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We'll be putting USB 3.0 to the test with the help of an ADATA Solid State Disk. This unit is tagged the N002 SSD, this device is able to deliver up to very fast 200 MB/s and 170 MB/s sequential read/write performance. The drive has an embedded Indilinx controller and 64 MB/sec cache memory promising to be really fast.

The big advantage of the N002 is of course is that this driver has both a SATA-II  connector ... and a USB 3.0 connector. Let's flip around the SSD and have a look at that connector.

The connector can be found on the side of the SSD and this is the all new proprietary mini-USB 3.0 connector.

For mini-USB you'll need a cable like shown above ... if not delivered with the product you can pick them up at roughly 15 EUR / 20 USD. It's the one downside for USB 3.0 ... you'll need specific USB 3.0 cables (two more wires) for USB 3.0 devices. If you use the plain old USB cable it will still work, but the the controller will kick back in USB 2.0 mode.

But guaranteed, after you've tasted USB 3.0 performance .. that's like stepping out of a Ferrari into a Vauxhal (not that there's anything wrong with that of course).

So we'll now move onwards towards the testing range where we'll happily test the lovely ADATA SSD with one of the USB 3.0 controllers.