By: Hai Wang
December 23, 2016
About three months ago, our Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Kwan attended the 84th IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. One of the major topics of the conference was about wireless communication, therefore cell phone manufacturers like Apple had booths there, so they could hire academics with a wireless and mobile communication background. Jonathan talked to one of the representatives from Apple, and he respectfully teased the new iPhone 7's design about not having the physical headphone jack. I do not know how much of that conversation can help Jonathan get an employment opportunity from Apple, but there is one thing for sure: Wireless headphones are going to sell very well in the near future. In my opinion, the trend is to have everything connected using wireless technologies like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or even a cellular network. Why, you may ask? It is because there are so many benefits of getting things connected wirelessly. There will be no constraints about physical interfaces, it allows a higher degree of freedom due to no wired connections, and it is a nice concept to be added on existing products, such as data storage. We have actually looked at one of such products, the Western Digital My Passport Wireless Pro 2TB, in October. However, there is one fatal disadvantage of wireless devices: They all require a battery. Therefore, if you need a flash drive to have iPhone/iPad connectivity, but you think having a battery on your drive is undesirable, something that has both a conventional USB and Lightning connector is a good choice. Today's review unit, the OLALA iDisk ID100 64GB has both of these connectors. Is it a flash drive that can provide a good user experience? Let us find out.
The OLALA iDisk ID100 64GB arrived via Canada Post to us here in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. As you can see from the picture, the parcel is just a small padded envelope. The package was shipped from Rosemead, California. I was not the person who received this parcel when it arrived here at APH Networks in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in the first place, but the package came in pretty good shape, and it was reasonably clean on the surface.
Removing the shipping envelope, we can see the retail package of the OLALA iDisk ID100 64GB. Like most of the other flash drives, the package of this product was designed to be hung on store shelves, therefore there is a hole at the top. The flash drive itself is located at the lower center of the package, and it is covered by a piece of translucent plastic so that the flash drive can be viewed by customers. Three of the most important information points of the product are shown clearly on the cardboard: The name of the flash drive, capacity information, and Apple product compatibility. The product's name, iDisk, is shown in red at the top left, and the 64GB capacity is on the top right of the package. Below the iDisk Mobile Memory, the iPod, iPhone, and iPad compatibility is printed in white. On the left side of the flash drive, two small iPhone and iPad icons plus a small arrow suggest where the location of the Lightning connector on the flash drive is. The location of the USB connector is also indicated by a small PC icon and an arrow at the right side of the retail package. At the bottom left of the package are the features of the product, and the QR code for the Apple App is located at the bottom right. Overall speaking, the package design of the OLALA iDisk ID100 64GB is successful in terms of showing the important information, but it can hardly be considered as eye-catching.
Before digging into the rest of the review, let us take a look at the specifications and features of the OLALA iDisk ID100 64GB, as borrowed from the manufacturer's website:
Specification:
- Product Name: Lightning OTG
- Nodel No.: ID100
- Flash Type: MLC/TLC
- Version No.: 1.0
Features:
Hardware:
- IBM PC or compatible PC，Notebook or Macintosh with USB port
Operation System:
- Support Microsoft Win10/Win8/Win7/Vista/ Win XP
- Support Mac OS 10.X
- Support Linux kernels 2.5 and above
NAND Flash Interface:
- Support MLC/TLC
- Global Wear-Leveling
- Power-cycling handling
USB3.0 with USB2.0 combo interface:
- Capacity up to 128 GB
- Support system with USB3.0 Port.
- Backwards compatibles with USB2.0
- Hot plug and play
- More than 10 year’s data retention
- Super speed data transfer performance: USB3.0: W= 8-30MB R=32-100 MB/s; Ligtning: W=3-8MB/S R=15-25MB/S (The rate of performance depends on the different operation system available and various flash adopted)
Physical characteristics：
- Product Dimension:59 x 28 x 9 mm
- Net Weight: 15 g
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look, Test System
3. Benchmark: AIDA64 Disk Benchmark
4. Benchmark: ATTO Disk Benchmark
5. Benchmark: Crystal Disk Mark 3.0
6. Benchmark: HD Tach 3.0.1.0
7. Benchmark: HD Tune Pro 4.60
8. Conclusion
