Best Flash Drives: Fast, Roomy USB Storage in Your Pocket

[Admin]

If you've been holding on to a flash drive for years and still use it regularly, or you find local storage easier than the cloud, today's best flash drives are faster than ever. We tested more than a dozen to find the best.

Best Flash Drives: Fast, Roomy USB Storage in Your Pocket : Read more

 

[Co BIY]

I'm a big fan of the Samsung BAR drives. They are my Everyday Day Cary (EDC). Seem to last forever, look great, feel solid and make good gifts for people who are using a cashier line drive at work.

I have a Samsung FIT and it's actually too small for everyday use in a lot of cases.

 

[WrongRookie]

Huh? We actually have legit 1-2TB pen drives?!? I thought those are scams..

 

[Evertprakkie]

Buffalo Externe SSD 1TB - Tot 600MB/s - USB-C - USB-A - USB 3.2 Gen 2 (compatibel met PS4/PS5/Windows/Mac) - Externe Solid State Drive Stick - ‎SSD-PUT1.0U3B

Merk: BUFFALO


4,4 van 5 sterren 293 beoordelingen






Selling for around $70 for the 1TB model when we wrote this in the article


In the article it says seventy dollars but on Amazon NL. it costs two hundred euros 1 TB and 500GB 210 euros. I find this very strange.



€200,39€200,39

Capaciteit: 1 TB

• 1 TB
  € 200,39
• 500 GB
  € 210,86

Stijlnaam: Buffalo SSD-PUT draagbare stick SSD-schijf

Digitale opslagcapaciteit	1 TB
Interface van harde schijf	USB 3.2
Aansluitingstechnologie	USB, USB-A 3.2
Merk	BUFFALO

 

[USAFRet]

Huh? We actually have legit 1-2TB pen drives?!? I thought those are scams..

Yes, legit.
Not inexpensive, though.

If you see one for $10 or so....those ARE scams.

 

[karmantyu]

ADATA ??

https://www.adata.com/us/consumer/category/usb-flash-drives/

 

[Gillygong]

Yes, legit.
Not inexpensive, though.

If you see one for $10 or so....those ARE scams.

Just stay away from unknown brand names and buy from reputable sources and you won’t get scammed in 👍 drive storage size. Notice, too, like the other poster said, the drives aren’t inexpensive.

 

[Colif]

Anything bigger than 2tb probably doesn't exist yet

Info - Buyer Beware - 16tb or larger External/Portable SSD/USB drives are fake

You currently cannot buy a real 16tb external SSD or any USB drives larger than 2tb, at all. They don't exist. But if you look on almost any retailer now they show you ssd that are labelled 16tb, 30tb or larger still. These are all fake. Same applies for any USB flash drive bigger than 2tb...

forums.tomshardware.com

seems I need to update minimum size of USB in that now.

 

[Colif]

Just stay away from unknown brand names

That isn't enough, need to also make sure it actually exists as there are plenty of wrongly branded fakes out there... can find Sandisk drives on Ali Express that don't really exist. You get a drive but whats inside is a different story.

 

[Gillygong]

That isn't enough, need to also make sure it actually exists as there are plenty of wrongly branded fakes out there... can find Sandisk drives on Ali Express that don't really exist. You get a drive but whats inside is a different story.

Who buys their drives from Ali Express? I said reputable sources.

Buying stainless steel key rings from Ali? Yes.

Buying a computer or data storage device from Ali? Crazy talk.

 

[USAFRet]

Who buys their drives from Ali Express? I said reputable sources.

Buying stainless steel key rings from Ali? Yes.

Buying a computer or data storage device from Ali? Crazy talk.

Unfortunately, a LOT of people think that AliE, and ebay, is a valid 'store' to buy things from.
For some, that is their default.

 

[Gillygong]

Unfortunately, a LOT of people think that AliE, and ebay, is a valid 'store' to buy things from.
For some, that is their default.

eBay is safe if you buy from a reputable seller, but when spending a good amount of money you need to be sure of several factors. The worst part about eBay if you are a careful buyer is often the customer service from eBay itself which is one of the worst out there.

Even Ali made it easier to get money back on a leather pencil case with a broken zip than eBay would have done. eBay customer service deliberately links to broken URLs and prefers to put enough barriers to entry in place that the customer gives up on trying to get a refund. But the rule of thumb on eBay is the individual you’re buying from. Ali is far more opaque and dodgy regarding trust. And their search result are a total insult, which they 90% use a sleazy sales method and not a search method.

Just depends of what you’re buying from Ali and what you’re expectations are.

Amazon and Apple still offer the best customer service in the tech industry.

 

[Colif]

It doesn't really matter who you buy off, just make sure the drive actually exists on makers website before buying it. Amazon isn't exactly perfect either.

 

[Gillygong]

It doesn't really matter who you buy off, just make sure the drive actually exists on makers website before buying it. Amazon isn't exactly perfect either.

As along as Amazon is the shipper you can get a refund. Yes, the drive should exist. Before I’m on eBay I already know exactly what I’m buying.

 

[Colif]

I wasn't singling out one person, it was just general advice. Not all people research what they want to buy... or even think about it before. Most people don't have the time.

 

[cyrusfox]

Love the article, may I suggest an inclusion for future article:
The Sandisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe

Comes in sizes up to 1TB, starting as small as 32GB. I have the 256GB version I found for $25($23 on amazon now).

