The Patriot Stellar is one of many pioneers into the new market of USB OTG flash drives. It seems to be the first that combines both USB 3.0 and USB OTG in one sleek package. Its small footprint and sleek looks may be tempting, but does it provide the 140 MB/s performance it promises?

The version reviewed is the 32GB Patriot Stellar which can be found on Amazon for $34.99 as of January 2014. The Stellar comes in 3 colors depending on the size. The 16GB comes in orange, the 32GB comes in silver, and the 64GB comes in gold.

Aesthetics:

The flash drive is very sleek and placed next to a guitar pick, you can see how small it really is.

The width and height are the exact size of the USB port itself with the internal plastic being blue to represent its USB 3.0 compatibility.

When plugged into a laptop, it does not extrude much as half of it is the full size USB port itself.

Performance (Windows):

Using CrystalDiskMark as a reference for benchmarking the drive, some interesting data was revealed.

The drive performed exactly as stated by the manufacturer as the read speeds were a solid 140.2 MB/s. However the write speeds were sub par reaching only 19.38 MB/s. This however isn’t even the full story as copying smaller files, the write performance quickly becomes unbearable. The Sandisk Extreme USB 3.0 drives in comparison offer much better write performance (almost triple).

Performance (Android):

Using ES File Explorer, CM11, and my LG G2, writing and reading to the drive over the OTG connection seemed only to be limited by the phones read and write speeds as both were quite random and similar to each other. Take these benchmarks as a reference only as they will differ from phone to phone.

Write Speed:

Read Speed:

In Conclusion:

The Patriot Stellar is a solid device offering a stepping stone into the new world of high speed OTG flash drives. It is very useful to have as I can now use the same flash drive easily without any extra connectors on my laptop, tablet, and phone. If only the write performance was better, this would be a sure buy.

Pros:

– Competitive Pricing

– Fast Read Performance

– Sleek Shape and Size

Cons:

– Slightly Plastic/Cheap Feel

– Horrible Write Speed for a USB 3.0 Device

– No Color Options For The Same Capacity