Product review: V7 USB 3.0 Flash Drive

This V7 thumb flash drive has 8 GB capacity. It has a retractable USB plug controlled by a slide on the side of the stick (I am attaching a photo which can be located by following 'customer photos' link under the main photo). When the plug is retracted its size is 2.0"L x 0.8"W x 0.35"H. I like USB drive with retractable plug design for carrying around in my purse. According to the specification this memory stick has 10 year data retention and 5 year warranty. The memory stick is compatible with Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7/8, Linux Kernel 2.4, and Mac IS 9.0.

I measured the performance of V7 flash stick with several utilities and found it to be pretty good. It falls in the mid range of various USB memory sticks I have tested in the past, it is neither the slowest nor the fastest.

To test various USB devices I run the same set of tests so I can compare devices to each other in "apples to apples" comparison, this way if some unit does not perform well I notice it by comparing it to other devices I have tested. My "write" test consist of copying a large set of mp3 files totalling 638916 Megabytes.

V7 Flash Drive write performance:
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✔ 1.535s (cpu) 1:08.45 (clock time)

For comparison I including numbers for copying the same set of files to SanDisk USB2 memory stick, Transcent microSDHC class 6 card, to hard disk of my computer,

✔ SanDisk USB2: 1.358s (CPU time), 1:23.53 (clock time)
✔ Hard Drive: 0.573s (CPU time), 0:00.58 (clock time)
✔ Transcent microSDHC : 1.482s (CPU time), 1:33.97 (clock time)

For read performance test I use Linux Disk Utility Benchmarks.

V7 Flash Drive Read-only performance:
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✔ Minimum read rate 34.7 MB/s
✔ Maximum read rate 40.2 MB/s
✔ Average read rate 39.7 MB/s
✔ Average access time 0.9 ms

The only small negative I have to say about this memory stick is that it does not have a LED indicator which shows that the memory stick is being accessed. If I am using multiple memory sticks I like to see the reassuring flashing of the stick I am writing to so I can be sure I am accessing the right stick.

I was supplied a sample for testing and an honest review, be it positive or negative.

You can find it on Amazon by following this link.


Ali Julia review ★★★★★