The USB (Universal Serial Bus) standard has provided users with quick and easy access to numerous devices such as cameras and MP3 players over the years. With the introduction of USB 2.0 the standard also became quick enough to be used for accessing flash media and even hard drives. However we are now getting to a point where USB 2.0 is no longer sufficient. Given that an 8GB flash drive is now considered to be small, the need for a much faster interface is now upon us.

Although USB 3.0 is right around the corner, promising significant improvements over USB 2.0, it will still be some time before this new interface is widely supported. It is impressive to look at the head way USB has made over the years. For example, to fill a 16GB flash drive using USB 1.0 it would take roughly 6 hours, where as USB 2.0 could do it in just under 9 minutes. USB 3.0 promises to fill 16GB’s in just under a minute, which is pretty spectacular.

Although USB 2.0 claims a throughput of 480Mbit/s, which works out to be 60MB/s, it cannot upload and download simultaneously as it is only half duplex. This means that USB 2.0 will limit flash drives and hard drives using the interface to roughly 30MB/s, which is why it takes almost 9 minutes to fill 16GB’s. While this may not sound like a long time, try watching the progress bar for 9 minutes, it’s much like watching grass grow.

Then you have to consider bigger devices that range from 32GB’s and up which could take significantly longer. In fact today’s review item, being the OCZ Throttle 32GB, would take around 18 minutes to completely fill using USB 2.0, which is a bit of a problem. Therefore OCZ has decided to address this issue by using the eSATA interface instead.

The greatest benefit here is speed, as the eSATA interface can transfer up to 300MB/s and with this kind of bandwidth we would expect the OCZ Throttle to be the limiting factor here, not the bus. The obvious down sides to using eSATA is that not all eSATA ports are self powered and not all systems support eSATA. However OCZ has been clever enough to overcome these issues by making the Throttle a hybrid eSATA/USB 2.0 device.

However at the other end of the Throttle there is a small type B, or mini USB port as it is often referred to. This port serves a few purposes; first of all it is more often than not needed to power the drive when using the eSATA interface.

The majority of eSATA ports are not powered and therefore without a power source the Throttle will fail to work. Therefore by connecting the Throttle to the computer using the mini USB port allows it to receive power for eSATA operation.

Alternatively, if eSATA is not available the Throttle will detect an absence of eSATA and use the mini USB port for both power and data transfer. This means while the Throttle is designed to use eSATA, it can fall back on USB if need be, working much like any other USB flash drive.

The only real downside to this design is that the user will almost always need a mini USB cable, much like the ones that come with most digital cameras. Although this does solve the issue of needing a bulky external power pack, it does not make the OCZ Throttle as compact and portable as conventional USB flash drives.

The physical dimensions of the OCZ Throttle are 7.9 (L) x 2.9 (W) x 1.3cm (H) and all three versions, being the 8GB, 16GB and 32GB, feature the same dimensions. When compared to other products such as the Corsair Survivor 32GB which is 9.9 (L) x 2.4 (W) x 2.4 cm (H), or even the Kingston DataTraveler 200 32GB which is 7.3 (L) x 2.2cm (W) x 1.2cm (H), the Throttle dimensions are quite typical.

Another important specification for these portable storage devices is weight. The 32GB version is virtually weightless, and once stuck in a pocket it is almost impossible to tell it's there without going to look for it. OCZ say that the drive weighs just 18 grams and we believe them.

Overall we are happy with the design and features of the OCZ Throttle so far. The build quality also appears to be excellent and while this particular device will not be as durable as the OCZ ATV or Corsair Voyager series, it will survive its fair share of scrapes.

Hardware - Intel Core i7 965 Extreme Edition (LGA1366) - OCZ Reaper HPC PC3-12800 (6GB) - OCZ Summit 120GB - ASUS GeForce GTX 285 (1GB) - Asus P6T Deluxe (Intel X58) Software - Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 (64-bit) - Intel System Driver 8.4.0.1016 - Nvidia Forceware 190.38 WHQL

First up we have the SiSoftware Sandra 2009 Physical Disks benchmark that measures both read and write performance. As you can see, when using the USB interface the OCZ Throttle 32GB is limited to around 30MB/s. Still when compared to the Samsung Spinpoint 2.5” portable hard drive, the USB results are quite good, especially for a memory stick.

