Probo USB 3.0 16GB

Packaging & Contents

The Hama Probo ships on a large plastic shrink wrap. The drive has been awarded five gold stars by Hama which according to the key on the back of the package means it can write at up to 45 MB/s, most of the wording is in German so we might have missed something there because it turned out that our benchmark write scores ( Crystalmark and ATTO) for this drive came in at 36 MB/s. The drive comes with a 10 year warranty and there are links to the Hama website offering their free software bundles. The drive ships with a grey keychain which is bundled into the back of the plastic carton.

Box Front

Box Back

Dimensions & Weight

The Probo measures 5.7cm long, 2.1cm wide and 1cm high, this is one of the shortest flash drives we have seen. Weighing in at 11 grams the Probo is also very light which combined with its short length make it ideal for shirt pocket use.

Build Quality

The Hama Probo is solid and well constructed. There is a blue light inside shell that flashes when the drive is in use. The drive has a retractable no fuss design that clunks between its open and shut positions very satisfyingly. There is a hole at the back of the drive where you can attach a keyring reasonably securely. Overall we were impressed with the build quality on this drive especially given its small size and below average weight.

Front

Back

Test System

CrystalDiskMark Speed Test^[FAQ]

CrystalDiskMark is a free disk benchmarking utility that is very simple to use. It takes eight measurements: the read and write speeds in megabytes per second (MBps) for sequential, 512KB, random 4KB and 4KB parallel disk operations. There are more screenshots from this benchmark posted on the web than any other, probably due to its clean and simple display. There is further information, including instructions on how to benchmark your own drives, on the CrystalDiskMark wiki page.

CrystalDiskMark Score

The Probo scored 71/36 MB/s in the sequential read/write tests. These headline sequential figures are not earth shattering but they are reasonable. The Probos strongest relative performance is in the sequential read at 36 MB/s. This drive does not have any particular weaknesses but neither does it excel at anything.

CrystalDiskMark Benchmark Speed Test

ATTO Disk Benchmark^[FAQ]

The Atto Disk Benchmark has probably been around for longer than any other disk benchmarking software, and you can tell from its dated interface! The utility was designed to measure regular disk drive performance but it's more than up to the task of measuring both USB flash drive and SSD speeds as well. The utility measures disk performance rates for various sizes of file and displays the results in a bar chart showing read and write speeds at each file size. The results are displayed in megabytes per second (MBps). There is further information, including instructions on how to benchmark your own drive, on the Atto wiki page.

ATTO Benchmark Speed Test

ATTO Score

The ATTO results for the Probo are broadly in line with the CrystalDiskMark scores and at 65/35 MB/s come in under Hama's claimed write speed of 45 MB/s.

AS SSD Real World Copy Speed^[FAQ]

The AS SSD benchmarking program was recently developed specifically for benchmarking SSD's. The utility is able to take several measurements that are well suited to solid state drives. One of the tests, ISO copy, is also relevant to slower storage devices including flash drives. The ISO copy test places two large 500MB files in a folder on the drive and then times how long it takes to copy the folder to another location on the same drive. The result is reported in both MBps and time taken. It's a real-world test that gauges a drives ability to read and write at the same time. Drives that have a good balance between their read and write speed fare relatively well on this test. There is further information, including instructions on how to use it to benchmark your own drive, on the AS SSD wiki page.

Real World Copy Speed Score

This test shows that the Probo would take 53.48 seconds to create a copy of a large 1GB video file. Generally flash drives complete this test at roughly half their sequential write rates. The Probo performed as expected in this test.

AS-SSD Copy Benchmark Speed Test

Conclusion

The Hama Probo is a great all round flash drive with above average performance. The retractable mechanism is good and it's both small and light. In terms of value for money this drive is well above average thanks to its strong performance and reasonable price point.

USBFlashPro
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Original Review by:  
Updated 11 years ago.