Corsair 128GB Flash Voyager GT: pointlessly fast?
Corsair's new 128GB Flash Voyager GT thumb-drive is, the company claims, so speedy that its throughput is effectively limited by the capacity of a USB 2.0 port. That either means that USB 3.0 can't come quickly enough, or that Corsair's engineers basically wasted their time and could've slacked off in the latter stages of the Voyager GT's development.
Of course, they didn't, and so we have a compact memory stick that boasts transfer speeds of up to 32MB/s reads or 25.6MB/s writes. That, Corsair tell us, is nearly twice the speed of rival high-performance drives, and pretty much at the point where OS overhead and the USB 2.0 bus become the stumbling block.
It's also rubber-clad for durability, water-resistant and comes with a ten-year warranty. The Corsair 128GB Flash Voyager GT is available now, apparently, though it's proving difficult to find retailers offering it; the few that do are asking a not-inconsiderable $390 or therabouts.
Press Release:
Corsair® Launches World's Fastest High Capacity USB Flash Drive- 128GB Voyager GT performance limited only by speed of USB 2.0 bus -
Fremont, CA. August 13th, 2009 — Corsair®, a worldwide leader in high-performance computer memory, power supplies and flash memory products, including solid-state drives, today announced the 128GB Flash Voyager GT, the world's fastest 128GB USB flash drive.
The newest Flash Voyager GT is based upon a revolutionary design that employs a unique dual-controller architecture to achieve SLC-levels of performance using MLC NAND flash memory. The 128GB Flash Voyager GT is able to achieve read speeds of up to 32MB/sec and write speeds of up to 25.6MB/sec, with the limiting factor effectively being the speed of the USB 2.0 bus and operating system overhead.
"High performance is a key requirement for super-high capacity flash drives, such as the 128GB Voyager GT, simply because it is able to store such a large volume of data," said John Beekley, the VP of Applications at Corsair. "The 128GB Voyager GT is nearly twice as fast as other high-capacity flash drives, which means less time waiting for your music, video or office files to copy to and from the drive."
The 128GB Flash Voyager GT also utilizes a durable and water-resistant rubber housing to protect the drive against accidental damage, and sports the racing-red 'GT' styling that is a trademark of Corsair's ultra high-performance products.
"The 128GB Flash Voyager GT is ideal for those who need access to a huge volume of data in a format that's convenient, durable and extremely fast," said Jim Carlton, VP of Marketing for Corsair. "The 128GB Flash Voyager GT can store massive video, photo and music libraries, yet it's less than half the size of a solid-state drive, effectively obsoleting less-reliable, portable mechanical hard disk drives."
The 128GB Flash Voyager GT is available immediately from Corsair's authorized distributors and resellers worldwide, and is backed by a 10-Year Limited Warranty. Complete customer support via telephone, email, forum and Tech Support Express is also available.
For more information on Corsair USB flash drives, please visit http://www.corsair.com/products/voyagergt_128