INTRODUCTION

   From all the emails we get and all the comments we read around the web by many people it really seems that portable storage demands not only get to increase in capacity each day that goes by but also in speed since many of you keep asking about which is the fastest and smallest USB 3.0 compatible flash drive in the market currently. Of course the answer to that is not very simple because it's almost impossible for anyone to get his hands on every USB 3.0 flash drive out there by every single manufacturer to compare them against each other in order to see which the smallest and fastest one is. Still many of you know that we always do our best to deliver on your requests and so after digging around we found what just might be the perfect balance between performance and size, the SuperSonic Rage XT USB 3.0 Flash Drive by Patriot Memory.

   Established in 1985, Patriot Memory builds a full range of memory module and flash memory products, offering a perfect blend of quality and value. Patriot products include Extreme Performance (EP), Signature Lines (SL) and Flash Memory solutions (FM). Commitment, focus on innovation in technology, product quality, and customer satisfaction are the key enablers of our future success. Patriot's development and manufacturing facility are located in Fremont, California USA and Taipei, Taiwan. Our manufacturing segment is composed of a highly skilled production staff and multiple production lines optimized for modules, giving Patriot the ability and resources necessary to provide a full line of memory module solutions. We understand the value of designing and responding quickly and intelligently to the rapid changes inherent in the memory module industry. This commitment to R&D enables us to deliver the best quality memory modules powered by the latest innovative technology.

   Unlike the SuperSonic Boost and the normal SuperSonic USB 3.0 flash drives we've tested in the past the brand new SuperSonic Rage XT comes with a partially rugged retractable design housing which actually looks and feels quite nice (although we would like it more had it been a fully rugged housing). However what really makes the SuperSonic Rage XT stand out from the rest of the bunch is not its design but rather its compact size which is roughly half compared to regularly sized USB flash drives. Performance-wise Patriot Memory claims that the SuperSonic Rage XT can achieve read speeds of up to 180MB/s and write speeds of up to 50MB/s two numbers which are actually very good. All that's left is for us to see just how accurate these numbers are and how well the drive compares to all the other USB 3.0 drives we've tested so far.