Best USB Flash Drives and External SSDs

SIW2 · Jan 15, 2022

You could test it it by copying a 9gb file and watching the transfer speed the same way the commenter did..

I wondered if this cheaper brand behaves in a similar way

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07RWPF43G/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&psc=1

It doesnt seem to according to this poster

Check out this Amazon review of ARCANITE 128GB USB 3.1 Flash Drive, USB Memory Stick, optimal read speeds up to 400 MB/s

Read 325 MB/s writes 125 MB/s - SSD speeds in a flash drive!

www.amazon.co.uk

so maybe that older SanDisk Extreme usb3 stick that copied at 180mbs does a pretty good job

Ghot · Jan 15, 2022

SIW2 said:
You could test it it by copying a 9gb file and watching the transfer speed the same way the commenter did..

I wondered if this cheaper brand behaves in a similar way

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07RWPF43G/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&psc=1

It doesnt seem to according to this poster

Check out this Amazon review of ARCANITE 128GB USB 3.1 Flash Drive, USB Memory Stick, optimal read speeds up to 400 MB/s

Read 325 MB/s writes 125 MB/s - SSD speeds in a flash drive!

www.amazon.co.uk

so maybe that older SanDisk Extreme usb3 stick that copied at 180mbs does a pretty good job

Well we need to be cognizant of two things.
1. Amazon reviews
2. My WD Black 4TB and 8TB HDD...

It copies or pastes anything, any size... either direction at ~232MB/s

My 1TB and 2TB Blacks...were the same.

Here's a copy/paste of 43GB of approx. 2.5GB sized movies from the 4TB Black to the 8TB Black...

And here is a copy/paste of one 19GB backup, from the 4TB to the 8TB...

As I mentioned before... Macrium Backup from SSD to one of these HDDs... 2:32
From SSD to Corsair USB stick... 4:00
My SSD is Samsung 860 EVO 500GB (2.5" SATA III)

Found this as well...

Best Flash Drives: Kingston DataTraveler Max & Sandisk Extreme Pro

We put eight USB 3.2 drives from Corsair, Kingston, Lexar, Samsung, and Sandisk to test. They all come from reliable brands that have been […]

www.everythingusb.com

SIW2 · Jan 15, 2022

You have not used the same testing method.

PerpetualCycle · Jan 15, 2022

I have this 512 GB, not listed. For longer sequential transfers it does not do as well, it doesn't have a DRAM buffer, but it is only $75 on Amazon.

Ghot · Jan 15, 2022

I'm sure there are better or worse USB sticks for different people and different uses.

The reason I bought the 256GB Corsair GTX was to have a seriously portable external SSD, so to speak.
I wanted something I could take to other folks comps, when helping them with something or other.
Also... just to transfer a lot of files if needed.

Ghot · Jan 15, 2022

SIW2 said:
You have not used the same testing method.

Sure I have... and 2 or 3 others as well.

PerpetualCycle · Jan 15, 2022

My son just got a 1TB Samsung T7 nvme USB-C external drive for $109. GB/s reads and writes. Pretty small form-factor. Much smaller than I expected.

Ghot · Jan 15, 2022

geneo said:
My son just got a 1TB Samsung T7 nvme USB-C external drive for $109. GB/s reads and writes. Pretty small form-factor. Much smaller than I expected.

That's a nice one.
That was one of those I recommended to... @Alexey2912

SAMSUNG T7 1TB USB 3.2 External Solid State Drive - Newegg.com

Buy SAMSUNG T7 Portable SSD 1TB - Up to 1050 MB/s - USB 3.2 Gen 2 External Solid State Drive, Red (MU-PC1T0R/AM) with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

PerpetualCycle · Jan 15, 2022

Ghot said:
I'm sure there are better or worse USB sticks for different people and different uses.

The reason I bought the 256GB Corsair GTX was to have a seriously portable external SSD, so to speak.
I wanted something I could take to other folks comps, when helping them with something or other.
Also... just to transfer a lot of files if needed.

Sure, that is the whole purpose of posting different USB and external SSD products here right? Of course it depends on what you actually need and the cost, else we would always buy more than we need. I use mine for the same reasons as you, the speed is sufficient and I wanted more capacity and the Patriot I got fit the bill.

Haydon · Jan 15, 2022

Reading the last few posts, how do you folks manage your inventory of USB sticks?

Mine contain my really important data for which I want extra copies beyond my regular data backups. Considering that USB is a relatively young technology and nobody really knows how long a USB stick will hold their data ...

... I have resorted to buying a couple of new USB sticks every now and then, copy the data on it, and destroy the oldest USB sticks. Fortunately, it is only a small inventory (and it is becoming smaller and smaller with the ever increasing capacities of USB sticks) but I myself find my own practice a bit wasteful.

Just want to compare notes ...

PerpetualCycle · Jan 16, 2022

Haydon said:
Reading the last few posts, how do you folks manage your inventory of USB sticks?

