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Voyager GS 256 GB write performance for small files


ohrenbaer

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My new USB flash drive Voyager GS 256 GB has a very poor write performance for small files, rendering it basically unusable.

 

I checked using the CrystalDiskMark tool (v3.0.2, x64) and found the following [5 test runs, test size 1GB, USB 3.0 connection]:

 

sequential (block size 1024 kB) read 279 write 30 MB/s

random (block size 512 kB) read 198 write 1.5 MB/s

random (block size 4 kB) read 9.8 write 0.007 MB/s

 

For comparison, the numbers for an external hard drive (conventional hard

drive, not SSD) which is several years old and connected to the same machine via USB 2.0 are:

 

sequential (block size 1024 kB) read 35 write 34 MB/s

random (block size 512 kB) read 18 write 26 MB/s

random (block size 4 kB) read 0.3 write 0.9 MB/s

 

which means writing small files is more than a hundred times slower for the Voyager GS. does this mean the device is broken?

 

note that the apalling write performance is reproducible connecting the item to other computers.

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atto reports

for the Voyager GS write performance, USB 3.0

at 4KB 2.2 MB/s

at 512 KB 87 MB/s

for the conventional external hard drive, USB 2.0

at 4KB 8.3 MB/s

at 512 KB 36 MB/s

 

however the real-life performance copying a mix of files with different sizes, many of them small corresponds more to what the CrystalDiskMark tool indicates (in that the Corsair Voyager is 50-100 times slower than the conventional external hard drive). I'm nowhere near a MB/s, more in the few tens of kB/s range when copying files.

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meanwhile i reformatted the usb memory with sdformatter. the results i had reported before were for ntfs, sdformatter did reformat to exfat. (however, sdformatter is not really needed for this, in fact i got the same performance when reformatting directly from the built-in windows 7 function.)

 

exfat performance for small files is somewhat better than ntfs, but still not acceptable on an absolute scale:

 

sequential (block size 1024 kB) read 255 write 160 MB/s

random (block size 512 kB) read 179 write 1.4 MB/s

random (block size 4 kB) read 9.1 write 0.011 MB/s

 

i will therefore return the product to the supplier and ask for a refund.

if you know of any usb memory stick with small file performance comparable to my old conventional external hard drive, let me know. i'm interested whether this exists or whether this poor performance is a general "feature" of the technology used in these products. noticing the tremendous performance of the internal ssd drive (122 MB/s for random 4 kB writes) i will now consider using an external ssd drive instead (with a sata to usb 3.0 adapter).

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  • 2 weeks later...

Did you find out if your drive was faulty or does it really have bad performance for small files?

 

My application requires moving thousands of small files back and forth so I need a drive that optimizes for this type of transfer. I was thinking about getting the Voyager GS but after reading this thread I have second thoughts.

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  • 1 month later...

Hi,

 

I've also got a very slow Voyager GS 256 GB drive.

 

This drive is rated at 260 MB/s read and 105 MB/s write.

 

ATTO gives it a best of 213 MB/s read and 70 MB/s write.

 

That's totally ignoring the very slow writes when transfer sizes are very small.

 

Followed the suggestions in this forum and reformatted to exFAT but it didn't help.

 

I know it's not the USB 3.0 ports as I can get much higher speeds with other devices.

 

Very disappointed with the speed.

 

Hoping they can warranty it and replace it with a faster one?

 

:-)

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