Performance:

Vista ReadyBoost, using flash drives have been discussed and reviewed by many including [M] early this year when Vista was first introduced. Although Vista performance gain is negligible, it is a good measuring stick to judge if the flash memory is up to the challenge. With system memory price as low as today when 2GB could be had for less than $50, ReadyBoost is no longer the reason to buy flash drives.

It is nice to see that all three mini drives from A-DATA passed Vista ReadyBoost requirement.

Laptop test setup For Vista ReadyBoost:

Acer Aspire 4720-4825 14.1" Widescreen Laptop

Windows Vista Home Basic

Desktop Test Setup:

ASRock 4-Core-1333 eSATA2 motherboard

Intel E4400 @3.0 GHz

Seagate 500GB SATA HD

G.Skill PC6400 2*1GB

Windows XP Pro SP2

Compared with: Sandisk Cruzer 1GB; VisionTek 1GB; Kingston 4GB



The three mini drives perform consistently with each other from HD Tach measurement out shining the regular size USB flash drives here.



Using 550MB of data, photo and software programs in real life test the result is a bit different. The PD-18 performs better than the other two. The test was done with two passes and the results were within -/+ 1 seconds.

Pricing of the A-DATA mini ranging from ~US$11.00 for 1GB capacity and up to ~$32 for 4GB size, I have yet to see the 8GB available.

Conclusion:

I have been carrying a USB flash drive on my keychain for several years because I know I won't lose or misplace or forget my car and house keys. A smaller and much slimmer USB flash drive is definitely welcome. Both read and write speed of these mini drives from A-DATA is a tad slower, but overall the impact is negligible.

I would think the market for 512MB and 1GB capacity drives are of the past, when 2GB becomes the minimum and 4 and 8GB are gaining popularity. If I were in the market for USB flash drive, I would certainly take a closer look at the mini drives from A-DATA.

PROS:

Size

Price

ReadyBoost capable

CONS:

Speed?



Many thanks to A-DATA for sending the review samples all the way from Taiwan to the U.S., we look forward to seeing more new products from A-DATA in the coming New Year.