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Patriot Supersonic USB 3.0 (32GB) review: Patriot Supersonic USB 3.0 (32GB)

Patriot's Supersonic isn't as good as having a solid-state drive in your back pocket, but for the price it's not bad at all.

Craig Simms Special to CNET News
Craig was sucked into the endless vortex of tech at an early age, only to be spat back out babbling things like "phase-locked-loop crystal oscillators!". Mostly this receives a pat on the head from the listener, followed closely by a question about what laptop they should buy.
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Craig Simms
2 min read

USB 3.0 sticks are starting to proliferate, and even if Intel hasn't yet managed to integrate a controller into its own chipsets, laptop makers aren't waiting. You can usually tell USB 3.0 ports by the tongue being coloured blue, or by an "SS" label above the port, standing for "Super Speed".

8.0

Patriot Supersonic USB 3.0 (32GB)

The Good

USB 3.0 gives a marked increase over USB 2.0 products.

The Bad

Lid is easy to lose. There's still plenty of headroom left in USB 3.0 to exploit.

The Bottom Line

Patriot's Supersonic isn't as good as having a solid-state drive in your back pocket, but for the price it's not bad at all.

Patriot has been around the memory game for a while, and its Supersonic USB 3.0 stick, apart from its blue USB connector, looks much like any other USB stick.

On paper the sequential read and write speeds of 100MBps and 70MBps respectively aren't rated as highly as say, a SandForce-powered solid-state drive (SSD), but it's certainly a lot better than your standard mechanical USB 2.0 external hard drive, at least on paper.

Plugging the stick into a GA-USB 3.0 controller card through a PCI-E 2.0 connection, we used CrystalDiskMark to benchmark the stick, with a randomised pattern.

Sequential data (MBps)

  • Sequential read
  • Sequential write

(Longer bars indicate better performance)

512K random data (MBps)

  • 512K random read
  • 512K random write

(Longer bars indicate better performance)

4K random data (MBps)

  • 4K random read
  • 4K random write

(Longer bars indicate better performance)

4K random data, queue depth 32 (MBps)

  • 4K random read
  • 4K random write

(Longer bars indicate better performance)


While the competing Kingston drive barely comes out on top, the Patriot represents a much better choice due to the physical size. While not a small stick, it will at least not interfere with other USB devices you may wish to plug in, whereas the Kingston stick is positively obese.

It's definitely not pushing the limits of what USB 3.0 can do, but the new generation of USB flash drives are leagues ahead of their USB 2.0 competitors.

Patriot's Supersonic may not be as good as having an SSD in your back pocket, but for the price it's not bad at all.