what is wrong with external HDD? they are cheap, even overseas, and get the job done. on usb 3.0 they reach 90/100 mb per second, and around 20 on usb2.0. for personal use that's pretty fast, and for professional use a gigabit network between the computers would get the job done.
of course, a few insane people will want a pen-drive faster than his main SSD/HDD, but I just don't see this much people waiting for this product.
It's definitely a niche product, but there are times where it's simply far more convenient to carry around a USB stick instead of a USB enclosure with a cable.
I agree. Not having to deal with, full around with, a USB3 cable and an external hdd/ssd enclosure dangling off the end of the cable. If I am sitting down on a train (often the case) it is easier and more convenient to insert a high performance USB flash memory stick into a USB3 port on my Macbook Pro, then having to deal with a dangling cable / enclosure setup. Basically convenience and form factor are the considerations here for 'on-the-road' mobile production.
When it comes to travel, shock (dropping/falling) is to be expected, and external HDD's are toast. They also take up more space. I've got a lot of friends that use them due to price and convenient availability, and I've also got a lot of friends that frequently drop them and lose time & data. Myself included in hdd failure. Heat, shock, cold, humidity... none of these are good for hdd's, but barely affect flash.
There is a price barrier, but there is definitely demand for high speed transfers on a safe travel friendly (compact & light) medium.
I think travelers & photographers would like this a lot.
The Corsair Fanboys are obviously ignoring the fact when they are paying $120 for a 128GB USB drive, I am getting a 250GB MLC SSD for <$100 and use a cheap adapter to hook it up to my computer. In the end I am spending less, Achieved more storage with a faster speed.
This is a REALLY difficult sort of product to sell because every competitor (and you yourself, Corsair) have pissed in the well of thumb drives. We've all seen the advertising promising 10x speed, 100x speed, millionx speed, USB3 speed, blah blah --- and yet thumb drives of this sort are uniformly disappointing.
If *I* were in Best Buy and saw thus product my reaction would probably be (a) you're lying about the read (and especially the write) speed AND (b) you doubtless suck in some way that's not obvious but is there --- random access writes are awful, or there's some tiny cache that runs fast but everything else runs slow, or the speeds you advertise are the speed of your USB controller not the speed of the flash it is hooked up to, or something.
Point is --- to sell something like this, very different and promising more but charging more --- it helps to have a trusted brand, someone that you more or less believe would not lie to you. Corsair does not have that --- it's not that they have a reputation for lying, but they don't have a reputation for standing out in their truth telling. Which means, I suspect, that few people are going to be reckless enough to pay the extra cost on the hope that, this time, the claims of a fast thumb drive aren't just lies, or technically true but in a way that's not useful.
One thing I don't get with most of these flash sticks is why they have to be so bloody thick and wide. Because of this, they obstruct adjacent ports. You pretty much can't use them on a rear of a PC without several USB ports becoming inaccessible, perhaps even other ports as well (ethernet, video and so on would be terrible.)
Sucks. So yeah, it's fast, I get it. However high-performance USB3 sticks have been out for years now and they're showing no signs of shrinking. It's lazy and dumb that they remain so damn huge still after all this time.
Yeah I've had a similar experience with my Extreme Sandisk, which gets SSD like performance. Use front USB ports and risk smacking and it accidentally--took me 2 weeks to do this, use the back and it won't fit w/o removing something else.
Best bet is to get a small USB 3 cable. Which was actually pretty hard to find. Shortest I could buy was 10 cm: http://bit.ly/U7NAYt
Yeah, thats true. It's not like they can't make a small flash drive (Its already possible to stuff 128GB or even 256GB on to a single package), problem is, that no one has a decent native usb3 controller. So they use something from ssd (sandforce for example) and a sata-usb bridge. That obviously takes space and a bulky flash drive comes out as a result.
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16 Comments
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marc1000 - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
what is wrong with external HDD? they are cheap, even overseas, and get the job done. on usb 3.0 they reach 90/100 mb per second, and around 20 on usb2.0. for personal use that's pretty fast, and for professional use a gigabit network between the computers would get the job done.of course, a few insane people will want a pen-drive faster than his main SSD/HDD, but I just don't see this much people waiting for this product.
