Cheap Fast Bulk Flash Drives?

[iamdarkyoshi]

Testing PCs at work is a pain because the people who send them in never reset the OS, meaning I need to reinstall windows or try ubuntu live, but we only have two ubuntu flash drives.

 

I need about twenty USB 3.0 drives that are 8GB or larger, and in bulk is better.

 

I don't need SSD speeds, but USB 3.0 is good.

 

Any ideas?

[You_are_a_cunt]

Doesn't USB 3.0 actually need drivers to work at full speed (or at all)?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Set up  a pxe boot server, faster than usb sticks, and its easy to work with too.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, revsilverspine said:

Doesn't USB 3.0 actually need drivers to work at full speed (or at all)?

yes, just like any usb drive. Linux, OSX, and windows 8 and newer have the driver's preinstalled

[Space Reptile]

i personally use a 16gb drive (wich is overkill) for parted magic , wich i use as it has benchmark tools and stability tests and all kinda nice stuff (inlcuding a browser) 

 

id go on ebay and look for bulk 4gb drives as Pmagic needs like 500mb 

[iamdarkyoshi]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Set up  a pxe boot server, faster than usb sticks, and its easy to work with too.

Flash drives are easier to work with here...

[joshfrog]

i just got 3 sandisk ultra flair and they seem to be good https://www.sandisk.com.au/home/usb-flash/ultra-flair

[iamdarkyoshi]

1 minute ago, Space Reptile said:

i personally use a 16gb drive (wich is overkill) for parted magic , wich i use as it has benchmark tools and stability tests and all kinda nice stuff (inlcuding a browser) 

 

id go on ebay and look for bulk 4gb drives as Pmagic needs like 500mb 

One of the things I use it for is battery wear testing

[NTDaws]

4 minutes ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

Testing PCs at work is a pain because the people who send them in never reset the OS, meaning I need to reinstall windows or try ubuntu live, but we only have two ubuntu flash drives.

 

I need about twenty USB 3.0 drives that are 8GB or larger, and in bulk is better.

 

I don't need SSD speeds, but USB 3.0 is good.

 

Any ideas?

http://www.staples.ca/en/Gigastone-16GB-USB-Drive-3-Pack/product_2458429_2-CA_1_20001?kpid=2458429&cid=PS:SBD:GS:n:n:SBD:58:21800&prof=58&camp=41483&affcode=pg289872&kct=google&kchid=5118821699&cid=47003050096&networkType=search&kdv=c&kpid=2458429&kmc=10327878&criteriaid=pla-278022652781&adgroupid=14743107016&campaignid=323578936&locphy=9001284&adpos=1o2&url=http://clickserve.dartsearch.net/link/click?lid=92700011712274346&gclid=Cj0KEQiAnvfDBRCXrabLl6-6t-0BEiQAW4SRUMOD7-tlAQGNgmSKBGYuJ6T3qjM2owc4StbpnU8KSmIaAv1O8P8HAQ

[NTDaws]

You don't really need usb 3.0 you could also do network installs with Serva instead.

[Space Reptile]

1 minute ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

One of the things I use it for is battery wear testing

p magic? or in general 

also , usb3 is not recommended as the ports need drivers 

a normal 2.0 drive will be just fine 

[NTDaws]

http://www.vercot.com/~serva/

 

Very easy to use

[dalekphalm]

23 minutes ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

Testing PCs at work is a pain because the people who send them in never reset the OS, meaning I need to reinstall windows or try ubuntu live, but we only have two ubuntu flash drives.

 

I need about twenty USB 3.0 drives that are 8GB or larger, and in bulk is better.

 

I don't need SSD speeds, but USB 3.0 is good.

 

Any ideas?

If you have a supplier, check with them for bulk pricing. We're not even a retailer, and our supplier can get us very good discounts. We recently bought 20 64GB Lexar S75's. Read and Write speeds are solid, but not true NAND SSD speeds. I got mine for around $22 CAD each, which is damn good for USB 3.0 and 64GB.

 

I would avoid off-brand USB drives like the plague.

[iamdarkyoshi]

Just purchased a crapload of kingston's USB 3.0 aluminum chassis flash drives, 8GB sticks. They should do nicely.

[corrado33]

On 1/17/2017 at 0:37 PM, iamdarkyoshi said:

Just purchased a crapload of kingston's USB 3.0 aluminum chassis flash drives, 8GB sticks. They should do nicely.

Unfortunately, you probably bought some of the worst performing flash drives.

 

 

 

Check out the flash drive showdown I did a while back. Wish I would have gotten to this thread before you purchased anything.

 

 

 

 

[iamdarkyoshi]

27 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

Unfortunately, you probably bought some of the worst performing flash drives.

 

 

 

Check out the flash drive showdown I did a while back. Wish I would have gotten to this thread before you purchased anything.

 

 

 

 

The newegg listing said 100mbyte/s read speeds, and booting an OS is mainly read, so I went with them... Thanks for that thread though, I'll keep it in mind!

[dalekphalm]

11 minutes ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

The newegg listing said 100mbyte/s read speeds, and booting an OS is mainly read, so I went with them... Thanks for that thread though, I'll keep it in mind!

Did you buy the SE9's? I almost bought those when I was looking for the 20 USB's, but I decided against it because their write performance is utter crap compared to the read performance (Which is pretty solid). But if you're just loading bootable OS images on to them, you're gonna be doing 99% reads anyway, so it's all good. The Lexar S75's we got are quite good though, in case you need ones with good all around specs that aren't overly expensive.

[piemadd]

On 1/17/2017 at 2:37 PM, iamdarkyoshi said:

Just purchased a crapload of kingston's USB 3.0 aluminum chassis flash drives, 8GB sticks. They should do nicely.

link?

[iamdarkyoshi]

1 minute ago, Implosivetech said:

link?

Here, combo pricing. Newegg always pulls this shit after I buy stuff.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.3361985

[corrado33]

3 hours ago, Implosivetech said:

link?

There is a reason they are so cheap. They are awful. I highly suggest buying other flash drives...