![xbench 1.3 xbench 1.3](http://alexnat.de/resources/images/content/gfx_update-4.jpg)
The third set of tests were run on my 2.0 GHz Late 2008 Aluminum MacBook with OS X 10.9.5 Mavericks.
![xbench 1.3 xbench 1.3](https://static.macupdate.com/screenshots/285061/m/xbench-screenshot.png)
(For the record, individual USB devices are limited to about 2/3 of bandwidth, so the Minion flash drives reach almost 2/3 of their potential.) Round 3: Intel – Core 2 Duo MacBook PowerPC, but even then these flash drives don’t achieve half the bandwidth of USB 2.0. Intel-based Macs have a real edge in USB 2.0 performance vs. The best read results were 27.40 MB per second, 219.2 Mb per second.
#XBENCH 1.3 WINDOWS#
By sticking with FAT, you assure that Windows and Linux PCs can work with the drive. Still, overall, you probably won’t notice a difference when saving or reading files.
#XBENCH 1.3 MAC#
Uncached Read, 256K blocks 135.30 130.45 130.60 131.33Īs on the Power Mac G5, the flash drive generally performs at its best using its standard FAT formatting. The loser appears to be GUID, which only took top honors in one of eight tests. The flash drive was plugged into a USB 2.0 port in my monitor, since accessing the rear of the Mac mini is quite difficult with my current setup. The second set of tests were run on my 2. That translates to 122.4 Mb per second, which is far, far below the 480 Mb per second bandwidth of USB 2.0. The implementation of USB on PowerPC Macs just doesn’t hold up compared with Intel-based hardware.
![xbench 1.3 xbench 1.3](https://www.notebookcheck.com/fileadmin/_migrated/pics/xbench_comparison.gif)
Maximum read speed is 15.3 MB per second. Sequential reads and writes are a bit faster in general, with Mac format having a very slight advantage in two of the eight drive tests. Here are the results (higher numbers are better): Format: FAT Mac MBR APM GUID For the third test, I repartitioned the drive using the APM option.
#XBENCH 1.3 MAC OS#
For the second test, the flash drive was formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) but with the partition still in Master Boot Record (MBR) format. Round 1: PowerPC – Power Mac G5įor the first set of tests, I plugged the drive into the USB 2.0 port on the front of my 2.3 GHz Power Mac G5 Dual and ran Xbench 1.3 under OS X 10.5 Leopard. Other than capacity and the fact that it’s a USB 2.0 device, I haven’t been able to find any more technical specifications. The flash drive itself appears to be sourced from PNY, a brand you’ll often find in stores. (It’s also easy to remove the flash drives from the minions if the yellow guys embarrass you.) Okay, the flash drives do look like the minions from Despicable Me 2, but for $1.50, they were a steal. When I went back a few days later, none were left. I should have bought all of them, but I only grabbed four. I was in a local outlet store a while back, and they had 8 GB USB flash drives for just $1.50 each. But will it work more efficiently if its reformatted in a Mac-native format? We just had to find out. What can be gathered from tis is to run your test under "real world" situations, don't shut off or unhook anything.When you buy a USB flash drive, it comes preformatted for use on Window PCs. I decided to run the test under actual everyday use, just restarted, didn't shut anything off, attached my external drives and tested. Interesting, I had printer sharing, internet sharing on and it didn't seem to impact the overall scores, I also had dashboard on and disabled for some.didn't really seem to impact. Uncached Readđ51.01Ē8.02 MB/sec Īfter running the test under several different parameters, I found this to be average, sometimes scoring higher or lower, sometimes with programs running or not, sometimes external USB (original HD) attached. Wd Scorpio Black, 7200 RPM 16mB Cache 320 GB