Mushkin Enhanced Ventura Plus 128GB Ultra High Speed Flash Drive Model MKNUFDVS128GB

Pros: I bought this back in June and thought it was about time to write a review. This is the drive I carry with me everywhere. It constantly gets beat up in my pocket by my car keys and is still kicking. Most of the black coating is worn off, but oddly enough I still have the cap. I was skeptical at first of the cap, but needed a 64GB USB 3.0 drive so I figured I could deal with losing the cap. But to my disbelief the cap fits well and hasn't fallen off yet. The drive is made out of metal and I don't think you could bend it if you wanted to. It's built like a tank. This thing is a monster when it comes to data transfer. Large files transfer at about 97MBps, where as smaller files transfer around 22-26MBps depending on the size. Keep that in mind with any flash drive. Small files transfer much slower than large files.

Cons: The only complaint I might have is that most of the black paint has worn off, but I really don't care.

Overall Review: I highly recommend this Mushkin drive. It's fast, built like a tank and just plain works. I have no regrets and would recommend this to anyone.

Pros: Fast. Smaller than the fat first generation of USB 3.0 flash drives.

Cons: Slow writing very small files.

Overall Review: I just got it today so I'll have to wait and see how reliability is. It feels well-built. The cap slides on easily but holds firmly from friction From the pictures, I thought I'd be worried about the cap falling off while carrying it, but I have no such worries now that I've felt it. The rear end flashes red while in use. The drive does get warm/hot during long writes, but nothing I'd consider unacceptable. I've felt hard drives get hotter. I tried dumping 10 GB of movies on it at once to heat it up, but it finished copying so quickly (a few min) that there wasn't really enough time for it to get too hot. Windows reports its size as 58.91 GB (58.8 GB after formatting). That's 63.25 billion bytes. So they're shorting you a bit less than a GB. Internally, I assume it's 64 billion bytes, and 750 million bytes are reserved to swap in for memory cells which die with use. Peak speed is as advertised. Read speed seems acceptable even at its slowest. Write speed slows down considerably for very small files, but not as bad as SD cards. At its worst it writes like a slow hard drive (read speed is considerably better than the slowest for a hard drive). This can perform like a low-end SSD with large files, but is more like a hard drive with small ones. CrystalDiskMark results, 1000 MB, USB 3.0: Seq: R 190.9 MB/s, W 88.09 MB/s 512k: R 158.6, W 1.692 4k: R 6.294, W 0.238 4k QD32: R 5.890, W 0.251 CrystalDiskMark results, 100 MB, USB 3.0: Seq: Read 180.1 MB/s, Write 47.46 MB/s 512k: R 145.3, W 22.25 4k: R 4.120, W 0.653 4k QD4k: R 4.715, W 0.705 ATTO results, USB 3.0, 256MB, QD4 (bars too small to make out are labeled 'low'): 0.5 kB: R 1 MB/s, W low 1.0 kB: R 2, W low 2.0 kB: R 5, W low 4.0 kB: R 13, W low 8.0 kB: R 37, W 2 16 kB: R 52, W 6 32 kB: R 140, W 17 64 kB: R 165, W 62 128 kB: R 133, W 50 256 kB: R 141, W 49 512 kB: R 121, W 56 1024 kB: R 148, W 40 2048 kB: R 125, W 39 4096 kB: R 129, W 48 8192 kB: R 140, W 40 Test system was a Dell Inspiron 660 w/ Ivy Bridge i5.

Pros: 64GB of storage, obviously Fast both on USB3 (Hit 170MB/s reads, about 70MB/s write in benchmarks) and USB2 (didn't benchmark, but 27MB/s-30MB/s sustained file transfers) Lasted several months with lighter usage Gets warm but not hot like some other drives

Cons: Recessed access LED on the tip of the drive, kind of hard to see if it's off to the side on the edge of a laptop or keyboard USB port. No way to store cap when drive is plugged in. No lanyard/wrist strap, but most drives don't come with one. Standard risks that come with a flashdrive - easy to lose or misplace the drive or the cap, easy to leave in pocket, etc.

Overall Review: So far this drive has outlived my last two USB3 drives, I hope finally posting a good review doesn't jinx it.

Pros: 52 max write, 203 max read with default format(fat32). got this to hold my Linux virtual machines and personal user folders on my school laptop(support tech A.A.S) that has only a 64Gb ssd to reduce writes and save space since i break em every other day. obviously for virtual machines, fat32 does not support files than 4Gb. after formatting to exFAT i got 46 writes and 199 reads. I did not try it, but I know for a fact that wouldn't be the case for NTFS. As for installing VM's its not as fast as local installs on my ssd but it's about the same as if you were doing a real install on a mechanical drive. As for reading them, Its good, but you need to realize that a ssd with 200Mbs reads is going to have more input/output operations per second than a flash drive of the same speeds so it does hang for one second here and there when updating and what have you, so don't think this is going to be a real ssd

Cons: In 10+ years never once have I ever had a problem with a Mushkin product, RAM, SSD's, flash drives.

