Performance

To measure the performance of the Buffalo RUF2-S unit, we will be using SiSoft Sandra 2007 Pro's File System Benchmark.  Testing will be a standard result display from Sandra 2007 as well as a direct comparison with three other units for a quazi-relative comparison of speed on an Acer laptop. 

Starting things off is a screen shot of Sandra 2007's results screen.  Wow!  As you can see from the standard comparison units programmed into SiSoft Sandra, the Buffalo RUF2-S absolutely blew the doors off of everything with its 25MB per second transfer rate average.  (This average is calculated between the benchmark's sequential read and write results.)

Let me quickly note that this next comparison is NOT done on equal footing.  In direct comparisons, we like to have all items be as equal as possible.  In this case, a perfect comparison would have all the units be of 4GB in size.  This is NOT the case here.  After seeing the initial speed of the Buffalo, I was curious as to the speed of three other thumb drive units I had here in the shop.  These being a 256MB SanDisk Micro, a 512MB Victorinox Swiss Army Knife/Drive and a 256MB Corsair Voyager.  Using Sandra's File System Benchmark again, let's measure and graph each unit's average transfer rate.

Conclusion

The Buffalo RUF2-S 4GB unit is FAST FAST FAST.  Faster by far than anything else we have or have had in the shop.  Four gigs of storage will be a big draw to many with the ability to store and carry large blocks of media.  Four gigs is even large enough to carry an episode of LOST.  The Buffalo's size and feel was compact and balanced.  The snug snap fit cap that can be secured on the opposite end during use also is a huge plus.  As we said already, this cap is not one that is going to fall off after six months of use.  The only downside unfortunately is a big one, price.  Priced at $230, the Buffalo RUF2-S is priced significantly higher than other 4GB flash drives currently available.  If you want the speed the Buffalo has to offer, you are going to have to pay for it.  However, if you shell out the cash for this speed demon, you won't be disappointed with what you get.  Think about it like this; if you have 4000MB of data to transfer, do you want your drive to transfer at 25MB/sec or 10MB/sec.  The difference in time it would take would be measured in minutes not just a few seconds.  Thanks again to the Brando Workshop for sponsoring this review.

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