Real World Performance Analysis

In AS SSD, the Kingston pushed fantastic numbers, exceeding even its own stated read performance, although its write speeds were a little off the rated 60MB/sec. While the Adata still managed upwards of 80MB/sed reads, its write speeds were extremely slow.

We threw in the 4KB ATTO numbers to show that while the flash drives handled AS SSD at their full speeds, very small files tend to be much slower. In these tests, the Adata N005 actually out-performed the Kingston DataTraveller Ultimate 3 in both read and write.


The flash drives come pre-formatted in FAT32 for compatibility, but most people will want to use NTFS to carry large files around, so we checked out of interest if there was a performance difference. Despite some slight performance benefits towards the larger chunk size of FAT32, mostly in large file transfer performance, there's not a considerable or notable difference.

It was the real world tests above that showed a clear favourite - the Kingston DataTraveller Ultimate 3 drive was nearly three times faster than the Adata N005 in the large file copy, which started strong but eventually crawled to a USB 2-like 25MB/sec speeds. Even in read performance the Adata N005 slowed to a crawl and eventually took twice as long.

In comparison, there was less difference in small file performance, and despite the fact that the Adata N005 was faster, again, eventually this initial performance dropped off and it fell behind the Kingston DataTraveller Ultimate 3.

We asked Adata if our results we erroneous and the company confirmed that the performance was correct, and its 16GB model performs less well than the 32GB and 64GB versions. It stated its website only states 'up to' 55MB/sec without specifically indicating which driver it's referring to, despite the fact that the Newegg listing for the 16GB N005 claims exactly those numbers.

Conclusion

The Kingston DataTraveller Ultimate 3 may be a more awkward shape to use but it's clearly the much better drive, as it actually makes better all-round use of the USB 3 bandwidth. That kind of performance is really needed when you're filling tens of gigabytes of data, because let's face it, we're always waiting for flash drives to finish copying.

In the UK, the Kingston DataTraveller Ultimate 3 is just £8 more than Adata's MSRP - if and when the N005 appears in UK stores - however it's twice as expensive than the N005 in the US (remember, as a UK-based site, our value score is always based on UK pricing). We respect that a best-performance product commands premium prices, but don't feel the basic 16GB model is quite worth that premium. If you're sufficiently impatient though, and you're regularly carting 30-60GB of data around, then the larger drives are worth considering.

Kingston DataTraveller Ultimate 3 16GB

• Performance
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• 9/10

• Features
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

• Value
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• 8/10

• Overall
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• 8/10

Adata N005 16GB

• Performance
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

• Features
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• 8/10

• Value
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

• Overall
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

Score Guide