Other by stefan @ 2013-06-12
The Ventura Plus is a new brand of USB 3.0 Flash Drives from Mushkin Enhanced and comes with good transfer speeds, while maintaining and affordable price. The drive has a small aluminum chassis which is great for compatibility purposes and in the back we can attach a lanyard for easy accessibility and transport.
At first we would like to thank Mushkin Enhanced for offering a sample of their Ventura Plus Series 16GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive for testing and reviewing.
“Founded in Denver, Colorado in 1994, Mushkin, Inc. has since become one of the nation's most recognized Manufacturers of performance computer products worldwide and has well established relationships with all of the top computer component companies in the world including Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, LSI, as well as top retail channels globally. Exceptional quality, enhanced performance and unparalleled customer support are what make our products the best in the industry.
With a strong team of over 25 years experience, we have focused around cutting edge technology including digital storage devices and a complete selection of memory upgrades for desktops, servers and notebooks – we offer something for everyone; from business user to gamer.”
Optimal Data Flow ->Optimized for dependable and reliable data flow
Wear-leveling Functionality ->Wear-leveling functionality optimizes writes for superior longevity and reliability
Capacity: 16GB
Read Speed: up to 200MB/sec
Write Speed: up to 25MB/sec
Interface Type: USB 3.0
Dimensions: 56.7 x 19.8 x 6.8mm
Warranty: 2 years
The Ventura Plus USB Flash Drive from Mushkin is shipped inside a transparent plastic packaging, with the speed ratings for both reads and writes right in front:
Some of the product features can be found listed on the back, in multiple languages:
The body of the Ventura Plus 16GB drive is made from aluminum, with some plastic parts; on one of the sides we will find the product logo and total capacity:
On the back we have a small hole for fitting a lanyard; the plastic component is transparent in order to make the activity LED visible during operation:
On the opposite side of the drive we have the company logo:
By removing the top cover, we will expose the USB 3.0 connector; the removed cap can be fitted during this time in the back to make sure we won’t lose it:
Here is a photo of the activity LED in operation:
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 & OCZ Vertex 4 240GB SSD
Case: Thermaltake Armor+ LCS, stock cooling
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64
ASUS U3S6
The Ventura Plus 16GB USB Flash Drive comes formatted FAT32:
To determine the flash drive read speeds, the HD Tune v5 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
File Read
One of the latest USB 3.0 Flash Drives from Mushkin Enhanced is the Ventura Plus which has obtained in our tests the highest read speed but got beaten by other drives regarding writes. The drive is light and very compact, with a small hole for attaching a lanyard and a red activity LED is placed in the back.
The manufacturer offers us a 2-year warranty for this model and is also available with capacities of 8GB, 32GB and 64GB, each having different rated transfer speeds.
The model that we have just tested is available online for about 18 Euros, while the 32GB variant can be found for about 28 Euros and the 64GB 48 Euros.
We would like to thank again to Mushkin Enhanced for making this review possible!