Specifications
OCZ's Throttle eSATA flash drive features an eSATA interface and a mini USB 2.0 port. OCZ promises up to 90MB/sec read and up to 30MB/sec write speeds. The drive is available in 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB capacities. The USB port serves double duty with the Throttle by allowing the drive to be used as a USB drive on systems lacking eSATA and by powered the drive on non-powered eSATA ports.

Benchmarks
To test the performance of the 32GB Throttle flash drive OCZ provided me with I used an application called HD Tune to get an idea of the read performance of the drive. HD Tune showed that the max read speed for the drive when connected in USB mode was 30.3MB/sec, the minimum read speed was 27.7MB/sec, and the average read speed was 28.4MB/sec. Access time for the drive when connected to a USB port was 0.4ms and the burst speed was 27MB/sec.

Connecting the Throttle via eSATA and running the same benchmark showed a massive performance increase compared to the USB performance. In eSATA mode, the Throttle had a minimum read speed of 71.1MB/sec, a max read speed of 86.1MB/sec, and an average read speed of 79.5MB/sec.

To get an idea of the real world performance for read and write speeds on the drive I moved a large folder with 5.46GB of data inside to and from the Throttle drive and timed the process with a stopwatch. In USB mode, it took 3 minutes and 10 seconds to write the folder from the flash drive to the PC. It took 4 minutes and 26 seconds to copy the same folder from the PC to the flash drive.

Connecting the Throttle to the computer in eSATA mode again showed massive performance increases. It took 2 minutes and 23 seconds to write the folder to the Throttle from the computer in eSATA mode. It took 1 minute and 29 seconds to write the folder from the flash drive to the PC.

In Use
OCZ covers the bases with the Throttle by providing a USB cable and mini USB port. The only real downsides to the Throttle are that the USB cable isn’t integrated into the drive. You have to carry and keep up with a spate USB cable. The other issue I noticed is that the Throttle is rather fat for a flash drive. On my desktop computer, the Throttle was unable to fully connect to my front eSATA port because it was too wide to fit into the slight recess in port sat inside.

The width of the drive may also make fitting the Throttle into a crowded back panel difficult. Many computers lack a powered eSATA port making it necessary to use the USB cable to power the drive in eSATA mode. I found on a couple laptops that I tried that the included USB cable was a bit short. The cable is only about a foot long and wouldn’t reach all the way to the other side of the laptop if a USB port wasn't available on the same side as the eSATA port.

Overall, the performance of the Throttle and the massive storage capacity outweigh any cons for me. With the eSATA interface, the Throttle is easily the fastest flash drive I have ever tested. Fast speeds are very important on a drive that can handle 32GB of data and the performance makes the Throttle a very viable backup option.