USB flash drives: They're oh so convenient but, when it's crunch time, they're still far slower than any sane person would like.

OCZ remedies some of this pokeyness by making use of the eSATA port on your computer, designing a flash drive that uses the faster eSATA connector to hook up to your PC instead of old USB. eSATA, you ask? If you have an eSATA port, you've probably never used it in your life and may not even know what it looks like (pic here). Easily mistaken for USB unless it's clearly labeled, only a few external hard drives (compared to the thousands of USB versions) use the connector, and it remains a niche product today.

The OCZ Throttle (and products that follow in its wake) could change that, at least a little, among people looking for better performance from one-off file transfers: With 90MB/sec read speeds and 30MB/sec write speeds, the Throttle handily outclasses USB 2.0 flash drives, which, as New Enthusiast reminds us, top out at 30MB/sec while reading and 15MB/sec while writing. How OCZ specifically achieves such performance (and how it will measure up to the claims in real-world tests) is a mystery for now -- there are limitations to the speed of the silicon inside the thumbdrive as well as the bus being used.

And fret not, USB fanatics: The Throttle also has a secondary, mini-USB connector so you can still use the device on older computers without an eSATA port.

No word yet on pricing or availability. Will blog again with benchmark numbers if I can get my hands on one.

LINK: Pedal to the Metal