conclusion
(Page 3 of 3 )
Manufacturer: | Twintech Industry, Inc. |
| Products: | Firefly USBee & Translucent Flash Drive |
Price: | USD$54.95 (64MB Firefly USBee + free
32MB Translucent Blue Flash Drive) |
Availability: | In stores and online now |
Reviewed By: | Kaoman |
Edited By: | Mack "SPeeD" |
For the second test, I decided to setup a FTP server on my computer. By sharing each tested drive with read and write permissions, I was able to log on to the server from the same computer and upload/download files on and off each drive and have an average kB/s printed out at the completion of each transfer. The programs I used were WarFTP and FlashFXP.
higher is better
The write speeds on all the flash drives fluctuated insanely, but a general trend emerged as depicted above. It seems the drives that performed better at the Sandra test (USBee and CF) performed worse here. Zip drive results were not included in the graph because it transferred the test file at 3,316.98 kB/s, well beyond the other drives.
Downloading small files (read speed) proved to be instantaneous off the FTP. All the drives transferred beyond 1mb a second.
And now for some "real world" testing. I found and chose a random file approximately 20MB in size, then drag and dropped it to each test drive individually, through My Computer and counted in seconds with a stopwatch how long it took each to finish.
lower is better
Here we see the same trend shown in the Sandra test where the USBee and Compactflash performed slightly better than the Translucent Flash Drive and Smartmedia. No doubt, the Zip drive is a much faster medium. But USB flash drives are much, much more convenient.
Conclusion
The prices of USB flash drives are relatively low nowadays. For users who need a method of transferring files between computers besides using the internet or CD-Rs, flash drives are a very attractive and practical solution. They can also be "cool" to show off to computer illiterate coworkers who have never seen such things before. For whatever reason you think you might need one of these drives, they are cheap now and probably will continue to get cheaper to some degree as flash memory prices fall.
The Firefly USBee and Translucent Flash Drive from Twintech are both great flash drives with no problems or major gripes. They are small and have LEDs. Both transfer files at relatively the same speed. The Translucent Flash Drive has a read/write switch while the USBee does not. The USBee comes bundled with an extension cord, strap, and P.I. protector.
To be frank, all these USB flash drives are the SAME. The deciding factors boil down to the extras (i.e. extension cord), personal preference (color and shape) and price
Note: Both the Firefly USBee and Translucent Flash Drive are USB Specification 1.1 (USB 2.0 compatible). USB 1.1 has a data rate of 12Mbit/sec (1500 kB/s) while USB 2.0 is USB 2.0 is 480Mbit/sec (60,000 kB/s). Now just imagine the day when we see USB 2.0 flash drives which transfer at speeds of about 60MB per second...
Special thanks goes out to Twintech for providing the unit for review.
We'd like to thank you for joining us here today. If you would like to discuss this review or others, please head into the OCA forums for a chat. See you there!
| DISCLAIMER: The content provided in this article is not warranted or guaranteed by Developer Shed, Inc. The content provided is intended for entertainment and/or educational purposes in order to introduce to the reader key ideas, concepts, and/or product reviews. As such it is incumbent upon the reader to employ real-world tactics for security and implementation of best practices. We are not liable for any negative consequences that may result from implementing any information covered in our articles or tutorials. If this is a hardware review, it is not recommended to open and/or modify your hardware. |
