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INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

transmemory ex ii 64gba

   What's the very first thing you look for when out to get a brand new USB flash drive? Judging by what our friends and families choose as expected most people put price and capacity above everything else while others care about design, build quality (materials used) and performance. For casual consumers performance may not be the most crucial aspect/feature of a USB flash drive (understandable really) but for it is for professionals and enthusiasts so for the past 2 years or so we've seen numerous USB 3.0 compatible models offering impressive read/write numbers. Toshiba was amongst the first manufacturers to release a USB 3.0 compatible drive many years ago but they never really focused in performance, at least not as much as other manufacturers did. Things have now changed however and so today with us we have their latest high-end model the TransMemory-EX II 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive.


   Toshiba Electronics Europe (TEE) is the European electronic components business of Toshiba Corporation, which is ranked among the world’s largest semiconductor vendors. TEE offers one of the industry's broadest IC and discrete product lines including high-end memory, microcontrollers, ASICs and ASSPs for automotive, multimedia, industrial, telecoms and networking applications. The company also has a wide range of power semiconductor solutions as well as storage products including HDDs, SSDs, SD Cards and USB sticks. TEE was formed in 1973 in Neuss, Germany, providing design, manufacturing, marketing and sales and now has headquarters in Dusseldorf, Germany, with branch offices in France, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. TEE employs approximately 300 people in Europe. Company president is Mr. Takashi Nagasawa.


   The TransMemory-EX II USB 3.0 flash drive (released as TransMemory Pro inside the USA) is currently available in 32/64/128GB capacities, fully supports Microsoft’s ReadyBoost technology, comes ready with Toshibas Pad Locker encryption software (for Windows) which offers increased data protection by allowing the end user to create public and private password locked partitions and is covered by a 5 year warranty. Unfortunately we don't have much info regarding the components of the drive (would be nice to see what Toshiba placed under the hood of the TransMemory-EX II drive without opening it ourselves) but its advertised numbers of up to 222MB/s read and 205MB/s write is what really matters (to hit such numbers they probably used SLC Synchronous NAND Flash). So the time has come to see what Toshiba has to offer in the USB 3.0 market with their latest TransMemory-EX II (TransMemory Pro) drives.

 


 

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

featspecs

 


 

THE TRANSMEMORY-EX II 64GB

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

transmemory ex ii 64gb 01t

The TransMemory-EX II drives get shipped in a small cardboard box that has a product picture at the front, the advertised performance numbers and of course the drive capacity.

 

 

transmemory ex ii 64gb 02t

Listed at the rear are again the advertised performance numbers, OS compatibility, product serial number and barcode, company contact information and some warning and certification icons.

 

 

transmemory ex ii 64gb 03t

Unfortunately inside the box you will find only the drive, no user manual, no lanyard (not that they are needed but would "spice" up the offering). The aluminum body of the TransMemory-EX II drives weighs 14g, is 10.5mm thick and measures 68.8mm in length and 21mm in width.

 

 

transmemory ex ii 64gb 04ttransmemory ex ii 64gb 05t
In the above two pictures we placed the TransMemory-EX II drive next to several other USB drives we have here mostly to showcase its thickness and length.

 

 

transmemory ex ii 64gb 06t

At the rear of the drive Toshiba has placed its serial number, country of manufacture and several icons.

 

 

transmemory ex ii 64gb 07t

Although there's no lanyard in the box the drive does have an opening which can also be used with your keychain.

 

 

transmemory ex ii 64gb 08ttransmemory ex ii 64gb 09t
Toshiba has followed the typical cap design so once you remove it from the front you can place it at the rear.

 


 

TEST BED

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

cpuz3930ksystem

 

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 May 5th 2015. 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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

aida64atto

 


 

TEST RESULTS - HD TACH RW / HD TUNE PRO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

hdtachrwhdtunepro

 


 

TEST RESULTS - SISOFTWARE SANDRA PRO / CRYSTAL DISK MARK X64

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

sandraprocrystal

 


 

CONCLUSION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

transmemory ex ii 64gbb

   It may not be anything special in terms of design and it's certainly not the smallest USB 3.0 compatible drive we've ever seen but as many of you know the really fast models rarely are and the TransMemory-EX II (TransMemory Pro) is very fast as you can certainly tell just by looking at our charts. Of course you can also tell that it's not the fastest one in them (far from it) but even so it should have no problem covering the needs of even the most demanding users. The aluminum body was also a good surprise since lately most manufacturers seem to use hard plastic for their models although personally i'd prefer a really rugged enclosure either made out of rubber or out of aircraft grade alloy (we've seen such models in the past).


   For a Toshiba product pricing is quite good since as we speak the TransMemory-EX II (TransMemory Pro) 64GB USB 3.0 flash drive retails for USD49.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 65.66Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de). Granted you may be able to find higher capacity drives for that much (probably not brand ones) and/or even far smaller ones but they'd all lack one thing the TransMemory-EX II offers, performance. In the end however once again things get down to what your priorities are so if performance is your thing and you don't want to spend more for a USB flash drive then you really can't go wrong with the latest drive by Toshiba which is why we give it our Golden Award.

goldPROS

- Build Quality
- Excellent Read/Write Performance
- Size & Weight
- Pad Lock Security Software
- 5 Years Warranty
- Price (For Some)

 

CONS

- Plain Design (For Some)