JarredWalton - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
It's definitely a niche product, but there are times where it's simply far more convenient to carry around a USB stick instead of a USB enclosure with a cable.mga318 - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
I'd say that its niche enough that an msata ssd and enclosure is still going to be cheaper and not much larger at all.inighthawki - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
I can't realistically attach an SSD+Enclosure on my keychain ;)tokyojerry - Tuesday, June 3, 2014 - link
I agree. Not having to deal with, full around with, a USB3 cable and an external hdd/ssd enclosure dangling off the end of the cable. If I am sitting down on a train (often the case) it is easier and more convenient to insert a high performance USB flash memory stick into a USB3 port on my Macbook Pro, then having to deal with a dangling cable / enclosure setup. Basically convenience and form factor are the considerations here for 'on-the-road' mobile production.Drasca - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
When it comes to travel, shock (dropping/falling) is to be expected, and external HDD's are toast. They also take up more space. I've got a lot of friends that use them due to price and convenient availability, and I've also got a lot of friends that frequently drop them and lose time & data. Myself included in hdd failure. Heat, shock, cold, humidity... none of these are good for hdd's, but barely affect flash.There is a price barrier, but there is definitely demand for high speed transfers on a safe travel friendly (compact & light) medium.
I think travelers & photographers would like this a lot.
ganeshts - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
These type of drives make great portable Steam drives for storing games on-the-go.Whitereflection - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
The Corsair Fanboys are obviously ignoring the fact when they are paying $120 for a 128GB USB drive, I am getting a 250GB MLC SSD for <$100 and use a cheap adapter to hook it up to my computer. In the end I am spending less, Achieved more storage with a faster speed.bji - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
Some people have enough money that choosing the most convenient storage option for their needs is a possibility. Sorry if this is not you.Morawka - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
great for tablets with full size usb port. your solution is big, heavy, and has a wire dangling downtokyojerry - Tuesday, June 3, 2014 - link
100% agree! Especially if you want to do some video post production while mobile. (see my above comment to JarredWalton)Morawka - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
are you kidding me? all of us with tablets would love this fast storage to replace crappy emmc storage solutions.name99 - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
This is a REALLY difficult sort of product to sell because every competitor (and you yourself, Corsair) have pissed in the well of thumb drives. We've all seen the advertising promising 10x speed, 100x speed, millionx speed, USB3 speed, blah blah --- and yet thumb drives of this sort are uniformly disappointing.If *I* were in Best Buy and saw thus product my reaction would probably be
(a) you're lying about the read (and especially the write) speed AND
(b) you doubtless suck in some way that's not obvious but is there --- random access writes are awful, or there's some tiny cache that runs fast but everything else runs slow, or the speeds you advertise are the speed of your USB controller not the speed of the flash it is hooked up to, or something.
Point is --- to sell something like this, very different and promising more but charging more --- it helps to have a trusted brand, someone that you more or less believe would not lie to you. Corsair does not have that --- it's not that they have a reputation for lying, but they don't have a reputation for standing out in their truth telling.
Which means, I suspect, that few people are going to be reckless enough to pay the extra cost on the hope that, this time, the claims of a fast thumb drive aren't just lies, or technically true but in a way that's not useful.
FaaR - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
One thing I don't get with most of these flash sticks is why they have to be so bloody thick and wide. Because of this, they obstruct adjacent ports. You pretty much can't use them on a rear of a PC without several USB ports becoming inaccessible, perhaps even other ports as well (ethernet, video and so on would be terrible.)Sucks. So yeah, it's fast, I get it. However high-performance USB3 sticks have been out for years now and they're showing no signs of shrinking. It's lazy and dumb that they remain so damn huge still after all this time.
milkman001 - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
Yeah I've had a similar experience with my Extreme Sandisk, which gets SSD like performance. Use front USB ports and risk smacking and it accidentally--took me 2 weeks to do this, use the back and it won't fit w/o removing something else.Best bet is to get a small USB 3 cable. Which was actually pretty hard to find. Shortest I could buy was 10 cm:
http://bit.ly/U7NAYt
hojnikb - Tuesday, June 3, 2014 - link
Yeah, thats true. It's not like they can't make a small flash drive (Its already possible to stuff 128GB or even 256GB on to a single package), problem is, that no one has a decent native usb3 controller. So they use something from ssd (sandforce for example) and a sata-usb bridge. That obviously takes space and a bulky flash drive comes out as a result.