INTRODUCTION

     Storage media is one of my favorite subjects when it comes to reviews not only because benchmarks always point to the fastest models and thus it's not something that comes down to personal preference (easier for readers) but also because at the end of the day there's not a single person out there who doesn't need extra available space. Now USB flash drive reviews may not be as popular as SSD and HDD reviews but surprisingly enough many of you have come forward asking for more and although we can't possibly test every single model in the market (not up to us really, we always welcome samples) we do our best to deliver. Mushkin recently introduced two USB 3.0 flash drives, the high-performance impact series which we already reviewed a few weeks back and the more "affordable" atom series which we'll be testing today.

    For nearly 20 years, Mushkin has been dedicated to helping overclockers, gamers, IT managers, digital artists and mobile professionals enhance their computing experience by providing reliable, high-performance products. Mushkin products include a line of Flash Memory-based products and complete selection of memory upgrades for desktops, notebooks and servers. Since the company’s founding in 1994, Mushkin has received numerous awards and commendations for quality, reliability and technical excellence.

   The atom series belongs in the same category as the Patriot SuperSonic Mini and the Kingston DataTraveler Micro series so once again in our hands we have a very compact USB flash drive which can fit pretty much anywhere. Of course the atom series is USB 3.0 compatible and currently available in 8/16/32/64/128GB capacities (with us we have the 128GB model) but unlike the very fast impact series its tiny size doesn't allow the use of the same high-performance components we see in SSDs (NAND flash controller). Instead under the hood we find the PHISON PS2251-07 ultra-high-speed USB 3.0-to-Flash micro-controller chip along with Toshiba TLC flash. Because of that we expect down to earth performance levels from the atom so the only real question is whether or not the reported performance levels by Mushkin (130MB/s read and 20MB/s write) are right on the spot.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

Mushkin has once again used a reusable clear plastic package to ship this flash drive.

At the rear of the package we see a 2D barcode (when scanned it takes you to the official product page), the product serial number and contact information about Mushkin.

The only thing in the package was the atom USB 3.0 flash drive which weighs just 4g and features a plastic enclosure that measures 19.8mm in length, 16.5mm in width and 7.5mm in height/thickness.

THE ATOM 128GB

As always we placed the USB flash drive in our hands next to several others we have here and as you can all see the atom might just be the smallest one.

Mushkin has printed the capacity of the drive at the rear of the enclosure.

The atom uses a removable cap design but unfortunately you can't mount it at the rear as with most drives.

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 May 16th 2016 (UASP compatible models are tested using a fresh Windows 8.1 installation on a Plextor m6e). 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

   When the atom 128GB USB 3.0 flash drive arrived here along with the impact although I was very impressed by its tiny size I can’t say that I liked its plastic enclosure much (I still don’t since it looks a lot like a toy). Still when trying to find a really fast yet tiny USB flash drive you can’t be very picky so the next step was to check and see if the performance numbers advertised by Mushkin were accurate. Well to our surprise it seems that Mushkin gives very conservative numbers (much like Kingston) for the atom drive since in our tests it even surpassed the 200MB/s mark in read. Of course in write things are almost what Mushkin reports since the highest recorded number didn’t even hit 40MB/s (still quite higher).

   What about price? Mushkin has done a great job in that area too since currently the atom 128GB USB 3.0 flash drive costs just USD39.95 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 39.05Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de). Yes the atom write performance falls behind that of most (if not all) full sized USB 3.0/3.1 flash drives in the market today (it’s still better compared to the almost as large DT Micro 3.1) but its read performance is not half bad and since we’re talking about one of the smallest models in the market the overall result is well worth our Golden Award.

PROS

- Tiny Size
- 4g Weight
- 128GB
- Read & Write Performance (Compared to Equal Size Models)
- Price (For Some)

CONS

- Enclosure (Quality & Design)