Super Talent PICO-C Gold 8GB USB Flash Drive Review

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Performance and Benchmarks

Super Talent claims that the PICO-C Gold USB flash drive is capable of pushing around 0s and 1s at a rate of 30 megabytes per second. How well was our 8GB unit able to hold up in an HD Tune benchmark? Surprisingly well!

As you can see, the drive was able to sustain an average data transfer rate of 26.4MB/sec. There were two unexpected dips down to about the 15MB/sec range. While it’s not perfect, this is still pretty good. The burst rate of 24.7MB/sec could be better as well, but likely a side effect of system overhead.

Using the drive under real life conditions, I found that the benchmarks were largely able to hold up. Writing a folder containing 1.03GB of data to the drive took 3:09, which works out to about 5.4MB/sec. Transferring the same folder back to my laptop’s hard drive took about 42 seconds. That works out to about 24.5MB/sec. This is comparable with most other consumer-level flash drives.

Final Thoughts

When it comes to most fashion-oriented technology, you are left having to sacrifice something in terms of performance and utility. Such is not the case with the Super Talent PICO-C Gold USB flash drive. It may not offer any special features like U3 or data encryption, but its performance holds up just fine against most conventional flash drives.

I would have liked to see some form of protection for the USB connector so that it would be shielded from the elements, but you can find that kind of protection from the rest of the PICO line. The glaring 24k gold plating won’t be for everyone (it’s not for me), but I can see how it would fit in a little better next to a key for a Mercedes, for example. A boring plastic drive just doesn’t look as nice.

If you’re in the market for a flash drive, want something small, and would prefer some “bling” with your tech, the Super Talent PICO-C Gold USB flash drive just might be for you.

Pros