However enable the eSATA mode and the transfer rates go through the roof, with a read result of 86MB/s making it faster than the Spinpoint F1 desktop hard drive. The write performance is not quite as impressive, maxing out at 44MB/s. Still this is a 57% performance increase when compared to the USB 2.0 result.

The PCmark Vantage results are interesting as they heavily favor the OCZ Throttle, especially when using the eSATA interface. However even when limited to USB 2.0 the Throttle was able to outperform the SATA 3.5” desktop hard drive in both the Windows Defender and Windows Vista Startup tests, which was most surprising.

Although the Throttle was able to outperform the Spinpoint F1 even when limited to the USB interface in the first batch of PCmark Vantage testing, the second lot of results is a little different. Although the Throttle was slightly faster for the video editing test, it was much slower when gaming, at least when using USB. Switching the Throttle over to eSATA changed everything, as it was significantly faster than the Samsung hard drives in both tests.

Using CrystalDiskMark we are able to take a look at how the OCZ Throttle performs from a slightly different angle. The sequential test saw both the USB configurations limited to around 30MB/s, though the Throttle was able to just outperform the Samsung Spinpoint M80 portable hard drive.

Moving the Throttle to the eSATA interface once again boosted performance tremendously, as the read throughput more than doubled. The write performance did not see the same kind of gain though the extra 14MB/s will not go unnoticed. The Samsung Spinpoint F1 did remain significantly faster in this particular test.

The smaller 512KB random data sample test seemed to place the Throttle at an advantage, as it was now able to outperform the Samsung Spinpoint F1 in the read test. Furthermore, it was just 5MB/s slower when writing data. Again, even the USB performance of the Throttle was impressive, as it easily out muscled the Spinpoint M80.

Finally the small 4KB data block test, which is useful for measuring performance when moving things such as websites and documents. The write performance of not only the Throttle but also the hard drives is very low in this test, that said the Throttle was the fastest tested device. The read performance was particularly impressive, especially when using the eSATA interface.

The OCZ Throttle 32GB using the eSATA interface was the best performer when downloading the file, as it sustained an average transfer rate of 80.5MB/s, which made it quite a bit faster than the Samsung Spinpoint F1 desktop hard drive. The upload performance was not as impressive, with an average transfer rate of just 47.2MB/s, making it 18% slower than the Spinpoint F1.

The USB 2.0 performance was to be expected, with the OCZ Throttle 32GB limited to just under 30MB/s, making it roughly the same speed as the Samsung Spinpoint M80.

The above graph shows how those file copy results translate into seconds, in other words how long each device will have to wait to transfer a 6GB data file. The OCZ Throttle using eSATA will make you wait just 1:14 minutes to upload files, while getting them back will take 2:07 minutes. Still that is a huge improvement on the 3:36 minutes it would take to download from the Throttle when using USB.

Obviously the ability to use the eSATA bus is the Throttle’s ace in the hole, as it allows it to significantly out-perform any and all USB drives, flash or otherwise. When using the USB 2.0 interface the OCZ Throttle is as fast as they come, which means copying a 6GB file will take roughly 3:30 minutes for any high performance USB storage device.

Of course the Throttle can make use of eSATA when available, which will almost halve the time it takes to copy a 6GB file. This also allowed the Throttle to rival high performance desktop hard drives, which is something portable flash storage has been unable to do in the past. Therefore in terms of performance, the OCZ Throttle goes unmatched thanks solely to its ability to utilize the eSATA interface.

As we mentioned earlier in the review, the eSATA performance does come with one small catch and that being that you will likely need to use a USB cable as well to deliver power. Most eSATA ports are not powered, so a USB cable is required for power. While most people will have a mini-USB cable handy, it will still pay to carry one around just in case, which does make the Throttle a little less portable.

Something that we also noticed was that the Throttle comes with a FAT32 partition, meaning that files greater than 4GB will fail to copy onto the drive. The user will be required to delete the FAT32 partition and replace it with an NTSF partition. This is not really a big deal, but it can be a pain if you fill it up with smaller data files first and then realize that the larger files cannot be copied across.

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Reviewed By Steven Walton