Thursday, March 22, 2012

Win8: Windows to Go (FKA: Portable Workspaces) on a USB 3.0 Flash Drive

I have been evaluating the Windows 8 feature Windows to Go (WTG), formally known as Portable Workspaces, on a Kingston DT Ultimate USB 3.0 32 GB thumbdrive.  Lets see how it has done.

In short, it has been working great.  Running Windows Consumer Preview, formally known as Beta, I am hard pressed to tell the difference between running Windows 8 on my internal SATA drives or running it off my Windows to Go USB thumbdrive, even just using USB 2.0!

Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4 GHz
Windows Experience Score:
Processor: 7.1
Memory (RAM): 5.9
Graphics: 3.0
Gaming graphics: 4.8
Primary hard disk: 4.8 <= with WTG on USB 2.0

SiSoftware Sandra  2012.sp2:
Drive Score : 32.42MB/s <= with WTG on USB 2.0
Random Access Time : 955µs

Core i5 2500k @ 4.7 GHz
Windows Experince Index:
Processor: 8.0
Memory (RAM): 8.0
Graphics: 6.7
Gaming graphics: 6.7
Primary hard disk: 5.9 <= with WTG on USB 3.0

SiSoftware Sandra
Benchmark Results
Drive Score : 60.32MB/s <= with WTG on USB 3.0
Random Access Time : 1.8ms


HP Compaq 2510p, with Core 2 Duo U7500 @ 1.06 GHz

Windows Experince Index:
Processor: 3.6
Memory (RAM): 4.2
Graphics: 3.0, 2.0 <= no video driver
Gaming graphics: 4.0
Primary hard disk: 3.4 (internal HD), 4.8 <= with WTG on USB 2.0



Internal HD (1.8" 4200 RPM)
Benchmark Results
Drive Score : 17.28MB/s
Sequential Read : 19.46MB/s
Sequential Write : 19.26MB/s
Random Access Time : 19ms

Windows to Go
SiSoftware Sandra
Benchmark Results
Drive Score : 26.27MB/s
Sequential Read : 29.8MB/s
Sequential Write : 15.42MB/s
Random Access Time : 833µs