Is it even worth it?

[Princess Luna]

I have 3 16gb USB 2.0 pendrives or thumb drives or whatever you like to call these.

 

They are quite old as you'd expect being 2.0 still, like I have been using them forever and I don't have that many use other than you know plugging to a TV to watch a movie/anime off it, sometimes move files from a computer to another the old fashion way like on my mother's laptop and what not because it's not configured for lan sharing.

 

All in all not too many user cases any more for these I'll be honest and given how 16gb still is enough to install windows whenever I am reformatting to friend or something they serve me well, back up their photos and what not in an easy way etc.

 

The point I am getting across is that they work however the cap at around 4,5mb/s write speed can be frustrating at times, so I searched my local market and the most affordable 3.0 stick drive I found was a SanDisk 32GB Ultra Flair 3.0 which for its price, as a black friday deal, seemed like a good deal.

 

Thing is, I should pay for it today and before doing so I went look for benchmarks on YouTube for this device, and from I could find it seems the sequential write speeds tops at 16mb/s... which I'll be honest isn't that big of a jump from 4,5mb/s.

 

Is there an improvement? yes there is, and I can afford the drive but honestly I have been using these less and less and given the older 2.0 ones are still perfectly healthy, I am having seconds thoughts now, I don't think it's worth purchasing it any more.

 

Is there something I'm missing? What would you personally do?

[mopman94]

I've gotta be honest its a USB drive, you're thinking about it way too much. The fact you needed to make this post means no, you don't need it and can save the money.

[LukeSavenije]

I would personally get an external hdd. for daily tasks 2.0 is enough for me.

[Morgan MLGman]

I also looked for an USB 3.0 drive some time ago, ended up with a Kingston DataTraveler 100 G3. The same issue here, I was disappointed with write speeds because they're indeed around that 15MB/s mark. Read (i.e. copying files from the usb drive to my PC) is good though because it can even reach 80MB/s of sustained throughput.

So from this experience, I'd suggest looking for a higher-end pen drive that gives you good write speeds as well.

[narek90]

Hello. I want to be honest and to say what I think. I think you do not need it. Save your money.

[WereCatf]

4 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Is there an improvement? yes there is, and I can afford the drive but honestly I have been using these less and less and given the older 2.0 ones are still perfectly healthy, I am having seconds thoughts now, I don't think it's worth purchasing it any more.

Eh, I like having a fast USB-stick for OS-installs because installing Windows is already a boring task enough even as-is, let alone if the drive I'm installing from slows it down even further; a fast stick to install from speeds the first steps up, and while the rest of the install takes however long it takes, I still, personally, like doing whatever I can to make it take even a minute less.

[Spotty]

Look at the USB M.2 sata SSD enclosures and stick one of those cheap $30 120GB SSDs in it.

 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817256198&Description=USB m.2 enclosure&cm_re=USB_m.2_enclosure-_-17-256-198-_-Product

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/vLBTwP/corsair-mp300-120gb-m2-2280-solid-state-drive-cssd-f120gbmp300

 

[Sauron]

An easy replacement if you want really high performance external storage is to just buy a sata ssd and a sata to usb3 adapter. At that point you'll get transfer speeds in the hundreds of mb/s.

[WereCat]

Just now, Sauron said:

An easy replacement if you want really high performance external storage is to just buy a sata ssd and a sata to usb3 adapter. At that point you'll get transfer speeds in the hundreds of mb/s.

Also SATA SSD cost less for each GB compared to USB 3.0 stick

[Taf the Ghost]

The Flash memory can't really leverage USB 3.0 very well without a full SSD controller & power delivery behind it.

[WereCatf]

8 minutes ago, WereCat said:

Also SATA SSD cost less for each GB compared to USB 3.0 stick

The overall cost is higher, though.

[Princess Luna]

Yes, I was probably over stressing too much over this, while a new gadget is always nice in the great scheme of things I don't need this.

 

Better get myself a .nice dinner out on the weekend then grab the new pen drive for much the same user experience.

[narek90]

Hello. I am very glad with a Patriot PEF128GSR2USB