Article Index Review: Adata N005 16Gb USB3.0 Flash Drive ATTO, Crystalmark and Sandra Everest Read and Write Tests Verdict and Conclusion

Introduction

USB flash drives or pen drives have been one of most revolutionary devices of the 21st century. Seriously, I'm not kidding. It's revolutionised the way use use, store and transport data from one PC to another. One of its advantages is the compact size and plug 'n' play feature. There's normally no need to install drivers or configure the device ... just plug it into any USB port and you're ready to go.

Now, sizes of USB drives have been increasing slowly over the years. I remember my first USB pendrive had a capacity of 32Mb (yes, 32 Megabytes) using USB1.0 interface ... that was back in 2000. Nowadays we're seeing capacities of 128 Gigabytes or more using the faster, hi-speed USB2.0 interface. But it doesn't stop there ... earlier this year at the CES 2010 exhibition, we saw the first consumer products featuring the new USB3.0 standard. According to the specifications of the new USB3.0 interface, it offers upto x10 the speed over standard USB2.0, with a maximum theoretical data transfer rate of upto 5Gbps. Now we all know that theoretical speeds are not to be taken too seriously, but it should definitely be an improvement over your standard USB2.0.

So with this mind, maunfacturers were more than eager to take adavantage of this new USB3.0 inferface. In the past few months, we've already seen motherboards featuring USB3.0 ports, and now it seems more and more manufacturers are joining the bandwagon. Adata are among one of the first to release USB flash drives using the new USB3.0 interface. They're pretty well known for producing quality memory products, so it's only natural that they want expand their product catalogue to include these new USB3.0 flash drives. For those who are not too familiar with Adata, here's a little blurb taken from their website.

Features and Specifications