Four 1TB USB Flash Drives Tested: Is It Time to Upgrade?

[Admin]

We tested four 1TB flash drives against an external SSD and a budget flash drive to find out if your old thumb drive is worth ditching for something better.

Four 1TB USB Flash Drives Tested: Is It Time to Upgrade? : Read more

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

I would have liked to see the real world test involve transferring a folder, not an archive.

 

[deesider]

These tests only show performance of the drives at their best, when they're still shiny and new. I've found that after being filled to capacity a few dozen times, write performance degrades significantly with long pauses as the blocks are deleted. Probably too time consuming to test for a review though.

For a similar price the ssd drives should be much more consistent. Although, I've read that usb drives such as the Sandisk Extreme Pro use a proper ssd controller and may have the same longevity.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

These tests only show performance of the drives at their best, when they're still shiny and new. I've found that after being filled to capacity a few dozen times, write performance degrades significantly with long pauses as the blocks are deleted. Probably too time consuming to test for a review though.

For a similar price the ssd drives should be much more consistent. Although, I've read that usb drives such as the Sandisk Extreme Pro use a proper ssd controller and may have the same longevity.

Would be nice if all flash drives supported Secure Erase that SATA and M.2 SSDs do these days, and could be implemented into the Windows format dialog. Until recently it wasn't a big thing, but as write speeds for USB drives increase to the triple digits farther down the stack to the mainstream level, it's becoming more imperative that they do for that reason.

 

[mwestall]

Spell checker? Proof reader?
How many wrong ways, and how often, can one spell Mushkin, sometimes in the same sentence or paragraph?

 

[ProfQuatermass]

So much time has passed ignoring 1TB USB devices due to the shocking amounts of counterfeit devices on Amazon and eBay. How are we to trust these devices....

 

[cc2onouui]

So much time has passed ignoring 1TB USB devices due to the shocking amounts of counterfeit devices on Amazon and eBay. How are we to trust these devices....

Never.. That is the most untrusted product related to PC.. 10+ years ago the market filled with fake and low quality and until now it's only getting worse. I use them now only to install windows and to transfer files but as a storage to keep files? that something I gave up on, this is where HDD can't be defeated by any drive (trust)

 

[ravewulf]

I don't think I've used USB flash drives for transferring files since 2015 at the latest. These days I just use them for OS installation and all file transfers are done over Ethernet (1g, 2.5g, or 10g depending on the device) or to/from external HDDs that I use for cold storage.