Reputation from 23mrtbone - Linus Tech Tips

23mrtbone got a reaction from geforceftw in Corsair Voyager GTX - For Gaming? - In Depth Look! August 14, 2014

So besides the fact that the Corsair Voyager GTX is really fast for a flash drive, what else could it be used for besides what the reviews on YouTube, including Linus, have not already covered? What about gaming? Gaming from a flash drive has never been a feasible option. As a matter of fact, running any high end program from a flash drive seems impractical. It runs slow, bottlenecks, and is down right not worth the hassle. Well, in short, this Flash Drive changes this. So can you game on this drive? Yes!

Is gaming on this flash drive the best option or the most practical? Maybe...maybe not. If you are a gamer on the go with a laptop, or like to attend a LAN...with a laptop, then this seems like a great option for you. If you are going to bring a small form factor PC like the Bitfenix Prodigy then just use an SSD. This Drive will not be for you. If you are wanting a drive that is small, very fast, and will actually play the game as if natively then this is what you need! Yes the transfer rates on this drive are all well and good as many reviews have tested but none have touched the subject of gaming from one which is what I'm going to break down.

My setup: I have a MacBook Pro Retina Late 2013 fully stocked...yes hate on me for gaming on a Mac, it works very well actually and I needed the mobility, nuf said...anyways, I use a slim external hard drive to store all my games via the USB 3.0 port. This is all good but at average speeds of 105 MB/s it is minuscule in comparison to what seemed the Voyager could champion over. So I purchased the 256GB version, cloned my external to the Voyager and put Battlefield 4 and Titanfall to the test. To my surprise, it ran very very well.

Heat?: The drive did not heat up as much as I thought it would and I checked constantly. While playing BF4, the outer housing remained a steady "warm" feeling...not blistering hot. That being said, if you are not transferring over 100GB of data at once, you shouldn't experience any overheating issues.

Performance?: With the majority of maps on BF4 and Titanfall, I experienced a pretty substantial increase in load times. Typicall with my mechanical drive, I found that on BF4 a typical map could take 55-135 seconds to load. To some that may not seem long...just enough time to take a piss. The Voyager had performance that was to be expected. The map load times averaged around 10-30 seconds, sometimes within 5 seconds if the map isn't too big. And on top of that, some of the textures seemed to render (in the beginning of map load) noticeably faster.

Longevity?: This drive is relatively new for my setup so how it handles over time will tell. I will follow up with a response on its age/performance. However, aesthetically, it looks great and durable. But this is pure subjective.

Benchtest?: I performed four separate kinds of tests. 1: Mac side test with nothing on the drive. 2: PC side test with nothing on the drive. 3: PC side test with 170GB on drive with no programs running. 4: PC side test with 170GB on drive with 3-4 programs running in background.

1---Mac side I used the standard Blackmagicdesign test:
Sequential Read: Avg. 426.05 MB/s
Sequential Write: Avg. 155.65 MB/s 2---PC side using CyrstalDiskMark---- Sequential Read: Avg. 399.3 MB/s
Sequential Write: Avg. 186.2 MB/s 3---PC side using CyrstalDiskMark with 170GB, no load--- Seq. Reads: Avg. 369-397 MB/s 4---PC side using CyrstalDiskMark with 170GB, with Origin, Steam, and 1-2 Background Loads--- Seq. Reads: Avg. 316-360 MB/s Conclusion:
-Yes, you can game on this drive very well. Is it the most ideal choice for mobile? Maybe, maybe not, but it certainly helps with speed and overall physical size as compared to an external if you're on the go or at a LAN. Is this good for professionals? Very much so, especially with large models or documents you need to work off of instead of dragging the file to the Desktop every time. You can work straight from the drive.
-I believe this drive is a fascinating piece of technology and it has worked up to its expectation. Is it faster than an SSD? Of course NOT, but it is the best solution out there for those who just want pure speed in this sized form factor. Keep in mind, that if you do not have a USB 3.0 to benefit from, then this product is NOT FOR YOU....yet. USB 2.0 will not give you much of a better of performance than any other drive.
-Overall, this is a solid Drive that is very well designed and will perform to your expectations whether your gaming, modeling, editing, or even doing large file transfers.