10
votes
Do small capacity, fast flash drives even exist?
I've been trying to find a small capacity (64GB or less) flash drive with decent read and write speeds, but haven't been able to find anything. I'm looking for something in the 200-300 MB/s read/write range, but I can't seem to find anything that reliably breaks the 100 MB/s mark even in larger capacities. The SanDisk Extreme Pro 128GB seems to have adequate performance, but at $65 is a bit out of my price range since I'd like to purchase a handful of drives.
Does anyone know of any other smaller flash drives with SSD-level performance?
Do you need the flash drive form factor? You can get USB enclosures for 2.5" drives for cheap, then throw in any SSD you want. There's cheap 128GB SSDs for $30 that claim 500MB/s read and 320MB/s write (though I'm sure that'll be reduced somewhat by the SATA->USB translation).
As long as you pick an enclosure that's USB3, it should be pretty snappy on any USB3 computer.
Your link says "up to", which is marketing speak for "significantly less than". And in fact, upon googling for actual benchmarks, I found that this is the case. Actual results vary from between 252MB/s to 39MB/s. Fast, but nowhere near 500MB/s.
Don't be suckered by the advertising!
How exactly do these read write numbers work? I've never seen anything close to what is claimed.
Transferring torrents from one pc to another is usually faster for me to just re torrent then copy to a usb and off it.
The fasteest ive seen was 20 megs and that was just a peak, usually with a usb3 drive and pc it's around 10 megs.
The flash drive form factor is pretty important for my use case. I have larger form factor drives that are quite fast, but I'd rather something smaller to be able to carry around more easily.
Ha, yeah those aren't going to cut it. Blackmagic is putting them at about 5.7 MB/s, which is about 20x slower than a 5400rpm hard drive.
I don't think those exist for the most part. USB3 can theoretically reach 640MBps but the actual implementation hasn't gotten there yet.
Why do you need such high r/w speeds for such a small storage?
USB flash drives in general are garbage. They are so slow and unreliable that I wonder if they are made exclusively with rejected flash chips for eMMC or SD cards.
A few years back I spent extra money on a flash drive that was advertised as being high speed and it still had read speeds slower than a mechanical hard drive. You are honestly better off buying a good SD card and USB reader.
I primarily want them for moving files quickly between machines and for running LiveUSB installs of Linux for quick troubleshooting.
Would syncthing work for your "moving files between machines" use case? It's Dropbox-esque, but open-source, Linux native, and very secure. Doesn't sync to a central server (though it can be configured to send encrypted traffic using a relay in order to bypass NAT).
That seems like the main thing that high-speed would be necessary for. The LiveUSBs can probably tolerate slightly slower storage.
It's more about physically moving files between machines. With gigabit ethernet I can transfer files pretty quiclky, so I'm looking for a flash drive that can write files and read them back in less time than it'd take to just transfer the files over the network.
Honestly...I think what you're looking for is unrealistic. Of (small, fast, cheap) you want all 3. Pick which one of those you're most willing to compromise on, and then you've got plenty of options.
I don't think it's that unrealistic considering "the [SanDisk] CZ80 reached an average read speed of 254 MB/s and an average write speed of 170 MB/s" and cost only $33 for a 64GB model. Unfortunately it's been discontinued.
CZ80 is still sold on Amazon. $22 for a 16GB version, which sounds like it would fit your needs nicely if you think it's fast enough.
The Amazon page says it's only 50MB/sec write though. Read speed is unchanged from that Wirecutter review, at 250MB/sec. Not sure if that's a difference in testing methodology or if SanDisk has switched to slower / lower-quality chips since the review was published.
Yeah, only the 64GB model had the really good performance numbers.
I see. I think the other guy's suggestion of external SSDs is probably your best bet if you're not willing to compromise on speed.
Here ya go:
Silverstone Technology M.2 SATA SSD to USB 3.1 Gen 2 Enclosure with Retractable Aluminum USB Type-A Housing in Charcoal Gray MS09C https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075ZNCVJ5/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_XkKKBbC6V40P9
You need that and a SATA m.2 SSD (not nvme). One of the reviews shows a crystaldiskmark at over 400 MBps read and 200 write. Obviously it will depend on what SSD you get though.
If $65 is too much, you'd have to find an m2 sata SSD for <$30 if you bought this.
That seems unlikely.
EDIT: huh, there's actually 64-128gb ones for around $35... total cost is about the same as the $65 one that is too much, but maybe if you catch a sale...
That’s what I bought for my “spare” Crucial MX500 M.2 drive and it’s damn fast (550MB/s seq read, 350 write) for such a small form factor thumb drive. I really doubt that performance would hold up if you put a super cheap, low capacity M.2 in it though.
UserBenchmark has a nice comparison page at usb.userbenchmark.com with thousands of tests submitted by users of various USB flash drives. A year or two ago based on that page I paid $35 for the 64GB SanDisk CZ80 you mentioned in another comment and it's served me well. Even then, it's still about 10-20% below the lower end of the speed range you're looking for. There's only a few flash drives that hit that range, so you're going to be paying a premium to eke out another 40-50 MB/s.
Yeah, I'm super bummed SanDisk discontinued the CZ80 and replaced it with the inferior Extreme Go. It's crazy that the best 64GB flash drive was made five years ago and that no one since has managed to make a comparable flash drive.