tone20 Posted March 12, 2008 Share Posted March 12, 2008 Hello all, first off, I would like to say that I have been a Corsair customer for years, and have built many systems both for myself, friends, family using Corsair memory over the years, so please don't judge this question too harshly... Right, I am in the market to buy a new USB Flash drive, and was going to buy a Corsair FlashVoyager GT, because I want speed and reliability from my USB memory. However, I have just noticed what is a show-stopper for me, and that´s the fact that I just found out that the latest range of GT´s have had their performance castrated, by a cost-cutting exercise, and this has totally put me off. While I totally understand the whole SLC is more expensive than MLC debate, here I am, a clued-up customer, with money in my hands, willing to spend that bit extra on the best, just to find out that the GT range is now crap, offering half of the performance of the same product range, offered a year ago. This situation is totally absurd, and makes me question many aspects of Corsair marketing and sales... A quick sum-up on this... 1.) I cannot find any official information about the GT range´s "real" performance, and for a product aimed at performance freaks, it makes me wonder why this information is not used as a club to beat over the heads of competitors. (Now I understand why!!!) 2.) Many on-line reviews that have benchmarked the GT range are quoting read rate of +30MB/s and write values of +20Mb/s. With most not updating their reviews because there has been no updated performance data mentioned from Corsair. And lets face it, it´s not very often that performance goes this far backwards in a product from a company like Corsair! Which, I suspect, is why this is not making any news on enthusiast sites. 3.) Corsair "updated" the GT range "quietly", while seemingly being careful not to warn the target customers, the educated "enthusiast" market, of the massive performance loss that will be observed to purchasers of the "new" GT range. Your living in a dream world if you think this kind of shady trick would go unnoticed for too long! So my question is, what now is the point of the "GT" range? Surely now reduced to milking unaware customers (that possibly think the Corsair "GT" is the pinnacle of Flash drives) of their money, in return for the same/simular non GT range of Corsair USB sticks. This seems a very "shady" game being played by Corsair, as the information about the terrible performance of the later GT models is only available once you dig here, in the forum, with posts from angry customers calling Corsair out on this matter in the hands of Corsair employees, which means it can be deleted or edited at any time. To Corsair marketing... You should have dropped the "GT" from your range, or just continued selling the older 2-4-8Gb range, with the SLC advantage intact for customers willing to pay more for a very tangiable performance increase over the non "GT" range or Corsair Flash products. It is wrong that you "downgraded" the insides of your "GT" products, and made no mention of the fact. I can only hope that Corsair reconsiders this, and launch, or make available SLC based "GT" drives in the future. Customers don´t mind paying a premium for quality and performance, just be more honest about telling your customers what they can expect from your products, let me put it this way... Corsair 8Gb SLC FlashVoyager GT, with 34MBs Read, and 24MBs Write for $120 or Corsair 8Gb MLC FlashVoyager, with 26MBs Read, and 9MBs Write for $90 I know which one I would choose! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted March 12, 2008 Corsair Employee Share Posted March 12, 2008 I am sorry but I think you like a lot of people have made some assumptions that are not correct. 1.) I cannot find any official information about the GT range´s "real" performance, and for a product aimed at performance freaks, it makes me wonder why this information is not used as a club to beat over the heads of competitors. (Now I understand why!!!) A: We have never published performance specifications on our flash drives, with the odd exception of a review on a specific product and we have stopped all production on 2,4 and 8 Gig GT Flash Voyager's as they are all based on SLC technology and it is no more. 2.) Many on-line reviews that have benchmarked the GT range are quoting read rate of +30MB/s and write values of +20Mb/s. With most not updating their reviews because there has been no updated performance data mentioned from Corsair. And lets face it, it´s not very often that performance goes this far backwards in a product from a company like Corsair! Which, I suspect, is why this is not making any news on enthusiast sites. A: There is no need to have a review of a product that is no longer available, I am sorry I do not see your point? 3.) Corsair "updated" the GT range "quietly", while seemingly being careful not to warn the target customers, the educated "enthusiast" market, of the massive performance loss that will be observed to purchasers of the "new" GT range. Your living in a dream world if you think this kind of shady trick would go unnoticed for too long! A: I would agree the 16GT Flash Voyager will be a bit slower that is predecessor but its twice the density and a new product and the performance should be Read at about 30 MBps and Write at about 16 MBps So my question is, what now is the point of the "GT" range? Surely now reduced to milking unaware customers (that possibly think the Corsair "GT" is the pinnacle of Flash drives) of their money, in return for the same/simular non GT range of Corsair USB sticks. This seems a very "shady" game being played by Corsair, as the information about the terrible performance of the later GT