The utility of having both USB A and C on the same device with no adapter can not be understated(Direct local phone backups). I keep one on the key chain now and it is awesome when out and about to interface directly with any device. Speeds are more than sufficient (There is a 150mb/s version and 400 mb/s version) and price is great.

 

[Gillygong]

Love the article, may I suggest an inclusion for future article:
The Sandisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe

Comes in sizes up to 1TB, starting as small as 32GB. I have the 256GB version I found for $25($23 on amazon now).

The utility of having both USB A and C on the same device with no adapter can not be understated(Direct local phone backups). I keep one on the key chain now and it is awesome when out and about to interface directly with any device. Speeds are more than sufficient (There is a 150mb/s version and 400 mb/s version) and price is great.

Thanks for the link, but I already own this one and how slow it quickly throttles is the entire reason I’m here looking for a better solution. I have my movies backed up (4GB each) and this very drive spent the entire day and then some copying a couple of handfuls. It was so ridiculous how slow it became. So much so high capacity versions of this drive make no sense whatsoever.

 

[cyrusfox]

Thanks for the link, but I already own this one and how slow it quickly throttles is the entire reason I’m here looking for a better solution. I have my movies backed up (4GB each) and this very drive spent the entire day and then some copying a couple of handfuls. It was so ridiculous how slow it became. So much so high capacity versions of this drive make no sense whatsoever.

Weird, I have the older version (advertised at 150 mb/s) and I experience 178MB/s writes and 372.56 Reads when doing sequential IO task. RND Reads and writes... pretty horrible (7-10MB/s). Anytime I am dumping 10+GB walking away for 5 minutes and its done.

Only issue I have ever experienced is when copying from this drive onto a phone's microSD card, That can take awhile.

When I need faster I use either an M.2 enclosure or any of my CF express cards, but nothing beats the form factor of a flash drive, and the speeds are much better than what you can obtain from micro sd cards.

 

[Gillygong]

Weird, I have the older version (advertised at 150 mb/s) and I experience 178MB/s writes and 372.56 Reads when doing sequential IO task. RND Reads and writes... pretty horrible (7-10MB/s). Anytime I am dumping 10+GB walking away for 5 minutes and its done.

Only issue I have ever experienced is when copying from this drive onto a phone's microSD card, That can take awhile.

When I need faster I use either an M.2 enclosure or any of my CF express cards, but nothing beats the form factor of a flash drive, and the speeds are much better than what you can obtain from micro sd cards.

Try write to it 60+ GB in 4GB chunks and you'll see how much is throttles. Took me the entire day. You get what you pay for. Would love Corsair to make a dual-USB drive. Their products are solid.

 

[USAFRet]

Try write to it 60+ GB in 4GB chunks and you'll see how much is throttles. Took me the entire day.

How often are you actually doing that?
And why with a flash drive?

 

[Gillygong]

How often are you actually doing that?
And why with a flash drive?

Copying BD movies and TV Show BD box-sets like this? Fairly often. I keep digital copies of all of my movies and play them back on a variety of PS3's. (within the 4.3 GB file size constraints) I'm not really a gamer, but like the PS3 interface for playing movies. In all the years it's the best experience I found for locally stored movie playback. My only wish is I had a bigger hard drive in there. Like stupidly big so it was indefinitely too big. Alas, I make do. A fast reliable dual-USB from a reputable brand such as Corsair would be ideal for me. I like the versatility of dual-USB connectors, and I swear by Corsair drives and return policy. Frankly, all flash drives should be dual-USB now.

 

[pkar]

Why not mention flash drives with read-only / read-write switch?
I have such drive, Netac U235 and Netac U335. Maybe it is not super-quick, but ability to switch it to read-only is really great feature (if I have to use it in not my equipment, and even while using it at home, I can make all data on it 'ransomware-protected'
Maybe some article about different, possible features on flash drives, would be great

Also, can you check not only speed of flash drives, but also "environment tests", e.g. can I leave it on car black dashboard on sunny day, and data survives? How many writes are possible? How long it holds data?
And maybe another article would be great: options for long-term storage. Which technology is best to make "home archive" (rarely updated, but should be reliable in long-term perspective, e.g. CD-ROMs has about 40 years (with gold layer, about 120 years) when stored accordingly to libraries standard. DVD, flash drives, HDD, SDD... What I should choose to write now, and be (almost) sure that I can read it after 20, 50 years from now? Of course, we have not only medium (magnetic, flash, etc.), but also interface (e.g. probably USB interface would outlive SATA, and maybe optical drives would disappear in decade or so...).

 

[Gillygong]

Btw, I ended up buying this one. It's the fastest thumb drive I've ever owned. The build isn't the best in the world and the silly caps aren't reversible and I had to stick some yellow tape on one side to know with side was up, but the speed is very good and I'm happy with it in that capacity. Copying 5, 10 or 15 movies for me now is a much better experience than prior with that slow SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe .

The stupid image is loading in the edit view, but not in the saved-comment view. It's the Transcend ESD310C 512 Go Noir on Amazon.

 

[Jameschannelfan]

Man I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t know there were so many types of usb. Honestly I never trusted any other brands other than sandisk and maybe Samsung.
Seems I gotta re-evaluate.
-G