Main question: Why are Solid State Drives so much faster than Pen Drives?
I never had any SSD - in my hand to see how fast it works, however I read this review
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/08...
and it seems they can read at 68 MB/s and write at 40 MB/s

However, I do have a decently-new Kingston 1GB Pen Drive, and it reads and write at around 4 MB/s

I wonder, how come there is such a BIG speed difference? the SSD are like 10 times faster, while being based on the exact same technology.

Is it because the writes are not sequential, like the regular hard disk? that means 2 controlers can write 2 bits in the same time.
So practically, doubling the number of I/O controllers, you can easily double the read/write speed even for those hard disk drives?

I don't know much about how SSDs interface with the computer but External USB devices share the available bandwidth. Typically set to use 10 or 11 percent. Maybe these devices aren't limited that way.

You are kidding, right?
If you will put that SSD into an 2.5" external hdd case, and connect it to the computer trough the USB 2 port, you will get somewhat equal speed, that is 68 MB/s read, 40 MB/s write.
I have an old regular 2.5" Hdd that I use that way and the speed is about 30 MB/s
So the Pen Drive's speed is not 4 MB/s because of that 10-11 percent of yours. Its just not build to run faster.

Please, can anyone come with a serious answer?

Do you know what YOU are talking about? USB 2.0 runs a theorical speed of 480Mb/sec, which is 60MB/sec. How are you going to get something to run faster than the theoretical speed?

As far as your 4MB/sec pen drive goes I can't say how fast they should tranfer. I can say that a decent thruput on an External harddrive is 15 or 20.

Forgive me for the extra 8 MB lol. I meant that you'll get a speed on the same magnitude, "somewhat equal speed", if I'm allowed to quote myself

And your answer is still silly and not helpfull, sorry dude.

You had better check your USB ports in Device Manager and see what percentage of the bandwidth is alloted to each port.

I just went and skimmed the article you pointed to. I assummed by your statement "the SSD are like 10 times faster, while being based on the exact same technology" that you were using them in a USB enclosure. That article is referring to INTERNAL SATA HD. Of course they are going to run faster. They aren't the same technology at all. Gees.

Dude,
a regular internal hdd will have 10 times much more speed than a pen drive no matter that you connect it internaly or by an external USB case. So its not about being internal or external.
"If you will put that SSD into an 2.5" external hdd case, and connect it to the computer trough the USB 2 port, you will get somewhat equal speed" - quoting myself 2nd time lol. Translated in your language, that _caps_ internal _uncaps_ drive still works 10 times faster than my pen drive, even when conected by USB, and on any computer.
You dont even seem to understand what what the word 'technology' means. You think technology it's all about the interface (SATA or USB), while in reality its about the internal flash memory and controllers that are in the same generation and most likely made on the same production lines.
So you just dont get it. You just keep telling me about my USB port limitation and keep trying to find big errors in anything I say.
And capsing is so ridiculous...
Please stop writing here, this is too embarasing.

You will never get 60MB/s, the best you will realise is around 30MB/s+.

Therefore on a quality Motherboard USB2 rear port anything more is very good, though obviously if you are adding HUBS/Enclosures in the equation then that will also effect thruput.

I would suggest you get a SSDcard only reader which plugs direct into the USB2 port and take thas as the measurement, then plug in the USB Flash Drive and measure that. Obviously you need to have empty and newly formatted media and the same file.

Last but not least the quality of media varies considerably.....

If you want more help then try the Fourum hosted at:

http://www.usbman.com

USB supports three data rates:

A Low Speed (1.0) rate of 1.5 Mbit/s (192 KB/s) that is mostly used for Human Interface Devices (HID) such as keyboards, mice, and joysticks.

A Full Speed (1.1) rate of 12 Mbit/s (1.5 MB/s). Full Speed was the fastest rate before the USB 2.0 specification and many devices fall back to Full Speed. Full Speed devices divide the USB bandwidth between them in a first-come first-served basis and it is not uncommon to run out of bandwidth with several isochronous devices. All USB Hubs support Full Speed.

A Hi-Speed (2.0) rate of 480 Mbit/s (60 MB/s).
Though Hi-Speed devices are commonly referred to as "USB 2.0" and advertised as "up to 480 Mbit/s", not all USB 2.0 devices are Hi-Speed.

The actual throughput currently (2006) attained with real devices is about half of the full theoretical (60 MB/s) data throughput rate.[4] Most hi-speed USB devices typically operate at much slower speeds, often about 3 MB/s overall, sometimes up to 10-20 MB/s.

The USB-IF certifies devices and provides licenses to use special marketing logos for either "Basic-Speed" (low and full) or Hi-Speed after passing a compliancy test and paying a licensing fee. All devices are tested according to the latest spec, so recently-compliant Low Speed devices are also 2.0.

Ok, the external USB hdd drives will have maximum 30 MB/s (half of the 60 MB/s), and in average 20-25 MB/s
I have both: a new pen drive and a 3 year old external hdd. I dont need to make tests with formated media and same file, because my daily life experiece shows me that:
- the pen drive has an average 3-4 MB/s,
- the external hdd has an average 20 MB/s
Now, that reviewed SSD had performance a bit better than many of its competitiors in all tests, so its very likely it will give you a daily 20 MB/s average speed. As an extra argument, some computer manufacturers started to ship notebooks with SSD drives, its hard to believe that they have about 3-4 MB/s average speeds.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_fl...
"Typical overall file transfer speeds are about 3 Mbytes/s"

And by the way: nice copy/paste job

@giovanigonzales:

You must work in politics. You really cherry picked the quote you wanted from that page didn't you. Let's take a look at the full paragraph you were quoting from (my emphasis added):

"Typical overall file transfer speeds are about 3 Mbytes/s. The highest current overall file transfer speeds are about 10-30 Mbytes/s. Older, "full speed" 12 Mbit/s devices are limited to a maximum of about 1 Mbytes/s."

