The Uphill Battle: usb

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

USB 2.0 Memory Stick Performance – An informal benchmarking

OK, so I’ve been getting more and more disappointed in the performance of the various USB sticks I have lying around. I tend to use them for transferring photos, videos and ISOs to and from machines that aren’t able to communicate via a common network (and are are too big to just push up to the likes of SkyDrive or Google Drive) or for OS installations (e.g. Win7, Win8 and recently Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials Edition).

While read speeds are bearable, the write performance is just abysmal and I’m seriously contemplating investing in a fast USB 3.0 based stick of decent size (64Gig+).

But in the mean time I dropped Crystal Disk Mark 3.0.2 on my HP Pavilion dv6 (INTEL i7 2630QM 2GHz with 8Gig RAM, running Win7SP1 x64) and popped each stick into one of the USB 3.0 ports, to see just how bad the performance really is…

Here’s the various sticks I tested:

From left to right:

A free Windows 7 branded 1gig
An EMTEC 8Gig I bought (cheap pack of three)
A free IBM branded 2Gig
A free Norton Security branded 8Gig (see it does pay to fill out those surveys!)
A free Microsoft Branded 16Gig
A cheap/generic “DT101 G2” 32Gig (cheapest 32Gig I could find at the time)
A SanDisk Cruzer 4Gig
A SanDisk Cruzer 8Gig (used to be on my key ring, so it’s a little worse-for-wear)
A Toshiba 4Gig
A Toshiba 8Gig

And the results are:

	Read (MB/s)				Write (MB/s)
USB Stick	Sequential	512K Random	4K Random	4K Random Queue Depth 32	Sequential	512K Random	4K Random	4K Random Queue Depth 32
Toshiba MK7575GSX SATA	70.63	20.45	0.266	0.4	57.16	21.9	0.576	0.583
BlueWindows 7 1Gig	10.58	10.54	5.612	7.113	2.202	1.334	0.029	0.029
EMTEC 8Gig	19.24	19.65	6.397	7.011	4.739	0.485	0.005	0.004
IBM 2Gig	16.99	16.86	4.441	5.789	2.962	0.547	0.007	0.007
Norton Security 8Gig	29.56	29.28	7.838	10.46	11.34	3	0.06	0.061
Orange Microsoft 16Gig	19.68	18.54	5.121	7.02	4.079	1.182	0.013	0.014
Orange Microsoft 16Gig x64	19.68	19.52	5.158	7.012	4.074	1.184	0.013	0.014
Purple DT101 G2 32Gig	17.45	17.43	5.499	6.022	3.183	0.319	0.003	0.004
SanDisk Cruzer 4Gig	20	20.18	4.063	4.03	4.059	0.717	0.324	0.059
SanDisk Cruzer 8Gig	21.29	21.37	4.551	4.355	3.322	0.43	0.472	0.087
Toshiba 4Gig	25.02	24.91	7.722	8.706	11.97	1.839	0.017	0.018
Toshiba 8Gig	24.95	24.88	7.497	8.56	5.789	0.906	0.008	0.008

While the Toshiba sticks put in a good showing, the Norton Security branded stick comes out top or 2^nd in nearly every test. Quite remarkable for a free memory stick.

Still, I think I’ll be on the hunt for for something a bit more performent and bigger…

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Informal Telecom HSPA+ performance test

I recently recieved an HSPA+ USB stick from Telecom/Sierra Wireless, without a SIM/plan. So being the geek I am, pulled the SIM from my HTC Touch Pro 2 and dropped it in the USB stick.

And then proceeded to do the very unscientific test below using SpeedTest.net, comparing it with my aging Telecom CDMA Rev A card and the built-in Wifi (802.11g) on my laptop via my Telecom/Xtra BigTime plan, during what is probably peak time.

Some interesting things to note:

The HSPA+ (XT) network and ADSL2+ (Xtra) both appear to have POPs in Auckland (SpeedTest.net picks Auckland as the nearest/default server), but the CDMA network seems to have it's POP in Wellington
Ping times were all over the place and probably fairly reflective of the fact that this was done during peak hours
For some reason (and I've seen this before) my ADSL gets great ping-times to Wellington (thanks CityLink!) and poor download speed from Auckland
My ADSL2+ is connecting at 11.5/0.94Mbit/s
Yes, I'm lucky enough to be in an ADSL2+ area as you pay the same price even if your connection is slower
Both the HSPA+ and CDMA were showing full signal strength
While HSPA+ didn't get anywhere near its 21Mbit/s theoretical limit (and there can't be that many people in my cell who are using it yet right?) it does nock the socks off CDMA Rev A (pitty I don't have a non + HSPA device to compare with)
Cost aside, HSPA+ looks like a viable alternative to current average ADSL speeds
Pricing (no discounts included)

Mobile Broadband (HSPA+) - $59.95/month for 2Gig plan or $29.95 for 500Meg prepaid
Xtra BigTime Broadband (ADSL2+) - $59.95/month for unlimited (throttled) plan
Mobile Broadband (CDMA Rev A) - unknown (it's on a corporate plan)

It would appear that I'm not even getting close to HSPA+'s potential (I thought it might be becuase it was still locked down to HSPA speeds), but the guys on GeekZone.co.nz have been reporting speeds between 16 and 21Mb/s!