models is only available once you dig here, in the forum, with posts from angry customers calling Corsair out on this matter in the hands of Corsair employees, which means it can be deleted or edited at any time. A: Again there is no big secret it is just evolution of the technology and as I have said before sometimes you have to step back to step forward. To Corsair marketing... You should have dropped the "GT" from your range, or just continued selling the older 2-4-8Gb range, with the SLC advantage intact for customers willing to pay more for a very tangible performance increase over the non "GT" range or Corsair Flash products. It is wrong that you "downgraded" the insides of your "GT" products, and made no mention of the fact. A: This would be great if we could get a consistent supply of SLC controllers, but the main issue not only price; it was getting the parts we need to build the parts. And that was not happening. In addition because of supply and demand the cost to build with SLC technology just grew beyond what the public was will to pay. I can only hope that Corsair reconsiders this, and launch, or make available SLC based "GT" drives in the future. Customers don´t mind paying a premium for quality and performance, just be more honest about telling your customers what they can expect from your products, let me put it this way... A: As above I am sure we will if the cost to build the parts would not exceed what the consumer is willing to pay then I am sure we will. However, for now that is just not realistic. Sorry! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Speedy1 Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 I am sorry but I think you like a lot of people have made some assumptions that are not correct. 1.) I cannot find any official information about the GT range´s "real" performance, and for a product aimed at performance freaks, it makes me wonder why this information is not used as a club to beat over the heads of competitors. (Now I understand why!!!) A: We have never published performance specifications on our flash drives, with the odd exception of a review on a specific product and we have stopped all production on 2,4 and 8 Gig GT Flash Voyager's as they are all based on SLC technology and it is no more. Correction: While they never actually publish performance data, they happily post links to old out-dated performance data based upon SLC...just in case you're a histroy buff ;): 2.) Many on-line reviews that have benchmarked the GT range are quoting read rate of +30MB/s and write values of +20Mb/s. With most not updating their reviews because there has been no updated performance data mentioned from Corsair. And lets face it, it´s not very often that performance goes this far backwards in a product from a company like Corsair! Which, I suspect, is why this is not making any news on enthusiast sites. A: There is no need to have a review of a product that is no longer available, I am sorry I do not see your point? Correction: Why post new data when it looks worse? 3.) Corsair "updated" the GT range "quietly", while seemingly being careful not to warn the target customers, the educated "enthusiast" market, of the massive performance loss that will be observed to purchasers of the "new" GT range. Your living in a dream world if you think this kind of shady trick would go unnoticed for too long! A: I would agree the 16GT Flash Voyager will be a bit slower that is predecessor but its twice the density and a new product and the performance should be Read at about 30 MBps and Write at about 16 MBps Correction: "...a bit slower = 1/2 the write speed"! So my question is, what now is the point of the "GT" range? Surely now reduced to milking unaware customers (that possibly think the Corsair "GT" is the pinnacle of Flash drives) of their money, in return for the same/simular non GT range of Corsair USB sticks. Editors Note: You'll notice that Corsair was pretty quite on this point! :D: This seems a very "shady" game being played by Corsair, as the information about the terrible performance of the later GT models is only available once you dig here, in the forum, with posts from angry customers calling Corsair out on this matter in the hands of Corsair employees, which means it can be deleted or edited at any time. A: Again there is no big secret it is just evolution of the technology and as I ave said before sometimes you have to step back to step forward. Correction: "evolution" = devolution A: This would be great if we could get a consistent supply of SLC controllers, but the main issue not only price; it was getting the parts we need to build the parts. And that was not happening. In addition because of supply and demand the cost to build with SLC technology just grew beyond what the public was will to pay. Correction: The public WAS willing to pay for the name "GT" but it was cheaper to dumb down the technology, so we gave them what they wanted...the name! A: As above I am sure we will if the cost to build the parts would not exceed what the consumer is willing to pay then I am sure we will. However, for now that is just not realistic. Sorry! Correction: We didn't really offer you any choice, we just slapped the name on an inferior drive and we're not sorry about that :D: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted March 14, 2008 Corsair Employee Share Posted March 14, 2008 LOL! I am sorry you feel that way but it is not like that. The performance of this product has not change and has only just came out. Yes it is a bit slower than its 8 Gig cousin but there is no way to build it using SLC technology! However, this post may help with your concerns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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