USB memories are starting to get some serious competition from a new technology. Several manufacturers have announced portable memories sporting the eSATA interface and with the same formfactor as USB memories they fall into the same product category. But the fact remains that these external memories are closer related to the SSDs used for longterm storage inside our PCs. They both use NAND flash memory circuits and the SATA interface, although the external version. So far the performance of eSATA memories have been worse than that of SSDs, but PhotoFast has changed that.
PhotoFast G-Monster-eSATA is without a doubt one of the fastest memory sticks we have ever seen with specified transfer rates at 175MB/s (read) and 100MB/s (write). The storage capacity stretches from 32GB up to 128GB and this is housed inside a casing measuring only 80 x 40 x 15 mm. Larger than most USB memories, but then you get a fraction of the speed and “only” 64GB of storage.
Alas PhotoFast G-Monster-eSATA may never appear in Europe or North America. It will go on sale in Japan at the end of the month and will most likely cost a minor fortune.
