review Corsair Flash Voyager GT 64GB USB3.0

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

Corsair Flash Voyager GT 64GB USB3.0

I?ve used several thumb drives over the years and always found myself needing more space. Over the past few years I?ve carried around a 16GB Patriot XT drive. It was small and fast; however, the allure of USB3.0 was too much. I needed more speed for everyday file transfers and needed more storage space. Having researched numerous USB3.0 thumb drive options, I finally narrowed it down to the Corsair Flash Voyager GT based on its price, storage size and overall performance.

Features

Taken right off of Corsair?s website:

?Interface: USB 3.0 ?Max Sequential Read/Write (using ATTO Disk Benchmark): 135 MB/s sequential read ? 83 MB/s sequential write (USB 3.0) ?Unformatted Capacity: 64 GB

• High Performance with USB 3.0 or USB 2.0
  
• Durable rubber housing
  
• Water resistant
  
• Shock proof
  
• Plug-n-Play compatible
  
• Limited 5 year warranty
  

In my research, I found that there are faster thumb drives. There are more capacious thumb drives too. However, I had to compromise ? it all boils down to cost per gigabyte. While the MSRP is $160, I paid nowhere near this much. Amazon currently sells it for $120.49.

Look & Feel

The Voyager GT has an all-rubber body. It?s supposedly water proof, but I?m not going to test that. Being that it?s rubber, it?s a dust magnet.

It feels quite durable and well made. The overall dimensions of the drive are a big staggering. I did not anticipate its length when I bought it. Even though it is quite large, I have no problem keeping it in my pocket all day. In fact, I don?t even feel it.

Performance ? USB2.0

I formatted the drive using exFAT in Windows 7 64-bit. The overall usable storage space is 60.1GB. Tests were performed on an HP ProBook 6560b. As this laptop somehow doesn?t have USB3.0, I?ll have to use another laptop for the next set of tests.

The USB2.0 performance summary boils down to this: the drive basically maxes out the interface?s capability. It can get sustained writes over 20MB/s and sustained reads of 30-35MB/s. As reads and writes get smaller and more random, the drive suffers. It?s still much faster than a standard hard drive, but cannot compete with the random reads/writes of an SSD.

In this first test, I copied a 700MB iso from a 7200rpm laptop hard drive to the Voyager. The average transfer rate was between 20-23MB/s.

In the next test, I did the reverse to test the sustained read speed.

The next set of tests will compare the USB2.0 performance between The Voyager GT and my old Patriot XT. I used ATTO, CrystalDiskMark and HD Tach.

ATTO

The Patriot XT shows strong Read performance, but suffers on the writes.

The Voyager, however, shows stronger Read performance and much stronger Write performance.

CrystalDiskMark

In this test, you can again see that the Patriot XT has strong Read performance but lacks Write performance. This is low even for USB2.0. Random read and write performance is adequate, however.

Again, the Voyager GT shows very strong Read and Write performance. The Random performance is slightly better than the much-older Patriot.

HD Tach

This benchmark doesn?t indicate much these days. It basically shows the potential burst speed of the device as well as its average read speed. In this test, the two thumb drives are about even.

Performance ? USB3.0

I borrowed my coworker?s gigantic 17? Asus gaming laptop for this series of tests. I tried to mimic the same tests that I did for the USB2.0. One thing to note ? the drive actually got warm when running the USB3.0 tests.

File Copy ? ISO from Voyager to 7200rpm hard drive

This first test shows the potential Read performance of the device. The drive averaged between 100-110MB/s which isn?t too far off from the rated 135MB/s.

File Copy ? ISO from 7200rpm to Voyager

This next test is the opposite. It shows the potential Write speed of the drive. To be honest, I expected better performance. I wouldn?t rule this as conclusive as there are too many variables to determine a proper write speed. On this write test, the drive averaged around 45MB/s.

ATTO

Here we can see better potential write performance. The drive seems to hit a wall at 60MB/s ? pretty far off from its rated 83MB/s.

CrystalDiskMark

This test shows about the same results as ATTO despite using different types of data sets. Notice the massive increase in the small block Read scores. The small block Write speeds were not much improved, however.

HD Tach

HD Tach shows some pretty good scores. 101MB/s Burst and 88.6MB/s Average Read. Much better than the USB2.0 scores.

Conclusion

My initial impressions of the USB3.0 performance were a bit mixed. I am pretty impressed with the overall read speeds as the drive can sustain over 100MB/s. The write speeds were a little underwhelming though. I guess I expected a bit more performance since it?s rated at 83MB/s. I realize Corsair?s performance claims are based on a single synthetic test though. Also, I?ve only been able to test USB3.0 performance on a single system. This laptop has an unknown USB controller and a traditional, slow hard drive. The thumb drive might perform better if the test system were to use, say, a dedicated USB3.0 card and an SSD.

Finally, the random, small block data sets are the Achilles? heel for any thumb drive. The random Read performance is quite good for a thumb drive, but the Writes suffer. If you?re a user who copies a lot of small files to and from the hard drive, you might want to look in another direction ? perhaps a thumb drive from Super Talent with a built-in Sandforce controller.

The Corsair Flash Voyager GT is a very fast thumb drive with a full 60GB of usable storage. Even though the cost per GB is difficult for many to justify, I feel it is a sound purchase since I intend to use this drive for several years. Even though I don?t own a USB3.0-equipped system right now, I wanted a drive that will be fast enough for many years to come. I feel that this is a worthy upgrade given the massive speed increase and four times the storage capacity.

[Wombatt]

Wow, this is an excellent review! Thank you! :)

I myself have Patriot Xporter XT 16GB and its excellent!

[zeta_immersion]

I like the CD with the thumbdrive .. how things have changed

[htcz]

Im looking for a fast one (with write moreso) so this may be my next one. Thanks

[+Warwagon MVC]

Why do these guys make the ugliest USB sticks. Also why is it that only one company actually provides write protection switches on USB thumb drives.