Because these drives seemingly last forever, you could be hanging onto one that’s pitifully slow by today’s standards, and too cramped to hold all the data you want. Capacities of up to 2TB are an option with some models (and 1TB is becoming common), and performance on the best flash drives approaches that of some of the best external SSDs. Many brands offering 2TB flash drives offer some type of warranty. However, they don’t provide a warranty against data loss (and since the storage devices are functionally useless, getting a replacement drive won’t solve the consumer’s problem).

Unsurprisingly, the drive was inexpensively made (and easy to disassemble). The NAND flash chip was generic and had no markings to indicate a capacity. Key specs – Interface: USB Type-C with Type-A adapter; Storage capacities: 32GB; Claimed speeds: 200-300MB/sec read, write not stated; Extra features: None The Kingston IronKey Keypad 200 isn't your ordinary flash drive as you can probably tell from the picture above. Instead of just plugging the drive into your computer to access the files stored on it, you first need to put in a PIN code using its keypad. While this may be overkill for some, those looking to securely transport their most sensitive files will likely appreciate both the design and functionality of the Kingston IronKey Keypad 200. As mentioned earlier in this guide, there are a number of different USB types and protocols that you need to be aware of before buying a USB drive. The drive’s controller is a Chipsbank CBM2199E AP35981. We believe that the “manufacturer” made modifications using widely available utilities to modify the perceived size of the flash media.We disassembled several of these storage devices (and we’re using the term “storage devices” liberally) in our laboratory. Here’s what we found.

If the user tries to write a larger file to the flash media, the drive will appear to function normally — but obviously, it cannot write to the sectors that don’t exist. Larger files will appear usable after the “transfer,” but when the drive is unplugged from the computer, the data will disappear. All of our benchmark testing was done with drives plugged into the system's rear USB 3.1 Gen 2/ USB 3.2 (10 Gbps) ports. The Aorus board we used has one Type-C and one Type-A port rated for these speeds, so we were able to accommodate drives with both types of connectors. Key specs – Interface: USB 3.1 Gen 1; Storage capacities: 64GB to 256GB; Claimed speeds: 150MB/sec read; Extra features: RescuePRO Deluxe file recovery software, five-year warranty The iXpand flash drive's most important feature is its Lightning connector, which lets you connect to an iPhone or iPad and transfer data to and from that device. Considering how difficult it can be to transfer data from those devices without Apple's help, that feature alone could be a major selling point for the iXpand. But to get all that, be ready to shell out: The SanDisk iXpand USB flash drive is on the expensive side. How to choose the best USB drive for youNever buy used data storage devices. Flash media has a limited lifespan, and used devices have fewer remaining read/write cycles. Read more about how flash media storage works. Samsung USB-Type-C (‎128GB): One of Samsung's newer drives, this model sports solely a USB-C connector and isn't much bigger than the USB-A Fit Plus drive. But it's slightly more expensive than the Fit drive and had a tendency to land near the bottom of our tested Samsung drives in terms of performance. If you need USB-C and don't need a lot of speed (and particularly write speed) and capacity (it tops out at 256GB), this isn't a bad drive. It just doesn't stand out in any substantive way. And we wish its write speed were at least twice as fast as the 59-67 MB/s we saw in our sequential tests. Read speeds were, at least, much faster at more than 300 MB/s. Most devices include a small flash chip (from 8GB to 32GB) with minor modifications to a small amount of writable space located on the beginning of the drive. When accessing the drive, most operating systems will see a 2TB volume (or a 1TB volume, depending on the manufacturer’s claims). However, the actual capacity of the device is much smaller. When buying a USB flash drive, you’ll want to focus on storage first. If you have a large number of files, videos, or songs you want to carry around with you, getting a USB drive with at least 64GB is critical. Most USB flash drives go up to 256GB and a few now have 1TB versions.

What’s more, a few USB flash drives now have clever dual-interface designs, allowing you to plug the same device into your Mac or PC (via a USB Type-A connector) and an iOS or Android device (using a Lightning or micro-USB/USB Type-C connector). This can be handy for transferring files between mobile and desktop/laptop platforms. Hex editors are widely used in data recovery and computer forensics applications. When accessing the flash drive with WinHex, the total capacity seemed to exceed 1.9 terabytes. When we looked closely at the firmware, however, we found this device truly had only 32 gigabytes of storage space. Over the past year, we’ve received dozens of “2TB” flash drives from consumers. In every instance, the devices fraudulently advertised their capacities. What’s inside a 2TB USB flash drive? If you feel the need for flash drive speed, Transcend’s forgettably named ESD31C Portable SSD is the fastest drive in a true flash drive form factor, although Kingston’s DataTraveler Max wasn’t far behind on most of our tests, and was often a bit speedier when it comes to writes.Really, though, if you're going to run programs or an operating system from your drive –the kind of workloads that hammer storage devices with lots of small file reads and writes– you should definitely opt for one of the fastest flash drives or, even better, a speedy external SSD. Note that the Mushkin SSD took the top spot here, with the Orico drive turning in a surprise second-place appearance. A Note on Temperatures If you've used a flash drive in the past and written lots of data on it, there's a good chance you've grabbed it to yank it out when you're done and winced at the hot – or at the very least surprisingly warm – exterior. We've certainly dealt with uncomfortably toasty drives before, but perhaps that's becoming an issue of the past. You can tell if a USB flash drive supports USB 3.0 or higher if its connector is colored blue. Most USB-C drives support USB 3.0 by default.

Because the drive is operating as intended, the user will not receive any error notifications when transferring files that exceed the drive’s actual capacity. Given the falling prices of external SSDs and their general ability to perform better on longer-duration workloads (and particularly small file writes, which we'll see shortly in testing) an external SSD is often a better option if you are going to frequently be moving large amounts of files on and off your drive, and especially if you plan to run programs from your portable storage device. The larger surface area and improved controllers and components of external SSDs tend to be better at those kinds of tasks, though there are of course noticeable performance differences in that product category as well. Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage: Data Drive Benchmark The number after USB indicates the version of USB that is used by a particular device. Older generations have lower numbers as well as slower transfer speeds. If you don’t need the fastest USB drive around, you can save a bit by opting for a USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 drive but it will take longer to transfer files onto and off of the device. Since it has both USB-A and USB-C plugs — there's a slide to expose one or the other — the SanDisk Ultra USB-C offers a nicemix of fast data transfers and future-proofing, so you can be sure it'll work with a variety of devices going forward.