PNY Attache 2GB Ghostbusters Edition

Testing

Testing a USB drive involves running it through a synthetic benchmark, and then running what we like to call a “real world” test. The synthetic benchmark is Sisoft Sandra’s portable storage test, which measures read and write speeds of the drive, with certain different file sizes. The real world test involves copying a file of a certain size (in this case 650MB) to each tested drive, and the time is takes to fully transfer it is measured on a stop watch.

All tests were run 3 times and the average of the results was taken to give the final score.

For comparison purposes, the following other flash drives were used:

• Corsair GT 8GB
• OCZ Turbo 4GB
• Crucial Gizmo 1GB

Full reviews of all the comparison drives can be found here.

Results

While the OCZ Turbo and Crucial Gizmo vie for top read speeds, and the Turbo and Corsair GT jostle for top spot on write speeds, there is one clear loser across the board, the PNY Attaché. The scores speak for themselves, it’s just awful. In almost all tests, the Attaché comes last, by a long way.

At first glance, you might think that the Attaché just scored a home run, when in fact, this chart is a “lower is better” one. Oh yes, the Attaché performed almost 10 times worse than all the other drives taking a whopping 246 seconds to transfer a single 650MB file while the others were capable of doing so in between 20 and 40 seconds.

Cost

Currently Argos are doing this drive half off at £14.99, with the standard, non-ghostbusters equipped version of the 2GB Attaché drive going for £6.99 at other retailers. In comparison the Corsair 8GB GT is about £50, the OCZ Turbo 4GB roughly £35 and the Crucial Gizmo is well under £10.

Storage