256GB Flash Drive Recommendation?

[CrisR82]

A bit of background - a while back I got a Kingston DataTraveler 100G2 128GB drive which was the first time I have ever been highly disappointed with Kingston as a brand due to a very weird issue - writing to it pretty much every time at some point completely stops, then starts back again like nothing happened, then drops again and repeats...and even in some cases opening folders is taking several seconds for no real reason (as far as I can tell, the drive is fully operational, read/write testing also didn't show problems).

Currently, the drive is getting a bit small to store my stuff, so I am looking to buy a 256GB one to replace it, however I would very much like to avoid those problems if possible, so I wanted to see if anyone has a better recommendation for me.

My price range is around $50 (well, 100levs since I'm in Bulgaria). I CAN go slightly higher if it will make a worthwhile difference, but in general I'm not looking for blazing fast drives.

 

My use case - have all my game development (RPG Maker...yes, I know...) assets and backups in a small formfactor that I can just pop-in and use immediately between my PC and laptops.

I also considered the use of an SD card instead but according to info I got in the past, that wasn't a good idea compared to a USB drive...not sure how true that is.

 

A few models I have listed in a local store here within this price range:

Sandisk Ultra

Sandisk Ultra Fit

Sandisk Ultra Luxe

Sandisk Ultra Flair

Sandisk Ultra Dual Drive

Kingston DataTraveler 100G2

(not necessarily looking at a recommendation between them, just adding them as what I've been looking at so far)

 

Any tips or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

[SupaKomputa]

You want a fast and reliable usb stick?

Build yourself a NVME usb drive.

Get a USB to M.2 enclosure and just put an nvme drive of your liking.

 

Too big? Get the 2242 size.

[CrisR82]

4 hours ago, SupaKomputa said:

You want a fast and reliable usb stick?

Build yourself a NVME usb drive.

Get a USB to M.2 enclosure and just put an nvme drive of your liking.

 

Too big? Get the 2242 size.

I'm pretty sure that would be way above $50 so not really an option.

[SupaKomputa]

Spend $50 for a rubbish USB Stick that don't last long?

The enclosure is just $5-10, 256gb ssd around $35-40.

You'll get  500+ MB/s speed, and longer lifetime.