Flash Drive

NAND flash technology has seen rapid advancement in recent years. This has resulted in the capacity limits of SSDs and thumb drives getting pushed up regularly. Companies like Kingston had innovated in the late 2010s to deliver 1TB and 2TB thumb drives. They were overpriced and over-sized for their product class at that time. However, interest in this category has been sparked again by the introduction of high-performance native UFD controllers and the appearance of cost-effective high capacity NAND dies. Silicon Power and Transcend recently released 2TB thumb drives based on the Phison U17 and Silicon Motion SM2320 native UFD controllers respectively. Read on for a comprehensive analysis of the performance profile and value proposition of the Silicon Power MS70 in its 2TB avatar.

Transcend ESD310C Dual-Interface UFD Review: Silicon Motion Powers Portable SSD in a Thumb Drive

Transcend recently introduced the ESD310C portable SSD in a thumb drive form-factor. A compact device with both Type-A and Type-C USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) interfaces, the ESD310C...

28 by Ganesh T S on 6/22/2023

OWC Envoy Pro Mini Review: SSD in a Thumb Drive Exceeds Expectations

OWC has been a key player in the storage industry over the last few decades, particularly for Apple users. Their lineup of portable flash-based direct-attached storage devices has a...

19 by Ganesh T S on 3/2/2023

Samsung MUF-256DA USB-C Flash Drive Review: Thumb-Sized Performance Consistency

Portable SSDs have seen great demand over the last few years. Advancements in flash technology and controllers has resulted in compact drives delivering blistering speeds. These advancements have also...

20 by Ganesh T S on 7/6/2022

Crucial X6 Portable SSD 4TB Launches at $490: Phison's U17 Flash Controller Enters Retail

Crucial introduced the X6 Portable SSD last year as an entry-level alternative to their NVMe-based X8 Portable SSD. Launched in capacities of up to 2TB, the X6 adopted a...

1 by Ganesh T S on 3/2/2021

Silicon Power Unveils Mobile C10 USB Type-C Flash Drives

When the USB Type-C interface was introduced several years ago, it took quite some time for the industry to adopt it, which is why makers of USB flash drives...

11 by Anton Shilov on 3/29/2019

Western Digital at CES 2019: External Flash Storage Solutions Showcased

In addition to the SanDisk Extreme PRO Portable SSD and the 4TB thumb drive prototype demonstration, Western Digital also had announcements related to a couple of additional external flash...

7 by Ganesh T S on 1/8/2019

Western Digital Demonstrates 4TB USB-C Thumb Drive Prototype at CES 2019

At CES 2019, Western Digital is demonstrating a prototype of a 4TB thumb drive with a Type-C interface. To be more precise, the form factor is that of a...

19 by Ganesh T S on 1/8/2019

Kingston DataTraveler Elite G2 and HyperX Savage USB Flash Drives Capsule Review

Thumb drives are the most commonly used flash-based storage devices, thanks to their compact form factor and affordability. In our series of direct-attached storage reviews, we have taken a...

7 by Ganesh T S on 10/25/2017

Kingston DataTraveler Vault Privacy and EDGE diskGO Secure Pro Secure USB Thumb Drives Review

Thumb drives are the most commonly used flash-based storage devices, thanks to their compact form factor and affordability. In our series of direct-attached storage reviews, we have taken a...

19 by Ganesh T S on 8/25/2017

Silicon Power Launches Mobile C50 USB Drive with USB Type-A, Micro-B and Type-C

This week Silicon Power has announced a rather unique series of USB flash drives. Dubbed the Mobile C50, the Swiss army knife-type USB flash drive is a 3-in-1 drive...

12 by Anton Shilov on 7/27/2017

Lexar Launches 'JumpDrive Tough' USB Drives up to 128GB: Focusing on Physical Endurance

Over the last week, Lexar has introduced a new series of USB flash drives with enhanced endurance. The new drives are built to survive in tough conditions, such as...

18 by Anton Shilov on 3/29/2017

SanDisk Launches A1-Class microSDXC Card

At CES 2017, we had the chance to catch up with Western Digital to check out the updates from their end in the direct-attached storage space. After the acquisition...

23 by Ganesh T S on 1/23/2017

Edge Memory Announces Video Speed Class SD Cards`

As part of our CES 2017 vendor visits, we talked to Mushkin and Edge Memory about their upcoming products. For those unaware, both Mushkin and Edge Memory are brands...

16 by Ganesh T S on 1/23/2017

Kingston Launches DataTraveler Ultimate GT USB Flash Drive with 2 TB Capacity

Kingston this week introduced its new DataTraveler Ultimate GT USB flash drive with a re-freshed design and up to 2 TB capacity. The new devices are designed for those...

21 by Anton Shilov on 1/12/2017

SanDisk Unveils New Generation of USB Type-C Flash Drives

Last year SanDisk released its first-gen USB flash drives featuring two types of connectors: USB-A and USB-C in a bid to address the growing market of devices featuring USB...

25 by Anton Shilov on 6/1/2016

USB Flash Drives - Power Consumption Measurement using Plugable's USBC-TKEY

The power consumed by USB peripherals such as flash drives has typically not been much of a concern. However, with OTG support on the rise, mounting external storage via...

20 by Ganesh T S on 3/18/2016

Mushkin Impact 256GB and Atom 128GB USB Flash Drives Capsule Review

Flash drives are a dime a dozen these days, and most of them carry uninteresting specifications. In particular, flash drives advertising smaller physical footprints have tended to carry disappointing...

11 by Ganesh T S on 2/24/2016

SanDisk Ultra +Cloud 64GB + 64GB Flash Drive Review

USB flash drives (UFDs) are a dime a dozen in the current market. In order to stand out in the crowd, manufacturers have adopted a two-pronged approach. While one...

23 by Ganesh T S on 2/18/2016

SanDisk Updates DAS Lineup at CES

Billy and I met with SanDisk at their CES 2016 suite. While Billy talked to them about their internal SSD efforts, I checked out the updates to their direct-attached...

2 by Ganesh T S on 1/12/2016

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