Corsair Flash Voyager GT 32GB

We have already ran a number of benchmarks against Corsair's Flash Voyager GT 32GB flash drive, which can be found in Testing Out Linux File-Systems On A USB Flash Drive. In that article we benchmarked the FAT32, EXT3, EXT4, XFS, Btrfs, and ReiserFS file-systems on this very flash drive. The performance of the different file-systems were mixed, but we ended up being most pleased with the EXT4 file-system, although that is before the performance drop that can be found in the Linux 2.6.32 kernels and later. While we have already delivered these CMFUSB-32GBGT benchmarks, we have carried out a simple Linux hdparm test using the Phoronix Test Suite with this flash drive and others.

The system that was used for facilitating this flash drive testing was running with an Intel Core i5 750 processor, ECS Elitegroup P55H-A motherboard, 4GB of DDR3 system memory, and an ATI Radeon HD 4770 512MB graphics card. Ubuntu 9.10 (x86_64) was running on this system with the stock Linux 2.6.31 kernel. For this simple testing, we compared the timed disk reads between the Corsair Flash Voyager 32GB, Corsair Flash Voyager 8GB, and then the OCZ Mega-Kart 8GB.

The Flash Voyager GT 32GB is rated for 16MB/s writes and 30MB/s reads, but here it came in slightly above that at 32MB/s. However, that is because with hdparm not testing against the file-system itself there is no associated overhead. Once factoring in a FAT32 or EXT4 or the file-system of your choice, the 32GB flash drive should be reading right around its rated speed. We have found the write speed to also be close to its rating. There isn't a whole lot to say about the Corsair Flash Voyager GT 32GB considering all of the Flash Voyager products we have had our hands on over the years, but this is yet another durable flash drive -- though not quite as bulletproof as the Flash Survivor GT -- that is also reliable, fast, and backed with an impressive ten-year Corsair warranty. The CMFUSB-32GBGT is priced at just over $100 USD (available at Amazon.com), but considering that it's 32GB of storage that can fit in your hand, it's not that bad of a deal.