Tech Olive

If you’re new to the whole USB 3.0 deal, don’t worry too much. You have plenty of time to hit the books and learn more about it, but right now we’ll hopefully help you out a little because Seagate sent over their first USB 3.0 device, the BlackArmor PS 110 USB 3.0 Performance Kit. Frankly, we’re really excited to finally have our grubby little hands on USB 3.0 and we were dying to find out just how fast it was in a real-world scenario.

USB 3.0 is pretty much exactly the same as USB 2.0, physically. The plugs are identical, but the mini- and micro-B is where the plugs change form (check out the close up photos further down). USB 3.0 is also backwards compatible with USB 2.0, so don’t think that your new USB 3.0 drive will only work with its new platform. You can use the drive over the 2.0 spec, but you’ll only get 2.0 speeds.

What’s in the box (if you missed our unboxing):

• 500GB 7200RPM BlackArmor PS 110 drive
• USB 3.0 PC Card adapter
• USB 3.0 cable
• USB power cable for the PC Card

First of all, it’s cool that Seagate included a PC Card adapter with the drive. Most of us don’t have access to USB 3.0, but then again, there are some that don’t have access to a PC Card slot. Right off the bat I’ll suggest that if you’re seriously considering utilizing USB 3.0, you’d be better off getting a USB 3.0 PCI card for your desktop, which sell for around $40. If you only have a laptop/netbook and it doesn’t have a PC Card slot, well then you’re just plain SOL, unless you get yourself a fancy new laptop that comes with USB 3.0.

Seagate includes the needed USB 3.0 drivers on the drive itself, rather than on a disc. We had to plug the drive into our laptop through USB 2.0 first, install the drivers, then plug the drive into the PC Card where we would now have USB 3.0, but wait! The PC Card needed a little extra help to power the massive 500GB USB 3.0 device. This is where the extra USB power cable comes in. The PC Card has to be powered by a USB port, but luckily it can be powered by good ‘ole USB 2.0. This was all a slight hassle, but the excitement of USB 3.0 ended up drowning all the hassle out of us.

We were now up and running and did a few, real-life speed tests. We took a 600MB folder full of photos and a 4.37GB movie file to see how long they would take to transfer from the PC to the drive and also from the drive to the PC. We did the same tests on a BlackArmor PS 110 USB 2.0 drive to compare the two platforms. You’ll see our results below.

The laptop we tested it on was a HP Pavilion DV3 – Windows 7, Core 2 Duo P7350, 4GB DDR 800 RAM, and GeForce G105M graphics.

You’re probably wondering if that 186.9 MB/s was a typo. We thought so too, but we ran the same test twice and got the same result. It literally took only 3 seconds to transfer 600MB from the drive to the PC, but overall it looks like our tests show that USB 3.0 is roughly twice as fast as USB 2.0. These are only our results though. They will obviously vary depending on your system and situations. We did our tests on a laptop, so there was a slight bottleneck compared to a high-end desktop machine.

Seagate’s BlackArmor PS 110 USB 3.0 Performance Kit retails for $180 on their website. If you’re a Mac user, sorry, this drive will mercilessly spit in your face as it doesn’t support OS X. Hopefully in the future they’ll include the Mac bunch.

Scores

Price: 8
You’re basically paying more for the USB 3.0 speed. If you’re looking for lots of space rather than performance, look elsewhere and get a 1TB external for $30 less.

Setup/Install: 7
I can see where this can be a hassle, but like us, you’ll get too excited to even notice how big of a pain the setup is.

Ease of Use: N/A
If you know how computers and external hard drives work, you’ll be fine.

Performance: 9
We liked what we saw, so we can’t complain.

Features: 9
The only big feature here is USB 3.0 and we’d have to say it’s quite a big feature.

Overall: 8 Olives