INTRODUCTION

   When a friend asked me a couple of days ago about what review i was working on and i told him that we had 6 of the latest USB 3.0 flash drives to hit the market plugged into our primary test rig he pointed out to me that testing such drives is not the most exciting thing but at least it's quite easy to do. For good or bad he's right since it's indeed not very exciting to test storage devices in general and yes it's also easy since such tests take less time to finish compared to the vast majority of PC hardware and electronics. Judging however by how everyone here used to research each and every single USB flash drive in the market prior to purchasing one (when we were teenagers) and also by the amount of Facebook messages we've received by many of you asking for such reviews i think that in the end it's very important for us to check and find out what's the best drive you can buy with your hard earned money. Today we'll be taking a look at one of the latest USB 3.0 Flash Drives by Silicon Power called the Blaze B06.

   Silicon Power Computer & Communications Inc., founded in 2003 by a group of enthusiastic specialists of flash data storage industry. Well dedicated in brand image and product quality, SP has been recognized and well accepted by millions of end-users in more than 100 countries, becomes the world’s leading manufacturer of flash memory cards, USB flash drives, card readers, DRAM modules, solid state disks, and portable hard drives in less than a decade. Headquartered in Taipei, we continuously established various branches throughout the world including Netherlands, Japan, Russia, Mainland China and other emerging market. With superior quality and innovative design, our products stood out in many competitions and awarded with numerous well-known design awards, such as Taiwan Excellence, COMPUTEX Design & Innovation Award, red dot design award, iF Design Award and IDEA . Winning trust of global consumers SP holds a record of successive double-digit revenue growth for last ten years. For SP, the product we introduced is not only a digital storage device but also a real promise to create and preserve your most valuable memory in every moment.

   The Blaze B06 USB 3.0 flash drive is available in 8,16,32,64 and 128GB capacities so Silicon Power has made certain that you won't have to worry about running out of space anytime soon. Unfortunately the regular-sized (if there's such a thing as a regular size for flash drives) enclosure is made out of plastic so if you happen to like rugged ones or ones made out of zinc alloy (i happen to like both for example) the Blaze B06 is obviously not the one for you. The good news is that the drive is very light for its size and that Silicon Power has it available in three different colors currently (white, light green and pink) and although black is not one of them still most consumers should find one that suits them. So although at first glance i can't say i feel impressed by the enclosure i do think that performance plays an even bigger role than appearance so let's see what the latest Blaze B06 USB 3.0 flash drive by Silicon Power can do.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

THE BLAZE B06 64GB

As usual the Blaze B06 arrived inside the same package we've seen for ages from most manufacturers so you can have a quick look at it and its features from the front.

The features list is placed at the rear in 10 languages right next to the OS compatibility.

Unfortunately you only get the drive in the package, no lanyard.

To have an idea on just how large or small the Blaze B06 really is we placed it next to some of the USB flash drives we have here.

The company logo and drive capacity are printed at the top.

Although there's no lanyard in the package the drive does have a lanyard hole on one end.

Since the drive doesn't have a retractable connector you will need to place the cap at the rear as seen above.

The serial number on the USB connector proves you've got a genuine Silicon Power product.

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-1000MB 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 (0 = we were unable to complete that test).

   All tests are performed with our main rig running Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Service Pack 1 complete with every update until September 11th 2014. 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

   As many of you know I’m particularly fond of rugged external storage devices since accidents wait to happen all the time and i can't speak for all of you but the safety of our external backups can be the difference between restoring the entire website inside just a few minutes or many hours (if not days) so maximum protection is always something on our mind. Of course that doesn't mean i don't approve of USB flash drives that are made by zinc alloy (i have one in my keychain at all times) or other metals since those are also partially rugged and they look far more elegant. However i never was much fond of regular plastic enclosures and the Blaze B06 doesn't only feature one such enclosure but it also feels way too "weak" and i felt more than just once that it was about to fall off and leave the interior hanging from the USB port. Now if performance was right up there with the fastest USB 3.0 flash drives in our charts i might had ignored the issue with the enclosure but as you can clearly see although somewhat fast that's not really the case so all that's left is to check and see how much the Blaze B06 64GB retails for (perhaps that can "save" things a bit).

   Well luckily for Silicon Power the price tag is what partially saves the entire situation with the Blaze B06 64GB USB 3.0 flash drive since with a current price tag set at USD40.17 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and at around 28Euros inside the EU it's one of the cheapest 64GB USB 3.0 compatible drives around. That may not make things "alright" in our book but at least who get what you pay for and so for that kind of money i doubt anyone will be displeased by the Blaze B06. Personally i think that Silicon Power has done much better in the past but i can't really deny that the Blaze B06 offers a good price/performance/capacity ratio and so for people on a tight budget we do recommend taking a closer look.

PROS

- Good Performance
- Available In 3 Colors (White/Green/Pink)
- Price (For Some)

CONS

- A Solid Enclosure Would Be Nice
- No Lanyard Included