Overall Review: I plugged the drive in for the first time, windows went through It's installing driver deal, and i got 20Mb writes and 40 Mb reads. tried this on two machines. Unplugged it put it back in and good to go. Which would lead me to believe that even though windows says installing drivers they are not applied until the device is plugged in the second time. so if you plug it in the first time and run ATTO and don't get the results you wanted, unplug it then try it again before crying wolf.

Pros: Using CrystalDiskMark, the Ventura Plus 256GB performed well with the competitor being the Kingston HyperX DataTraveler USB 3.0 product. Smaller than the HyperX (if you prefer smaller) Much lower price than the Kingston HyperX

Cons: No lanyard provided.

Overall Review: CrystalDiskMark 5.1.0 5 / 1GB Test: Read (MB/sec) Write (MB/sec) Seq Q32T1 - 301.1MB/s 269.4MB/s 4k Q32T1 - 7.382MB/s 0.024MB/s Seq - 285.7MB/s 214.8MB/s 4k - 7.069MB/s 0.016MB/s 5 / 32GB Test: Read (MB/sec) Write (MB/sec) Seq Q32T1 - 290.9MB/s 268.4MB/s 4k Q32T1 - 8.958MB/s 0.005MB/s Seq - 281.9MB/s 256.9MB/s 4k - 8.219MB/s 0.007MB/s Unknown quality of flash memory used so as with all USB flash drives, this is not your your backup device.

Pros: Accurate Speeds Very small in width and length Can fit other devices in parallel ports

Cons: None

Overall Review: I do not do the fancy performance suite test. I used the Windows copy file from this location to this location and watch the transfer speed. NOTE: The advertised speeds are the sequential xfer rates of uncompressed unzipped data for a single file. With my tests this advertised speed is verified. 6gb ISO game file from Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD main drive to Muskin 64gb ~90MB/S 6GB ISO game file from Muskin 64GB to Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD main drive ~190MB/S 1.5gb ISO game file from Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD main drive to Muskin 64gb ~95MB/S 1.5GB ISO game file from Muskin 64GB to Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD main drive ~190MB/S Extremely happy I finally pulled the trigger after debating with myself for 8 months! The size of the drive is awesome as it does not block any ports next to it. It is also a very short drive so it does not extend away form the pc very far. Overall a GREAT drive. Very impressed.

Pros: Very fast operation. Looks nice. Decent LED visibility. USB 3.0 a huge plus.

Cons: No Lanyard. When you attach a lanyard the cap can no longer be attached to the rear. After a few months of use the rear clear portion separated from the main body leaving me holding the raw circuit board in my hand.

Overall Review: I am someone who literally uses this everyday for my work so my usage is likely higher than others however having the rear clear housing in unacceptable. This happened after about 4 months of usage. I have since glued it back in myself and haven't had an issue.

Pros: * Fully Linux compatible (openSUSE 13.1 for x86_64) * 153 MB/s read speed consistently (tested using hdparm -t --direct /dev/sdx) * A red LED activity light shines through the back of the drive to indicate reading and writing. This light is visible through the sides of the drive when the cap is attached to the back * The activity LED is the correct brightness; not to bright to be annoying or distracting, yet not so dim that it would be difficult to see in daylight * All aluminum drive case seems very well made * Aluminum drive case effectively dissipates heat * Cap attaches to the back of the drive while in use * Slim profile enables multiple Ventura Plus drives to be simultaneously plugged into USB ports that are spaced very close together. The drive is the same height as a USB port, and only 1 mm wider on each side than a USB port (the drive is 17 mm wide, and the USB port is 15 mm wide)

Cons: * When the cap is attached to the back of the drive, it feels quite loose. So far the cap remained attached to the back of the drive, yet it requires little force to remove it. I can envision the cap coming off and getting lost of the drive was dropped while the cap was attached to the back of the drive.

Overall Review: This drive should be compatible with every recently released Linux distribution, including Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Red Hat, and more. My ownership of this drive is 6 weeks to date. This drive runs warm to the touch (not hot) even while idle, which concerns me a little. The lifespan of this drive remains to be seen. I never bought a Mushkin product before, so this was a small bit of faith on my part based on many positive reviews of Mushkin products I read over the years. I would deduct 1/2 an egg from the rating for this dive (for a rating of 4.5 eggs) due to the excessive heat it generates, yet Newegg does not allow review ratings in increments of 1/2 eggs. Since the drive performs beyond the advertised specifications and has yet to fail, I feel 5 eggs is a more accurate rating than 4 eggs. I ran badblocks for 50 passes on this drive and found no defective blocks. This may sound like an odd idea to run badblocks on a flash drive, yet I found multiple flash drives from other manufacturers that revealed themselves as defective only after this thorough test. If your data integrity matters to you, do not trust a drive until after you proved no reasonably detectable failures could be found. While the label on the drive reads "Mushkin", the drive appears to have been actually manufactured by Kingston. The KDE Control Panel module USB Devices reveals: MKNUFDVS16GB Manufacturer: MUSHKIN Serial #: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX [masked for security] Class: 0 ((Defined at Interface level)) Subclass: 0 Protocol: 0 USB Version: 3.00 Vendor ID :0x13fe (Kingston Technology Company Inc.) Product ID: 0x5200 Revision: 0.00 Speed: 5,000 Mbit/s Channels: 0 Max. Packet Size: 9