INTRODUCTION

   It's no secret that the most ideal way to carry regular data (and not mission critical ones) is without doubt to own a portable hard drive not only because you can't really find many USB flash drives in the market with capacities exceeding 256GB but also because the ones that are available cost many times over the price of a regular portable hard drive and thus are out of reach for most people. Now as we all know USB flash drives come in various capacities to cover all the possible uses people intend for them but although prices have taken a serious dive for the past years making even 64GB USB flash drives quite affordable size is also a significant factor and for good or bad there aren't that many tiny solutions around at 64GB (even if they were not everyone has use for 64GB). Furthermore there are even less USB 3.0 compatible flash drives in the market that can fit in the "tiny" size category but thanks to Patriot we now have the SuperSonic Mini USB 3.0 Flash Drive line.

   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.

   As the name suggests the SuperSonic Mini is the latest member in the rather large and award winning SuperSonic family of USB flash drives by Patriot and so right from the get go we had very high expectations from it. Naturally due to size limitations we never expect the same level of performance as we do from larger sized models but as you will all see later on the SuperSonic Mini managed to surpass other larger members of the SuperSonic family and that's something we didn't see coming. The design of the unit along with its color selection is strange to say the least and thus it may not be what most people would like but we are mostly interested in the price/performance ratio of the new SuperSonic Mini 16GB and so without further delay let's get up close and personal with it.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

THE SUPERSONIC MINI 16GB

The SuperSonic mini arrived inside the typical package used for USB flash drives so you can take a peek at the unit from the front.

As usual the unit features are printed at the rear in 8 languages right next to the contact information for Patriot memory.

Inside the package we only found the SuperSonic Mini, no lanyard which was quite weird to be honest especially for such a tiny flash drive.

The SuperSonic Mini flash drive is currently available in 16GB and 32GB capacities and as you can see the red version is the 16GB one.

Once you remove the protective cap you can mount it at the rear of the drive.

To get an overall idea on exactly how small the SuperSonic mini is we placed it right next to two of its opponents in our charts.

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY

   Since flash drives are basically plain storage media devices just like solid state drives and hard disk drives we are using almost the same testing methodology to successfully record the achieved performance numbers. The benchmark suites used are HD Tach RW (Read Speeds / Long Bench 32mb Zone Testing), HD Tune Pro (Read speeds), Sisoftware Sandra Pro (Read / Write speeds), AIDA 64 Engineer Edition (Average Linear Read / Random Read speeds), Crystal Disk Mark x64 (100MB Read / Write speeds) and finally ATTO (Max Read / Max Write speeds). Every test is repeated a total of 6 times after which the average performance numbers are recorded into our charts.

    All tests are performed with our main rig running Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Service Pack 1 complete with every update until July 1st 2013. As always for comparison purposes in the charts you will also find many other flash drivers which have been tested using the same exact test bench as the one in this review (we really can't keep every flash drive we get forever and also even if we could testing them all again and again would simply not be possible).

TEST RESULTS - AIDA64 / ATTO

TEST RESULTS - HD TACH RW / HD TUNE PRO

TEST RESULTS - SISOFTWARE SANDRA PRO / CRYSTAL DISK MARK X64

CONCLUSION

   Leaving out the name of the drive which points to the SuperSonic line of USB flash drives i was somewhat surprised initially to see such a solution come from one of the leading flash memory manufacturers in the market. This of course was mainly because although every single model in the SuperSonic line including the regular SuperSonic, Rage XT, Boost and the Magnum focused both on high quality durable housings and performance while at the same time they didn't fail in terms of appearance. Well the SuperSonic Mini really doesn't seem to follow the same footsteps as its brothers and instead it looks a lot like a small candy especially since it comes in red and green colors. So basically appearance wise it just didn't do the trick for us. However the housing is still made out of rubber which means it's shock-proof, it has a tiny size, weighs very little and performs remarkably well (for its size always).

   Prices of 16GB flash drives have fallen surprisingly low but since the SuperSonic Mini 16GB by Patriot is amongst the very first tiny models to feature USB 3.0 connectivity we didn't really expect it to retail for just USD19.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 22Euros inside the EU (Amazon.co.uk). Certainly this doesn't change the fact that the unit looks a lot like a candy and thus it may not appeal to people from all age groups but the price is right and its size/performance combo is currently unmatched (as far as we are aware) which is why it gets our Golden Award.

PROS

- Build Quality
- Size/Weight
- Read/Write Speeds
- Price (For Some) 

CONS

- Design/Color Selection