Which is better, plastic or metal for USB flash drives?

[AleksiDj73]

The question is the title, which one of the two and why? advantages/disadvantages of both etc. Thanks!

[RAS_3885]

For a normal USB flash drive use case they are functionally identical. Metal is probably a LITTLE more resistant to rough handling, dropping, etc., but plastic is also fairly durable these days. Also, exterior housing could be great, but if the internals are garbage it's a moot point anyways.

 

Metal might be a little more expensive and could weigh slightly more, but with how cheap and light flash driver are these days it's kinda irrelevant.

[AleksiDj73]

2 minutes ago, RAS_3885 said:

For a normal USB flash drive use case they are functionally identical. Metal is probably a LITTLE more resistant to rough handling, dropping, etc., but plastic is also fairly durable these days. Also, exterior housing could be great, but if the internals are garbage it's a moot point anyways.

 

Metal might be a little more expensive and could weigh slightly more, but with how cheap and light flash driver are these days it's kinda irrelevant.

Thanks for your reply!

 

Does heat dissipation help with metal flash drives or it's technically the same with plastic ones?

 

To help you better, i am in the market of buying a flash drive and specifically the SanDisk Dual Drive 256GB and there are 2 versions of it, one metal and one plastic and i was wondering if it made any difference mostly to heat

 

The metal one : SanDisk Ultra® Dual Thumb Drive Luxe USB Type-C™ Flash Drives | Western Digital | Western Digital

The plastic one : Ultra Dual Drive Go USB Type-C™ | Western Digital

[RAS_3885]

1 minute ago, AleksiDj73 said:

Thanks for your reply!

 

Does heat dissipation help with metal flash drives or it's technically the same with plastic ones?

 

To help you better, i am in the market of buying a flash drive and specifically the SanDisk Dual Drive 256GB and there are 2 versions of it, one metal and one plastic and i was wondering if it made any difference mostly to heat

 

The metal one : SanDisk Ultra® Dual Thumb Drive Luxe USB Type-C™ Flash Drives | Western Digital | Western Digital

The plastic one : Ultra Dual Drive Go USB Type-C™ | Western Digital

Haha, you're really overthinking it!

 

Flash drives don't really get that hot to start with, but without a proper thermal interface between the internals of the drive and the case the difference in material properties isn't going to matter.

 

That said, for a dollar extra I'd get the metal one if it was me.

[AleksiDj73]

3 minutes ago, RAS_3885 said:

Haha, you're really overthinking it!

 

Flash drives don't really get that hot to start with, but without a proper thermal interface between the internals of the drive and the case the difference in material properties isn't going to matter.

 

That said, for a dollar extra I'd get the metal one if it was me.

Yeah for some reason i do overthink crap a lot and it's not a good thing especially with tech lol.

 

OK bud, i understand. My brother has the plastic version of it and when i was transferring a 25GB vid wedding to his USB the other day, the USB was warm but not to the point of burning my finger, i could withstand it.

 

And tbh, here where i am, the price difference is 5 cents

[RAS_3885]

3 minutes ago, AleksiDj73 said:

Yeah for some reason i do overthink crap a lot and it's not a good thing especially with tech lol.

 

OK bud, i understand. My brother has the plastic version of it and when i was transferring a 25GB vid wedding to his USB the other day, the USB was warm but not to the point of burning my finger, i could withstand it.

 

And tbh, here where i am, the price difference is 5 cents

Haha, then metal it is!

[AleksiDj73]

6 minutes ago, RAS_3885 said:

Haha, then metal it is!

Oki dokie!

 

Thanks for your help bud, i will take into consideration what you said, i will wait for other people to see what they got to say and i will make my final decision when the time is right! Thanks once again and happy new year!