Mine contain my really important data for which I want extra copies beyond my regular data backups. Considering that USB is a relatively young technology and nobody really knows how long a USB stick will hold their data ...

... I have resorted to buying a couple of new USB sticks every now and then, copy the data on it, and destroy the oldest USB sticks. Fortunately, it is only a small inventory (and it is becoming smaller and smaller with the ever increasing capacities of USB sticks) but I myself find my own practice a bit wasteful.

Just want to compare notes ...

USB flash sticks are NAND non-volatile memory devices just like SSD except less sophisticated because of the small real-estate available for the controller, DRAM etc.

Just like SSD NAND, they can only retain data without power for so long as the charge leaks out of the cells. I expect this is a shorter time for USB sticks, but probably still pretty long. So unless you shelve your USB stick for on the order of year or years without power no problem. I also expect the error correction technology in USB devices might not be as robust as in SSD because of price and real-estate.

What has really helped in performance of the USB flash drives of recent is the ability to incorporate UASP (USB Attached SCSI Protocol) which allowsthe USB flash drive to be seend as a hard disk by the OS. You can even retrim UASP capable USB flash drives.

So I was on the road of buying cheap smaller capacity SSD and throwing them out as I outgrew them and also found that wasteful. THat is why I jumped from 64GB to 512GB this time around.

Haydon · Jan 16, 2022

Oh, I didn't mean a memory cell losing its charge, although my poor wording could have been interpreted that way.

What I meant was that something like TBW (TeraByte Written) is not specified for USB sticks. For example, a Recovery (USB) Drive that you use again and again after WUs, green light after the last WU, and it fails when needed :eek:

hdmi · Jan 16, 2022

Slavic said:
Although a bit off-topic here, but my advice to potential buyers or upgraders of laptop: wait for arrival of the last 12 gen Intel CPU (Alder Lake), production of mobile CPUs will start in February and laptops are expected in March with Windows 11 pre-installed. It will be a significant step forward comparing even with current 11 gen Intel CPU, so you will be able to decide whether to upgrade current laptop or buy a new one.

About the subject: about a year ago Samsung SSD T5 was among the leaders (I have a couple of them), but now it is dethroned by more modern and better devices. For example, rugged SanDisk looks very attractive from the points of spec and price.

My laptop with an 11th gen Intel CPU (Core i5-1135G7) is from the end of December 2020 and it has a 3-year warranty period, though... I bought it new at 599 Euros from the local grocery store to replace my previous laptop (Core i5-7200U), and, it came with Windows 10 version 2004 preinstalled so the first thing that I did was update it to version 20H2 and visit the Intel Download Center to grab the latest official drivers. I later updated it to 21H1, and, during the first weekend after Windows 11 came out, I downloaded the Windows 11 Installation Assistant from Microsoft official website to upgrade it to Windows 11. All of this went completely smooth, as did upgraging my SSD and RAM. The 2TB Samsung 980 Pro was only 229 Euros inc. free shipping on Cyber Monday and the 16GB G.Skill Ripjaws kit was 57.86 Euros inc. free shipping so, knowing that I have only spent a grand total of 885.86 Euros, I don't really think I should be losing that much sleep over Alder Lake.

If you just wait long enough, everything will be dethroned (well maybe not Everything, but...).

CountMike · Jan 16, 2022

Some things missing from dedicated USB dongles are not having write cache and control of optimization (thru trim) and garbage collection. Those things can impact read and specially write speeds in real usage over time even if benchmark doesn't show it.
A "real" SSD, SATA or NVME, with write cache and adapted thru USB interface avoid such pitfalls and will retain read and write speeds over longer time.
One way to restore speeds of USB dongles is to do "Safe erase" occasionally after heavy use but that also may impact their life span as memory chips in them are denser and smaller than in SSD counterparts.
There is an option not mentioned. An USB adapter to SD memory cards. Most of them can accommodate all SD card sizes. Not only they can be used to back up data from phones or camera but SD cards are also small and take much less space. SD cards of highest rating can be just as fast as dongles.

Slavic · Jan 16, 2022

hdmi said:
My laptop with an 11th gen Intel CPU (Core i5-1135G7) is from the end of December 2020 and it has a 3-year warranty period, though...
...
If you just wait long enough, everything will be dethroned (well maybe not Everything, but...).

You definitely are not a potential buyer or upgrader because your last laptop already has the 11 gen CPU. But otherwise waiting a couple of months would be reasonable. And I completely agree that every tech in our world will be outdated soon or later. But should we wait indefinitely?

