Corsair Flash Voyager GTX 128GB Review

1. Introduction2. Corsair Flash Voyager GTX 128GB and Windows 7/83. Synthetic Performance Testing4. Real World Performance Testing5. Closing Thoughts6. View All Pages

Our review today of the Corsair Flash Voyager GTX 128GB has raised interesting points which are worth some discussion.

Firstly and most importantly, there is no doubt that Corsair have created one of the fastest portable flash drives … ever. The Corsair Flash Voyager GTX 128GB is Usain Bolt on steroids. By incorporating a fully fledged SSD controller the new Voyager GTX is pushing USB 3.0 flash drives into completely new performance territory.

Unfortunately, as indicated earlier in our review, achieving maximum performance hasn't been a simple case of just slotting the drive into the closest USB 3.0 port.

Windows 7 was the cause of our initial performance issues – due to unavailable UASP drivers, related to the Gigabyte Z97 GA Z97X-UD7 motherboard we are using in one of our new 2014 test systems. MSI and ASRock Z97 boards have the same issues in Windows 7. ASUS are the only major motherboard manufacturer who include full UASP support. Most of us know it already as ‘Asus USB 3.0 Boost' – and it works great, even with Windows 7. You can read about it over here. To be fair, Gigabyte took our approach seriously and are currently discussing if they will include a UASP drive to support Windows 7 in the near future.

In a nutshell, the easiest way to get maximum performance from the Corsair Flash Voyager GTX 128GB drive is to install Windows 8.1. The latest Microsoft operating system may not have received the warmest of welcomes from a large portion of the enthusiast audience, but it has native support for UASP. Without UASP support,  the Corsair Flash Voyager GTX 128GB throughput drops by around 35%. These are staggering differences.

So, is the Corsair Flash Voyager GTX 128GB worth the £95 asking price? It is an easy question to answer.

If you need to backup large amounts of data or move files quickly between multiple systems then we give it a resounding thumbs up. There is no other portable USB 3.0 flash drive we have tested which performs at a similar level. 4K IOPS performance is also significantly ahead of other flash drives we have tested.

Obviously with cutting edge technology, there is a premium to pay. In this case around £20, when compared to other high grade USB 3.0 flash drives such as the Voyager GS 128GB, available for £75 inc vat at OverclockersUK. Just make sure you are either running Windows 8.1 or have UASP drivers available for your motherboard.

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Pros:

• Crazy levels of performance.
• 4K performance is excellent.
• fully fledged SSD controller.
• runs cool.
• small form factor.
• nicely finished.
• decent pricing considering the capacity, physical size and performance.

Cons:

• Windows 7 without UASP support? be prepared for a huge performance hit – or install Windows 8.1

Kitguru says: The fastest USB 3.0 flash drive we have tested. It relies heavily on UASP drivers. Or just install Windows 8.1 to be sure.

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