Super Talent DRAM Disk 16GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive Review

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Back in June of this year, Super Talent released a rather interesting USB 3.0 powered device. Dubbed the DRAM Disk, and rightly so, this USB 3.0 flash drive allocates system memory and creates a very quick RAM disk with little interaction from the user.

Marketing numbers for the DRAM Disk say the device is capable of 4044 MB/s read and 5388 MB/s write, of course that wholly depends on your system memory speed and capacity. On the actual flash drive, I was unable to find any sort of performance indicators. The DRAM Disk is available in 8GB, 16GB, 32GB and 64GB capacities with pricing starting at $10.99 for the 8GB to $42.99 for the 64GB capacity. Warranty is listed at three years.

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Our initial impression of the DRAM Disk was it's a rather sleek, elegant drive that has the look and feel as if belongs in a business environment.

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The USB 3.0 port is properly colored to denote its capabilities.

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Internally, the DRAM Disk utilizes the Innostor 916EN controller. The NAND packages are manufactured by Toshiba.

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On the backside of the PCB, we found another Toshiba NAND package.

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After plugging in the DRAM Disk, we launch the included software and started the install. Note that the software doesn't actually install on your system, the install refers to launching and installing the Ram Disk.

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Options for the Ram Disk include, for our test system, a 2, 4 or 6GB Ram Disk. This Ram Disk is then synced to the flash drive at a specific frequency that you can select at the bottom left.

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Moving quickly into benching the Ram Disk, we achieved some pretty impressive performance topping 6500 MB/s read and 9000 MB/s write.

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Now seeing the incredible performance of the Ram Disk, we switched over to testing the flash drive itself. Here we found peak reads at 91 MB/s and writes 10 MB/s.

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Seeing that the flash drive was at an obvious performance disadvantage, we decided to throw data on the Ram Disk and use HDTune to see how long it took the software to sync back to the flash drive.

We first filled the Ram Disk with a touch over 1GB of data. In turn it took the flash drive about two minutes to sync the data.

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Adding to that data pool with a total workload of 3GB of data, the flash drive was able to sync the data in a touch over five minutes.

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Filling the Ram Disk to peak capacity, the flash drive took nearly 10 minutes to sync the data.

First things first, the build quality of the Super Talent DRAM Disk was quite good, with the aluminium shell providing an excellent source of protection and aesthetic appeal.

Performance of the unit was exceptional as a Ram Disk, here we touched some mighty impressive numbers near 9000 MB/s. As far as the flash drive is concerned, I was at first disappointed with the drive, but the more I use it myself, I'm rather impressed by it too. The simple fact is, as we saw in testing, syncing 5GB of data took nearly ten minutes. Now that sounds absolutely terrible if this were a normal flash drive, but it's not.

With the Super Talent DRAM Disk, your workloads are placed within the Ram Disk allowing you outstanding performance during the day, while in the background the flash drive is pulling the data and syncing it, making this a rather seamless operation. Additionally, Super Talent says data retention for the flash drive is 10 years.

The DRAM Disk is available in 8GB, 16GB, 32GB and 64GB capacities with pricing starting at $10.99 for the 8GB to $42.99 for the 64GB capacity. Warranty is listed at three years.

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