Super Talent RAIDDrive 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive Review

Free Space and Conclusion

Capacity

When it comes to storage capacity, the Super Talent 64GB RAIDDrive has a free capacity of 59.6GB as shown above.

Final Thoughts and Conclusions

The Super Talent RAIDDrive is one of the most interesting products that we have come across in some time. It’s not every day you see a USB 3.0 Flash Drive, let alone a monster drive like this that is running a pair of SATA controllers in a RAID configuration. When Super Talent announced this new SuperSpeed USB 3.0 RAIDDrive in November 2009 they boasted that it supported transfer speeds up to ten times faster than USB 2.0 drives. While that is true on paper we know that is theoretical and not real-world performance gains. When using the Super Talent 64GB RAIDDrive we found insane drive performance on the benchmarks, but our real world use showed that the drive improved file transfer speeds roughly 2.5X over USB 2.0 performance. There is nothing slow about this drive as we were hitting 280MB/s write and 128MB/s read, which is amazing for any portable USB device.

The Super Talent RAIDDrive is available in 32GB, 64GB and 128GB capacities and is, of course, fully backward compatible with USB 2.0 ports. We tried the device on numerous laptops, netbooks and desktop computers and found it to work on nearly every system that we had with the exception of a media card reader that we use on one of our office computers. That PC uses a 3.5″ internal flash card reader today (Nippon Labs Delux 3.5″ Internal All In One Card Reader/Writer with USB2.0 & eSATA Ports Model ICR-BB) that we bought from Newegg.com about a year ago, and when you plug the RAIDDrive in it sounds like it connects, but doesn’t. Strange, but worth pointing out as we discovered it during our compatibility testing and we did report it to Super Talent before publishing this review.

The only other negatives of the drive would be the sheer size of it and the temperature that it runs at. The enclosure of the RAIDDrive reaches over 60C when the drive is plugged in and that means the internal components are likely hotter than that. After years of use it makes us wonder how the drive will hold up to this intense heat.

RAIDDrive Capacities & Pricing:

• 32GB RAIDDrive – ST3U32SRK – $239.00 or $8.02 per usable GB
• 64GB RAIDDrive – ST3U64SRK – $329.00 or $5.52 per usable GB
• 128GB RAIDDrive – ST3U28SRK – $559.00 or $4.69 per usable GB

Super Talent RAIDDrive Flash drives just recently became available through select distributors and resellers this month. The pricing on the drives is fairly high, but this is a high-end part that is aimed at users that want performance no matter what the cost is. The Super Talent RAIDDrive is one of those products that we loved to review as it was unlike anything we have ever tested before. It’s super fast and is ideal for those that want the ultimate USB Flash drive. You pull this drive out from your pocket during an e-penis battle of who has the fastest Flash drive and it won’t let you down!

Legit Bottom Line: The Super Talent RAIDDrive 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive is the fastest USB device that we have ever benchmarked in the history of the site, but it is also the first!