Benchmark Results: Throughput
As expected, the fastest drive in this roundup is WD’s MyBook 3.0, not because of superior design or implementation, but due to the use of a 3.5” drive. The A-Data and Buffalo solutions are based on 2.5” drives, which are slower on throughput.
Write performance is comparable to the read results.
Interface performance shows the peak bandwidth that the USB 3.0 implementations could reach if only the drives were fast enough. Clearly, SSDs on USB 3.0 would make sense for enthusiasts.
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Be warned - I got the WD usb 3 a couple of months ago and was warned that if anything goes wrong your data is pretty much gone as the HD and housing are a bespoke design. Looking at the usb connector (also a WD only design)on the housing I felt it looked a little flimsy... guess what happened last week? When moving the HD the female USB socket connection inside the housing broke and came out when I took out the USB cable. Had to have the entire thing shipped back to WD to be repaired - they said they couldn't reattach it and that I had mishandled it. End of story lost all my data and now out of pocket for one very expensive HD :-( If you get one be very careful moving it when the cables are plugged in, its size, weight, need for separate power and flimsy connectors mean that it probably not the best 'portable' HD. Performance wise when transferring large continuous files (ISOs etc) it was bloody fast, but for folders with lots of smaller files the speed dropped dramatically as can been seen in the test results. So now looking for a replacement, will have to go back to the article to pick the best alternative.