As the demand for storage space increases we have seen a handful of manufacturers releasing larger and faster USB 3.0 pen drives. In January we reviewed the Kingston DataTraveler HyperX Predator 512GB drive which broke new ground for performance. The only downside was the asking price, a staggering £650 inc vat. Today we are looking at the latest SuperSonic Magnum 256GB USB 3.0 pen drive, priced at a more palatable £250 inc vat.
The Patriot SuperSonic Magnum will be released in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacities. We are testing the largest 256GB version today which is also the fastest.
Patriot rate performance at 250 MB/s read and 160 MB/s write for the 256GB drive. This drops to 200 MB/s read and 120 MB/s write for the 64GB and 128GB versions. All of them carry a 5 year warranty.
Features:
- USB 3.0 compliant.
- 8-Channel technology for fast read/write performance.
- 64GB and 128GB – U p to 200MB/s read.
- 256GB – U p to 250MB/s read.
- 64GB and 128GB – Up to 120MB/s write.
- 256GB – U p to 160MB/s write.
- Backwards compatible with USB 2.0.
- Aluminum housing for shock resistance up t o 15G.
- Compatible with Windows® 8, Windows® 7, Windows Vista®, Windows XP®, Windows 2000®, Windows® ME, Linux 2.4 and later,
Mac® OS9, X.
Thats a really nice looking drive. I loved the Kingston drive too, but it was much too expensive. What price is the 128gb version of this drive? any ideas?
I love patriot products, always get an alert when you review them. ordering this next month after im paid. my old 32gb flash drive is slow as sin.
hardcore, my own USB drive is 8GB and ive 5gb still free on it.
this would work well for family picture backups and things like that. I hate burning DVDs for jpgs, takes forever 🙁
I almost opted for the 128gb unit and realised it was slower. would it be noticeable you think?
Indloon, what do you need it for, just general backups, or large single files? the 256GB would be quicker if you are copying over a lot of large single files like videos etc. otherwise I think most people could live with the slight reduction in performance.
I have also found that Patriot don’t seem to be a company who ‘claim’ huge performance figures they can’t deliver. This drive is actually slightly faster than their rated figures for instance.
Attractive design, bit expensive for me and what I need, but nice to see companies pushing these into SSD speeds now. still some life left in USB 3.0