Other by stefan @ 2011-12-26
The ST4 USB 3.0 Flash Drive product from Super Talent comes with an aluminum body and succeeds to deliver excellent read speeds; on the drive we will also find the Fnet TurboFlash USB application, which is meant to boost the transfer speeds even more.
At first I would like to thank Super Talent for offering a sample of their USB 3.0 Express ST4 Flash Drive for testing and reviewing.
“Super Talent Technology Corporation, headquartered in San Jose, California, designs and manufactures a full range of DDR, DDR2, and DDR3 memory modules and Flash based storage solutions for Enterprise Servers, Workstations, Personal Computers and Consumer Electronics. An ISO 9001 certified company, Super Talent utilizes its state-of-the art factory and leading-edge components to produce award winning products with exceptional performance and outstanding reliability. Super Talent is an active member of JEDEC, ONFI and USB-IF standards bodies, and holds over 200 patents in Flash and DRAM technology.”
Super Talent takes one step towards bringing performance and affordability together with the USB 3.0 Express ST4 flash drive. By
using native USB 3.0 controllers, the ST4 can be offered at lower prices and in compact designs, while having 4 channels of flash
allows the drive to achieve speeds closer to the SSD range and reach capacities worthy of handling large amounts of data.
The ST4 USB 3.0 Flash Drive from Super Talent is shipped in a small cardboard box, and instead of displaying a photo of the product, the manufacturer has chosen to show the drive through a plastic transparent window:
On the back of the box there is not a lot to show, except a very short product description, in multiple languages:
By removing the top cardboard packaging, we can reveal the plastic frame the product stays in:
The ST4 has a smooth aluminum body combined with plastic; on one of the sides we can find the Super Talent logo, along with the product name:
The bottom side is made of a semi-transparent blue plastic material, with a hole to insert a lanyard:
The other side of the product preserves the same design lines, but without any extra inscriptions:
The drive cap is made from the same material and by removing it we can reveal the USB connector:
On the USB connector we can locate a laser inscription with the total drive capacity:
When the product is inserted in a spare USB port, the bottom LED will start to light up, for indicating activity:
The testbench was composed from the following hardware:
CPU: Intel I7 Retail @ stock
Motherboard: Foxconn BloodRage with G42 BIOS
RAM: 3x2GB Patriot PVT36G1600LLK 1600MHz
Video: Sparkle GTX 470 with stock and OMNI A.L.C.
Power Supply: Nexus RX-8500 850W modular
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200.11 & Patriot TorqX 64GB SSD
Case: Thermaltake Armor+ LCS, stock cooling
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64
ASUS U3S6
The Super Talent USB 3.0 Express ST4 Flash Drive comes formatted FAT32:
The flash drive is bundled with the Fnet TurboFlash USB application, which we have found many times before at other products:
The utility can be installed really easy by one press of a button:
The main function of this utility is to boost a little the transfer rates of the product, by setting it in “Turbo” mode:
To determine the flash drive read speeds, in both Normal and Turbo modes, the HD Tune 4.60 utility was used:
To measure the real life performance, I have used the Total Commander application to copy to the flash drive and from the flash drive the same file and recorded the transfer speeds, when they have stabilized.
File Copy Normal
File Read Normal
File Copy Turbo
File Read Turbo
The ST4 USB 3.0 Flash Drive from Super Talent comes in three capacity variants: 16GB, 32GB and 64GB; the manufacturer offers a 5 year warranty period and data integrity is assured for about 10 years. Its body is made from aluminum and comes with a protective cap along with a small hole for inserting a lanyard or key ring.
In the performed tests, ST4 succeeded to obtain the best read speeds through all the drives tested so far and also good reads. The Fnet TurboFlash USB application seems to bring some improvements, but mostly in the read department.
The 32GB version of the Super Talent ST4 be found in online stores for about 60 Euros.
I would like to thank again to Super Talent for making this review possible!