SUPERTALENT HAS ANNOUNCED something a little bit unexpected, no, not the fact that it has a new USB 3.0 flash drive, as this in itself is nothing too special, but what is surprising is the super low price. The company will have an 8GB model shipping by the 11th of this month for a mere $14. That’s a pretty fantastic deal, especially when you consider that USB 3.0 flash drives are still fairly new in the market, so there’s got to be a catch, right?

Well, you need a computer with USB 3.0 support and that is likely to set you back a lot more than $14, although it’s possible to get a really cheap USB 3.0 PCI Express card for under $10 if you shop around, just be aware it’ll be a single port card. That problem solved there really isn’t much wrong with SuperTalent’s new Express Duo drive. If 8GB isn’t enough, then SuperTalent is also offering a 16GB version for $29, which again is pretty spectacular value for money, especially when the closest competitor retails for $16 more.

The performance might not be quite up there with the faster USB 3.0 flash drives, but as you can see in the video, 67MB/s read speeds are nothing to be sneezed at. The write speed leaves a bit to be desired though at about 23MB/s as we’re back in USB 2.0 territory, albeit this is where the more expensive USB 2.0 drives end up and you’ll most likely pay more for them. Remember that this drive will work just as fine in a USB 2.0 port, although at reduced performance for the read speed.

Hopefully we’ll see a development where faster flash memory gets used in more affordable devices like this, as there hasn’t been much in terms of performance improvement for a good few years now when it comes to USB flash drives. Of course the interface has been a limitation, but USB 3.0 has solved that bottle neck and we should now be able to get some faster flash drives and it’s about time too.S|A

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Lars-Göran Nilsson

Latest posts by Lars-Göran Nilsson (see all)

• AMD and Nvidia set to take on LucidLogix Virtu - Apr 7, 2011
• Notebooks and hard drives to increase in price - Apr 6, 2011
• Motherboard makers craving affordable USB 3.0 solutions - Apr 6, 2011
• IEEE approves the IEEE 802.16m standard - Apr 1, 2011
• LucidLogix scores Intel as first Virtu customer - Apr 1, 2011