How do you find a reliable USB key?

[Nagby]

I mostly need it for OS installs but I just ran out of working USB keys (most of them were bundled with other things).

But when I was looking for reliable USB keys, I found that most of the brands that get a good reputation then gets conterfeited a lot.

 

So, how do you find your USB keys?

Is there a "safe" manufacturer that you can buy directly from?

Do you just buy many of them from several places and hope that one of them will work for more than 2/3 years?

 

Thanks.

[shoutingsteve]

Counterfeits are easily avoided by shopping with reputable dealers.  Since you are in France, I can't recommend any specific shops, but as long as you avoid buying online from companies you've never heard of; you will be fine.

[WhitetailAni]

I've never bought a single USB key. Every single one of mine has been found of passed down.

That said, Silicon Power/Magic (that drive is installing Linux right now) has been serving me well.

[Levent]

I buy known brands from reputable vendors. I have one USB drive that I got in 6th grade that still works after 15 years.

[paddy-stone]

I haven't had a single fake USB flash drive. I have had a couple fail on me after many years of usage, though TBH at that point they were almost useless as they were old standards by then and not very fast read/writes. I buy several a year at least, and have many spares for the OS's that I install regularly enough to not bother wiping them and just keep them for when I need to install it again. 

I have many "spare" flash drives that I keep in a plastic box for when I need to write a new OS or whatever, I tend to get a few different brands like kingston/sandisk/pny etc and in some different port configs too such as dual ended USB 3.1 Type A/Type C. 

 

I usually buy from Amazon, and look at whatever size I need, for instance 64/128GB flash drives are the most cost effective for the size, and getting smaller size wouldn't reduce the cost much, so might as well get the bigger size, eg 64GB drive around £6-8, and 32GB is not much cheaper. You can also get some 128GB drives for around £10 that are OK for installation drives or low storage medium (like for documents for example).

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=128gb+usb+stick

[Nagby]

The fake USB keys are apparently hard to spot

this is where i got this idea from : https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-reliable-brands-of-USB-flash-memory "I’m afraid any answers you get here aren’t necessarily true..."

And i actually had 2 Sandisk and 1 Kingston key (in addition to several no name ones) and still had the experience of unreliable speeds and getting unusable after 2/3 years.

[Nagby]

also, when looking for USB keys on amazon, even though most of them have above 4.5/5 stars, when looking at the reviews, all of them are under 3 stars...

idk if this will show the same page as what I see but as examples : 

https://www.amazon.fr/Vitesse-SanDisk-vitesse-lecture-SDCZ48-128G-U46/dp/B00P8XQPY4/ref=sr_1_3?__mk_fr_FR=ÅMÅŽÕÑ&dchild=1&keywords=clé%2Busb%2B128&qid=1613228542&s=computers&sr=1-3&th=1

https://www.amazon.fr/Kingston-DT100G3-218GB-DataTraveler-Flash/dp/B016BEPP9O/ref=sr_1_7?__mk_fr_FR=ÅMÅŽÕÑ&dchild=1&keywords=clé%2Busb%2B128&qid=1613228687&s=computers&sr=1-7&th=1

https://www.amazon.fr/Corsair-CMFVY3A-32GB-Voyager-Imperméable-Lecteur/dp/B00S89EMB8/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_fr_FR=ÅMÅŽÕÑ&crid=6WD0BAXCNO44&dchild=1&keywords=clé%2Busb%2Bcorsair&qid=1613228881&s=computers&sprefix=clé%2Busb%2Bcor%2Ccomputers%2C166&sr=1-1&th=1

[metaleggman]

1 hour ago, Nagby said:

And i actually had 2 Sandisk and 1 Kingston key (in addition to several no name ones) and still had the experience of unreliable speeds and getting unusable after 2/3 years.

How much use did they get?  USB keys don't often use the most resilient form of NAND flash from what I understand, which is why TrueNAS more or less stopped supporting them for running its appliances off of usb keys (I tried installing to a USB key on an internal USB A port and it was taking hours, rather than minutes, so there's that too lol; was told this was a good idea incase of drive failure).  If you wrote to them far more than they expected you to, it's possible that's why they died prematurely.

If you really want to know you're getting something high quality, and you're willing to deal with the physical size and get a 2.5" sata + power to usb adapter, you could always just get an old enterprise slc ssd and use that.  I recently bought an Intel DC S3700 at around $60 to act as a SLOG for my server, and because it was enterprise gear, it barely had any drive writes even though it had been up and running for a few years (granted, if you're really worried, ask the seller for the SMART data prior to purchase and check it with what's sent to you).  Otherwise, I feel for you.  Getting usb flash drives feels like such a crap shoot, since there's so many models and so few professional reviews.  Since Samsung produces their own NAND flash, they might be a worthy brand to look into, but they're generally more expensive; the other brands you mentioned are the ones I would have mentioned as well, and who knows, they might be rebranded Samsung drives lol.

As to counterfeits, just make sure they're being sold by Amazon directly and you should be good.  It's possible counterfeits have evolved since I was last aware of their telltale signs, but generally they're going to offer obscene capacity for a low price (so 256gb for the price of a 32gb drive), and while they'll appear to windows as being the size on the tin, they'll basically just overwrite other data once you get past the actual capacity of the drive.  Pretty sure you can see the proper size of the drive with the right software, as well.