How do I buy a reliable affordable authentic USB flash drive?

Megahertz · 16 Mar 2022

How big the flash drives should be?
They must be tiny (very portable) or can me the size of a external drive?
There are many things to consider depending on the size and price.

- You have to take in consideration that the USB communication standard (USB 3.x) isn't the bottle neck. It's the flash memory chip. I have a 16G USB3.2 that has R/W speeds around 32MB/s. That is less than USB2.0 limit (60MB/s).
- Your time is money. If looking for a USB drive that cost less than $30 don't spent the afternoon looking for it on the local stores. Buy online on stores like Newegg.ca or Amazon.ca
- If you're looking for a high capacity drive / high speed, (256G and up) buy a NVMe M.2 drive and a USB 3.2 case. It will be faster and cost less than any pendrive.

MAIWO M.2 NVME NGFF SSD Enclosure Adapter,USB C 3.1 Gen 2 10Gbps or Thunderbolt 3, 6Gbps SATA PCIe M-Key(B+M Key), M.2 SSD Reader Support UASP Trim for SSD Size 2230/2242/2260/2280 - Newegg.ca

Kingston 1TB A2000 M.2 2280 NVMe Internal SSD PCIe Up to 2200 MB/s with Full Security Suite SA2000M8/1000G - Newegg.ca

Bree · 16 Mar 2022

RhinoCan said:

....I think I want to steer away from anything coming from China...

I buy and use usb sticks much like I used to use floppy disks, mostly as temporary storage for transferring between machines. Over some 10 years I have amassed a collection of several dozen. All of them get used and reused over and over again. I have only ever had two of them die on me.

My oldest is a "Udisk 2.0" 1GB usb of unknown country of origin, my second oldest (and by far the most heavily used/rewritten) is a nine year old 4GB SanDisk Cruzer Edge made in China. Both are still 100% reliable. My only two 'deaths' were a 32GB PNY (country of origin unknown) and one of my newest, a 32GB SanDisk Cruzer Blade made in Malaysia.

Matthew Wai · 16 Mar 2022

In China, a UDisk is considered to be a USB flash drive rather than a USB hard drive. The "Udisk 2.0" could be a Chinese product.

Bree · 16 Mar 2022

Matthew Wai said:

In China, a UDisk is considered to be a USB flash drive rather than a USB hard drive. The "Udisk 2.0" could be a Chinese product.

Well, all external markings (if there ever were any) have long ago worn off. Wherever it came from it's been totally reliable for over 10 years now. Statistically it's very likely to be a Chinese product, almost all my other USBs are.

I only ever buy well know brand names from big retail outlets, I never order any USBs on-line. That way I can be fairly sure I'm getting the real thing and not some cheap fake.

larc919 · 16 Mar 2022

Don't know how it will hold up, but I recently bought a metal Champaign silver 64 GB Samsung USB 3.1 drive from Amazon that measures less than 1 5/8" long and is the width of a USB A plug (Samsung MUF-64BE3_AM for US $11.99). It wouldn't look unattractive for somebody who needed to wear one on a chain around their neck.

RhinoCan · 16 Mar 2022

I appreciate all the answers to my question. Unfortunately, as I've delved into specific flash drives, I'm strongly inclined to the impression that the brand and vendor are no guarantee of quality. For instance, Amazon.ca had some SanDisk Ultra Flairs in their "featured" section (I assume that means they're on sale, either temporarily or to get rid of excess stock) and virtually every review of these drives was one star with a warning that they were fakes! So there's a name brand from a reputable vendor and it still seems to be a crap product. (They had some SanDisk Cruzers that had much better reviews.)

My reservations about electronics from China are fundamentally political, not technical, so I hope that answers that question.

I think I'm ultimately just going to buy a brand name, ignore its origins, and hope that the vendor replaces the drive if it turns out to be fake or fails. I'm also going to be prepared to lose my data and the use of the flash drive just as I've experienced with the two ADATA flash drives which have failed on me. That's far from ideal but it looks like the best I can do.

bobkn · 16 Mar 2022

I'd be a little surprised if amazon.ca sold fake drives.

I didn't see any reviews of Sandisk Ultra Flair drives there that only had 1 star reviews. The ones that I looked at had a few 1 stars, but they were a small percentage of the total. The reviews averaged 4 stars or above (by whatever arithmetic Amazon uses).

With Amazon marketplace vendors, anything may be possible. Amazon seems to do a poor job policing that.

I think that Newegg is about the same.

I suggest buying stuff that is sold by, or at least shipped by, Amazon. It's not absolutely safe, but their return policy is fairly generous.

steve108 · 16 Mar 2022

bobkn said:

I'd be a little surprised if amazon.ca sold fake drives... .

Not sure how often it happens, but I've read of this before:
Amazon commingled inventory system for sellers on Amazon.com

So fakes can be in the Amazon.com inventory.

Paul Black · 16 Mar 2022

Hello @RhinoCan,

Just a suggestion.

If you purchase one off of the Internet, like from eBay, Amazon, etc, you could always send them a message beforehand asking them if the actual size is NOT the same as the size advertised, would they refund your money. This way, it is logged beforehand. If it turns out that you receive a different size to that advertised, you will be covered, and therefore NOT cause any nastiness with trying to get a refund.

Just a thought.

I must admit that I have tried MANY different brands over the years, but over the last few years I have used Kingston, and I have NO complaints.

Matthew Wai · 16 Mar 2022

They may ask the customer to prove that the fake product was bought from them.