Hey folks, Valkor here and we're welcoming back the gang over at Lexar into the Val-Cave. It's been awhile since they've visited these parts, but make no mistake, I've been keeping tabs. And when the opportunity arose to check out their latest flash drive – the S73 jumpdrive, I quickly jumped at the chance. And after giving it the once over, I can say, preemptively that the S73 is ready for primetime. Check it out!
The S73 Jumpdrive is the first flash drive we've tested here at TOV that uses the USB 3.0 standard. The S73 touts speeds of 45MB/s read and 20MB/s write by comparison to the USB 2.0 standard. In appearance, the drive looks somewhat similar to the Echo MX; however the top is more flat, which also has a thumb slide to retract/detract the USB connector. Each drive is color coded based on capacity – 8 GB (Blue), 16 GB (Purple), 32 GB (Orange), and 64 GB (Green). So you have a nice selection and should you purchase more than one, it won't get confusing thanks to the color coding system.
To test out the drive, I used Lenovo's Q180 HTPC alongside my go-to flash drive – the Apogee AstroDrive 266X. With the AstroDrive, I can usually load up a big file pretty quickly, especially when I need to "get it and go". So for this test I used three files ranging in size – a 1.4 GB, a 700MB, and an 87MB file.
For the S73, the 87MB file wrote at 6s and read off the drive a 3s. The 700MB file wrote at 39s, reading at 17s. And the 1.4GB wrote at 1:22, reading at 36s. Now by comparison with the AstroDrive, the 87MB file read and wrote at the same speed as the S73, but the larger files starting with the 700MB wrote at 53s, reading at 22s. And the 1.42GB file wrote at 1m 46s, reading at 50s. While the read speed is negligible, you're picking up a faster write speed with the S73. Please note: your speeds may vary, depending on your system.
The Bang:
For my first USB 3.0 test, I have to say it was a success and Lexar's S73 jumpdrive shows it has what it takes to be a contender in the market. It's fast, maybe not "super fast" but fast enough that I can readily replace my AstroDrive in favor of the S73 in terms of "get it and go" performance; in the end, I was satisfied with it.
The Slack:
I expected it to be much faster, but the technology is still fairly new. So as the drives evolve, I'm sure we'll see much faster speeds in the future.
Overall, Lexar has scored another winner in Val-Cave testing with their latest S73 USB 3.0 jumpdrive; it's pretty fast offering up the same high quality, reliability, and performance – what you'd expect from a Lexar product. The S73 is available now and works on both Macs and PCs. So out of TOV 5 stars, I'm giving the S73 a solid 4. Valkor tested and Approved? Absolutely!