External SSD drive vs Flash drive (USB 3.0)

Question

I was wondering about the reasoning behind introducing external SSD USB3.0 drives on the market.

To me a USB3.0 128GB SSD drive is the larger sibling of a USB Flash key with same interface and size.

Is there something I overlooked ? Isn't the technology underneath quite similar ?

Solution 1

SSD internals are quite a lot faster than USB keys. USB keys are rated up to about 40ish MBytes/s, but SSDs, even the lower end drives, are 100Mbytes/s, to over 500Mbytes/s.

Solution 2

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/11/a-ssd-in-your-pocket.html - article from Jeff Atwood...

Comments

[UtahJarhead]

I agree 100% with @TiernanO. Not only that, but while some MIGHT be 100 MBytes/s, most are 200-250+ for the low end.

[ziu]

I believe I saw some on-steroids sticks - by a famous producer - reach over 100MBs into the specs. At this point I wonder whether a SSD is cheaper in the long run.

[TiernanO]

those sticks you mention are more than likely SSDs in USB key form. I have seen them too, and they use the same storage chips as SSDs and same controllers. They are essentially SSDs, but in stick form...

[Breakthrough]

There are now several USB keys you can purchase obtaining both sequential read/write speeds of over 100 MB/s. Both USB keys and SSDs are flash memory, so it's not unfathomable that this gap will further shrink in the future (save for the next generation of SATA interfaces).

[RockPaperLz- Mask it or Casket]

I don't think this is accurate.

[Miroslav Saracevic]

This is definitely not correct, SSD also have (usually) 1 million writes. That is why they always come with a bit more storage then speced and the drive replaces 'burned out blocks' with fresh ones to mitigate this. But it still has a lifespan.