PNY Attache USB Thumb Drive
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Author:
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Max Slowik
Brian
PNY
Jul. 12, 2009
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Introduction
Not every flash drive can be fast, or can be pretty, or can be sturdy, big, small, capacious, easy to find, and discreet. No, some are just a little ugly. PNY’s Attache bears little of the elegance its name may be associated with, but it’s safe to say it does have a few things going for it.
First of all, it’s cheap. I don’t mean this to say that it’s constructed poorly or anything like that. Compared to the other flash memory in its class, it just doesn’t cost a lot. It’s housed in the same kind of plastic familiar to everyone who had plastic toys--or at least a sturdy variety of it.

The drive is practically featureless and doesn’t even include a lanyard. It’s a little thick compared to other drives of the same simple style because it is plastic, no signs of metal. It’s lightweight, but not waterproof or even cleverly decorated. Well, there’s a red plastic stripe with an activity LED in it.
PNY offers a one-year warranty on their flash drives, which is a bit short but who RMAs a flash drive when breaking one gives you the opportunity to shop for a new one?

Testing
I tested the drive by copying files to and from it, timing things with a stopwatch. I tested the read and write speeds four different ways, first with a CD-sized single file, an ISO, to check large file sizes. For medium file sizes, I transferred a folder full of 10MB raw images, for small files, I used a folder of about 1.5MB .jpg images, and for tiny files, I used a folder full of Windows system files averaging 20K each.
680 MB (680 MB Files)
(Show All Graphs)
(Collapse Graphs)
Corsair Voyager GT
OCZ Rally 2
Corsair Survivor
PNY Attache
0
MB/s (higher is better)
31.6825
Corsair Survivor
OCZ Rally 2
PNY Attache
Corsair Voyager GT
0
MB/s (higher is better)
31.6825
500 MB (10 MB Files)
(Show All Graphs)
(Collapse Graphs)
Corsair Survivor
OCZ Rally 2
Corsair Voyager GT
PNY Attache
0
MB/s (higher is better)
30.2565
PNY Attache
OCZ Rally 2
Corsair Voyager GT
Corsair Survivor
0
MB/s (higher is better)
30.2565
250 MB (1.5 MB Files)
(Show All Graphs)
(Collapse Graphs)
OCZ Rally 2
Corsair Voyager GT
PNY Attache
Corsair Survivor
0
MB/s (higher is better)
31.855
PNY Attache
OCZ Rally 2
Corsair Survivor
Corsair Voyager GT
0
MB/s (higher is better)
31.855
250 MB (20 KB Files)
(Show All Graphs)
(Collapse Graphs)
OCZ Rally 2
Corsair Voyager GT
Corsair Survivor
PNY Attache
0
MB/s (higher is better)
10.6375
OCZ Rally 2
PNY Attache
Corsair Survivor
Corsair Voyager GT
0
MB/s (higher is better)
10.6375
So as far as read speeds go, this plain little drive did very well. Sure, things slowed down with tiny file sizes, hitting 8MB/s, but most of the time reads were closer to 20MB/s. This isn’t shocking, but it is better than average.
Writing files things got a little choppier, like they do, with the tiny writes going the slowest, which is to be predicted, but not still a bit faster than similar drives at around 2MB/s. As files increased in size, write speeds almost hit 10MB/s.
Conclusion
This drive, performance-wise, is either a little above average or a little below average, but in the best possible way; it’s faster where other drives tend to be slow (but a little slow where drives tend to be fast).
I would definitely consider PNY’s Attache for general-purpose flash storage, without worrying about it breaking or anyone wanting to steal it.
Pros
Cheap
Speeds aren't bad, just average
Cons
No nifty features
No extras
1 - Posted by
abelmo33
on January 23, 2010 - 10:50 am
I have a 4 GB Attache Flash drive. I cannot add files nor can I use it for the files I have on it. I get the message "error code - 43"
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CVG Mar. 18, 2010 - 11:53 pm
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