When we first heard that Corsair were to unveil a USB 3.0 flash drive which could achieve the transfer rates of a solid state drive, we have to admit we were a little dubious. But after testing this new drive, we can confidently affirm to the claims Corsair has made.

Flash Voyager GTX is the next step in the evolution of the popular Flash USB series and whilst incorporating the USB 3.0 interface will come as no surprise, the inclusion of an SSD controller certainly will and it’s the latter that helps to project the performance of this new drive beyond the usual USB 3.0 storage speeds. Throughout our testing, Voyager GTX exceeded the read and write transfer rates of previously tested USB 3.0 drives in every single benchmark evaluation.

Further to the excellent performance, Corsair has equipped Flash Voyager GTX with support for S.M.A.R.T and TRIM so that users can take full advantage of features which would typically be found on an SSD.



There are however a few noteworthy things to flag up. If you are a Windows 7 user the performance of Flash Voyager GTX will be restrained somewhat – rougly 100MB/s compared to that of Windows 8. The reason for this is due to the lack of native UASP support in Windows 7. But there is hope – certain motherboard manufacturers enable UASP via software drivers and this will allow you to reap the full potential of the drive. For our testing we have demonstrated the results from a standard USB 3.0 port within Windows 7 and then a UASP enabled USB 3.0 port, again with Windows 7. Thankfully ASUS are one such vendor which has made it possible to tap into UASP for Windows 7 users. (We used the ASUS Maximus VII Ranger in our testing and enabled USB 3.0 boost in AI Suite 3.)

Flash Voyager GTX can be bought for £88.25 GBP / $120 USD, which is actually quite reasonable considering the super-fast transfer rates which are on offer and the mere fact this drive is backed by a five year warranty. Looking at the flash storage department there are drives which use the same capacity, are undoubtedly slower, deliver a mere one or two years warranty and yet are more costly.

Flash Voyager GTX is unquestionably the fastest USB 3.0 flash drive we have yet tested. It pushes the boundaries for sequential read and write performance and arrives with useful SSD tech such as S.M.A.R.T and TRIM support - we have no qualms in handing out our prestigious gold award.