Five "racing" flash drives — record holders in terms of speed

A cute flash drive from Taiwanese lands is produced under the sign of the Silicon Power brand, the main specialization of which is the production of all kinds of memory devices.

The model will be appreciated by those users who prefer an attractive appearance: the combination of matte and glossy plastic with smooth curves of the drive case looks fresh and at ease. In addition, the Silicon Power Blaze B50 is made in a capless form factor — the slider for the USB plug is organically integrated into the image of both the black and red versions of the flash drive.

With a more meticulous study of the external "shell" of the portable data storage, you can see an activity indicator on it, winking red when reading and writing files, as well as an "ear" for hanging the drive on a string. Moreover, the weight of the model barely exceeds the mark of 8 g, and the dimensions of its case in length range from 51.4 to 63 mm (with the extended and retracted connector, respectively).

Initially, the drive is formatted in FAT32, while the user is offered to store data about 117 GB of free space. When reading files, the flash drive develops a speed of up to 250 MB / s (against the claimed 200), and the recording is performed in full accordance with the “boxed” values — in a speed mode of 70-80 MB / s. The entire volume of the drive can be "filled" with data in less than half an hour, and the procedure for copying information from a flash drive takes only 10 minutes.

As a nice bonus , owners of a USB drive will like the ability to download useful branded utilities: SP Widget, SP Recovery Tool Utility and Recuva File Recovery. The first of them is designed to create data backups, encrypt content and provide complete information about the flash drive, the second is to restore damaged drives, and the third is to regenerate lost files or permanently delete them.

What is not in the wide range of products of the South Korean tech giant Samsung. Expanding its spheres of influence in the line of memory devices, the company “rolled out” at the dawn of 2018 a USB flash drive with a stunning appearance and very worthy characteristics, designating the model with the name BAR Plus.

The drive is dressed in reliable metal armor with protection from all sorts of adversities. Its case is not afraid of shocks, diving under water (to a depth of up to 1 m for 72 hours), has resistance to X-ray radiation, and is also able to boast of magnetic stability. The operating temperature range of the flash drive is stated to be from 0 to 60 °C, and in the absence of data exchange, it is guaranteed to remain operational at temperatures from -10 to 70 °C.

The manufacturer claims that you can copy a 3 GB file from the drive in just 10 seconds. By simple calculations, it is possible to find out that the data reading speed in this case is 300 MB / s. In the 32 GB and 64 GB versions of the model, the maximum speed is limited to 200 MB / s. Writing files to a flash drive is traditionally slower.

In some cases, during prolonged intense loads, the case of the USB drive may heat up. And, perhaps, this is the only controversial moment in the flash drive. You certainly should not be upset about this, since Samsung's confidence in the reliability of its offspring is backed up by the provision of a 5-year warranty period for the product.

An extremely fast flash drive, according to the assurances of the American manufacturing company, quickly handles with the obligations of exchanging files between external devices.

The oblong body of the model hides a retractable connector in its bowels. With it, the length of the drive increases to an immodest 80-plus millimetres. The slider for the plug is located on the top edge, where a blue LED activity indicator peacefully adjoins it. Also an integral part of the design of the model is an eyelet for a keychain or lace.

The maximum speed of reading data with a flash drive coincides with the claimed characteristics and is about 200 MB / s. Things are traditionally easier with recording, but the figure of 150 MB / s still commands respect. When connecting via USB 2.0, you should not count on ultra-fast performance — the speed in this case will be limited by the interface bandwidth (up to 30 MB / s).

Part of the 128 GB of memory on board the flash drive is occupied by the SanDisk SecureAcces data encryption utility, which is useful for password-protecting the required files. Additionally, the user has the right to download the RescuePRO Deluxe programme to the computer — this software allows you to easily recover deleted information. In the bottom line, the model can be recommended to anyone who is looking for a fast and performant solution for all occasions.

Taiwanese company Transcend is one of the world leaders in the USB storage market. One of the fastest examples in its lineup is the JetFlash 780 flash drive with claimed read and write speeds of 210 Mbps and 140 Mbps, respectively.

When connected to a PC via a USB 3.0 interface, the drive demonstrates almost complete compliance with the characteristics indicated on the package: information is read at a speed of 180-200 MB / s, and when writing data arrays, the speedometer needle falls at 130 MB / s. The speed is expected to sag when operating with many small files, which, however, is typical of all representatives of the USB flash drive family.

Nimble work is not the only ace up the model's sleeve. In addition, it is notable for its good looks with a pattern on the case to match the chessboard, due to which fingerprints are not visible on it at all. The only criticism is the removable cap, which is not tied to the "body" of the drive, which can be accidentally lost.

The manufacturer kindly provides the Transcend Elite proprietary software package along with the flash drive. It has programs for backing up and restoring data, organizing it and protecting it from unauthorized access. The model is guaranteed for 5 years, which is an additional coin in the treasury of pluses of a USB drive.

The Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate GT flash drive impresses with its record capacity on board, commensurate with the volume of external HDDs, and a price tag of around $1000. This is a unique product of the American brand, which is a direct rival to "hard drives", not USB drives.

The younger version of the model got "only" 1 TB of memory. You can fill the entire available volume “to the eyeballs” in about an hour, since the high-speed performance of the flash drive is accompanied by fast data exchange: reading occurs at a speed of over the claimed 300 MB / s, and writing — 200 MB / s(as indicated on the package). The numbers are relevant for the connection method via USB 3.0 and 3.1 interfaces.

The drive comes in a metal case with a carefully stowed carrying bag and a USB extension cable. The presence of the last accessory is a mandatory attribute of the model, because when it is connected directly to the USB port, access to adjacent connectors is inevitably blocked due to the bulky dimensions of the flash drive (72x27x21 mm).

The Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate GT has an interesting implementation of the retractable connector mechanism: the USB plug emerges from the “body” of the model by shifting one of the body halves towards itself. The “outfit” of a flash drive made of galvanized metal plays the role of a heat sink and protects components from failure when exposed to external factors (high and low temperatures, shock during falls, etc.). And although the drive is fabulously expensive, there are simply no other alternatives to it. The only exception is the closest relative of a model of even larger volume in the face of Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate GT 2048 GB .