Corsair Memory Inc. today announced what it claims to be the world's fastest 128GB USB flash drive, the Flash Voyager GT. The newest Flash Voyager GT is based on a dual-controller architecture to achieve what Corsair said is single-level cell (SLC) NAND flash memory performance levels using less expensive and higher density multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash.

According to Corsair, the 128GB Flash Voyager GT can achieve read speeds of up to 32MB/sec and write speeds of up to 25.6MB/sec. The limiting factor in throughput is the speed of the USB 2.0 bus -- a maximum of 480Mbit/sec -- and any operating system overhead.

By comparison, the 8GB Iron Key USB flash drive, which actually uses SLC flash memory, has a read speed of up to 30MB/sec and a write speed of up to 20MB/sec. (Computerword's review of the 4GB Iron Key showed it had a read rate of 29MB/sec.) Flash drives with more memory tend to have better performance.

Full story: Computerworld