And you stated: "Ok, the external USB hdd drives will have maximum 30 MB/s (half of the 60 MB/s)"

So, where's the difference? The SSD devices are created as conventional hard drive replacements. So, they will be built with the best performing components (i.e. 30MB/s) which is why they are so expensive. USB drives are more of a disposable device and are typically built with components that aren't as expensive (i.e. less speed). But, if you really want a fast thumb drive you can get them.

The benchmarks for this drive show max speeds of 25MB.s read and 13MB/s write.
http://techgage.com/print/ocz_rally...
That sure as hell isn't 3MB/s as you referenced above.

Here's a thumb drive that has up to 30MB/s: http://www.getusb.info/petito-is-at...

EDIT: I was going to put a demeaning comment here, but decided to let the facts speak for themselves.
Michael J

@Michael J

Man, that's the answer I needed, thanks a lot!
In fact, I wanted to know if its possible for manufacturers to make faster USB pen drives, as I suspected, because flash memory doesnt have the sequential read/write limitation like a regular hdd.
No matter how you make a regular hdd with best performing components, you can't double/quadruple speed easily because of that limitation, that was (part of) my main point.
I think you quoted also the part you wanted from my statements, because as I said, my daily experience tells me the regular pen drives are 3-4 MB/s, much slower than OCZ Rally2 you showed me.
your question: "So, where's the difference?"
your statement after: "USB drives are ... i.e. less speed"
so yes, there is a difference in their speed. quite big :)

Anyways, you gave me the answer I needed, not like the others that kept telling me about USB speeds, thanks again

What difference can it possibly make it the real world with even the largest pen drive?

This is a totally airy fairy posting as in the "real world" everyone will experience different results. I cut and paste so you would read the page, as you did...

The difference is the type of memory used in each application. Just because it is called solid state doesn't mean the two types of memory (and internal design) are the same at all. A SSD is designed to mimic a hard drive. It is not usually faster that a mechanical drive. It does have advantages (with some companies designs) in how it writes data to the memory and how it saves the data long term.

If you want the fastest then use a ram drive.

I read it wrong and answer it wrong too. So get off my case you goober.

Lolz,
"What difference can it possibly make it the real world with even the largest pen drive?"

Well, I started this thread, mainly because I want to buy a bigger (4GB Pen Drive) in the near future.
And its very likely that I will transfer every day 4GB with it from one computer to another.
Now, at 4 MB/s that means:
4000 / 4 = 1000 seconds = 16.6 minutes
That means I'll spend every day about 30 min to transfer my data. Seems too much to me, and cuts my enthusiasm to buy a 4 GB pen drive to be honest
Then I seen the SSD have bigger speeds, and I wondered if its possible to have pen drives with bigger speeds too, considering they are have very much in common - flash memory.
That OCZ Rally2 has about 20 MB/s that means:
4000 / 20 = 200 seconds = 3.3 minutes, total about 7 min for my transfer from one computer to another.
I dont know for you, but for me the difference from 30 minutes from 7 would be quite something :D
And sorry if I been somewhat corrosive, but you can expect that on this kind of forums when you post something without much sense

You should be treated (and deserve it) with respect no matter how you pose your question. Any person who responds should act professionally and with some high degree of civility. Sadly there seems to be people who find some joy in treating strangers poorly. Set yourself a good example and enjoy life.

SSD's are different internal designs completely. It really has nothing to do with the type of interface be it usb or eide or scsi. It is the way the data can by the type of memory and the way it is charged in order to complete a write operation.

I read it wrong and answer it wrong too. So get off my case you goober.

to jefro:
I found for example the iRAM from Gigabyte. But the first version is conected trough PCI, and the second is in form of a 5.25" drive unit.
Unfortunately none of them are small and really portable like a pen drive.
I just wish some company will make a RAM drive small like a pen drive, and reasonable prices of course. I could even accept let's say 10 hours untill the battery is depleted and loose the data, for that speed improvement.
However that kind of drive would a faster USB version, I hope we'll have a faster USB 3.0 one day too :)

pfff man, I was just curious if the pen drives can be made faster.
I get the same answer again and again: SSD's are designed to be faster. I knew that from before posting, no need to repeat it over and over.
You can imagine its not quite imposible to copy the design used in SSD for making faster pen drives. Not impossible at all. And that's was all about my question.
The rest is just same repeated mumbo-jumbo about USB limitations and the differences of design

Also, was a poor try to depict me as a sadistic that enjoys mis-treating people. Wasn't me capsing and showing exasperation of my partner of discussion in the first place

Anyways, good day to you all, and thanks for replys

SATA or IDE is faster by nature so any device conneted that way is going to run faster. It does have alot to do with the USB bus.

giovanigonzales: You were the first one to come back with a smart-aleck (sp?) response. I believe the content of most of the other responses were valid, you chose to ignore the information within them based upon some predetermined outcome that you were looking for. The type of connection is a very valid variable when comparing speeds.

Hmm...a Ferrari and a Ford are both made with the same raw materials so why is there a speed difference?

Michael J