For example, initially I didn't suppose to buy current i7-12700K with motherboard, hoping to skip Alder Lake and waiting for next Raptor Lake because some new components are not yet mature or are too expensive, e.g. PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 RAM. But extrapolating in the future, I realised that my previous Skylake will be critically outdated when Raptor Lake arrives, so waiting is unreasonable. As a result, I used current DDR4 RAM and SSD (eventually replaced SSD a few days ago) and upgraded only CPU and motherboard, a partial solution which allows to buy more time. Now I think to skip Raptor and wait for next gen (14 or 15). But it's a desktop PC, laptop owners are more limited in upgradeability, so need to buy a device with good planned lifetime. You already have it.

hsehestedt · Jan 16, 2022

Haydon said:
Reading the last few posts, how do you folks manage your inventory of USB sticks?

I BitLocker encrypt anything that's personal or private on a USB stick. Then I place them in labeled envelopes and store them in boxes as in the photo below. I have quite a few boxes full of these. But I'm now slowly transitioning away from the USB sticks to NVMe SSDs. I'm still trying to decide whether I want to purchase an enclosure for every NVMe drive or simply swap then in and out. The tool free enclosures make it easy to swap NVMe drives in and out and without an enclosure the NVMe drives will store super easily.

PerpetualCycle · Jan 16, 2022

CountMike said:
Some things missing from dedicated USB dongles are not having write cache and control of optimization (thru trim) and garbage collection. Those things can impact read and specially write speeds in real usage over time even if benchmark doesn't show it.
A "real" SSD, SATA or NVME, with write cache and adapted thru USB interface avoid such pitfalls and will retain read and write speeds over longer time.
One way to restore speeds of USB dongles is to do "Safe erase" occasionally after heavy use but that also may impact their life span as memory chips in them are denser and smaller than in SSD counterparts.
There is an option not mentioned. An USB adapter to SD memory cards. Most of them can accommodate all SD card sizes. Not only they can be used to back up data from phones or camera but SD cards are also small and take much less space. SD cards of highest rating can be just as fast as dongles.

That is no longer true. USB sticks are out that support UASP and have a scaled down SSD controller that can do garbage colllection and they do support TRIM (as long as you format them NTFS). They generally lack onboard RAM write cache, but so do many nvme SSD nowadays. I posted one and the one Ghot posted surely has UASP support and probably the same or similar SSD controller. They appear as a SCSI disk drive to the OS and you can do anything you can do with a disk drive like partition them. The RAGE Pro drops down to 387 MB/s minimum copying a large backup file (37 GB) to it even without a DRAM buffer.

@Haydon. They certainly don't publish TBW durability numbers, certainly lower than typical SATA or NVME SSD, but the one I got was warrantied for 5 years FWIW.

I don't think I will ever buy a USB flash drive without UASP and a scaled down SSD controller again if this one I have works out.

Haydon · Jan 16, 2022

geneo said:
@Haydon. They certainly don't publish TBW durability numbers, certainly lower than typical SATA or NVME SSD, but the one I got was warrantied for 5 years FWIW.

Well, I tossed out USB sticks as young as 3 years young when I have heavily used it, and I tossed them out although there was no indication at all of any impending loss of data. On the other hand, I keep some USB sticks that are certainly older than 10 years if I have rarely used it.

I wish that there was more science to 'when to keep a USB stick or not' and less gut feeling of 'yes, my data is still there' if there can be such gut feeling at all, see the following.

What triggered my paranoia in this regard was a forgotten USB stick in a shirt pocket. It survived the laundry cycle, and I used it for another year or so with no problem, but it suddenly died one day :eek:

hsehestedt · Jan 16, 2022

I'm a huge believer in backups. I always have multiple backup copies. So, I retire a thumb drive when it stops working and have no concerns or qualms about using it till it dies.

Haydon · Jan 16, 2022

hsehestedt said:
I'm a huge believer in backups. I always have multiple backup copies. So, I retire a thumb drive when it stops working and have no concerns or qualms about using it till it dies.

Yeah, so am I and so have I. The USB sticks are in addition to my regular backups (plural) The thing is that USB sticks can die without the slightest forewarning and it's not a nice feeling that the extra that you thought you had may not be there at all, all of a sudden. But see the following about USB sticks with UASP support.

------------------------

geneo said:
They appear as a SCSI disk drive to the OS and you can do anything you can do with a disk drive

For right or for wrong, that makes me think that USB sticks with UASP support can be used in Storage Spaces (which is MS' version of RAID). A pair of such USB sticks can be configured in parallel, and the system warns you if one the USB sticks has died (or has problems) and you can simply replace it. Storage Spaces allows you to use dissimilar media, which is VERY convenient.

What I did not like about Storage Spaces is that the system nags you to connect them if you disconnect them (I like to airgap as much as possible to make it as difficult as possible for any malware to propagate) so I stopped using it. But maybe it is time to experiment again, a redundant pair of USB sticks is about as reliable as it can get.

------------------------

As to buy now or later, I looked at Dell > Deals, and saw quite a few generation 10 and generation 11 i3/i5/i7 desktops and laptops, on sale some with deep discounts. If I were in the market, I may be tempted. Of course, you exchange a couple of years of future proofing for the discount, it's a trade off as Slavic described.

Best USB Flash Drives and External SSDs

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