Support quality USB flash drives

Have a Silicon Motion (Chinese) USB FlashDrive. 32G and likely may a
USB2 device. Silicon Motion may be the controller name only to more
obsequious assemblies therein.

Mysteriously, several directories containing gigabytes of data
disappeared. Directories remain, data gone. Occasional unstable
wooble to USB port causes connection errors, too. Beep, beep.

Purpose of use is a near-critical backup drive.

Replacing it with a USB 3.1 SanDisk Cruzer, on order and in delivery.
Very reasonably priced, the new unit -- as are most now when excluding
tuned-port exhaust, high performance models worthy of a comic-book
rating -- equally placed within a demographic, so surprisingly small
it is, indeed, for very few drives, actually, which people flock
solely to and buy exclusively from. Like ducks in a pond.

Moral of story for your grandchildren: Do try and avoid buying crap,
sony boy.

On Sun, 14 Aug 2016 02:20:18 -0400, Flasherly
wrote:

Have a Silicon Motion (Chinese) USB FlashDrive. 32G and likely may a
USB2 device. Silicon Motion may be the controller name only to more
obsequious assemblies therein.

Mysteriously, several directories containing gigabytes of data
disappeared. Directories remain, data gone. Occasional unstable
wooble to USB port causes connection errors, too. Beep, beep.

Purpose of use is a near-critical backup drive.

Replacing it with a USB 3.1 SanDisk Cruzer, on order and in delivery.
Very reasonably priced, the new unit -- as are most now when excluding
tuned-port exhaust, high performance models worthy of a comic-book
rating -- equally placed within a demographic, so surprisingly small
it is, indeed, for very few drives, actually, which people flock
solely to and buy exclusively from. Like ducks in a pond.

Moral of story for your grandchildren: Do try and avoid buying crap,
sony boy.

Yeah, cheap often really is. I bought an ADATA 32 GB USB 3.0 drive
from Newegg recently (on sale) and found out after testing it that
it's only slightly faster than a similar USB 2.0 drive. 41.4 MB/sec,
vs Generic USB 2.0 drive at 28.7 MB/sec, vs Silicon Power USB 3.0
drive at 117.1 MB/sec.

On Sun, 14 Aug 2016 02:20:18 -0400, Flasherly wrote:

Moral of story for your grandchildren: Do try and avoid buying crap,
sony boy.

All my flash drives are SanDisk (512MB, 4GB, 16GB, 64GB, 128GB). So far
no complaints.

--
s|b

On Sun, 14 Aug 2016 09:36:18 -0500, Charlie Hoffpauir
wrote:

Yeah, cheap often really is. I bought an ADATA 32 GB USB 3.0 drive
from Newegg recently (on sale) and found out after testing it that
it's only slightly faster than a similar USB 2.0 drive. 41.4 MB/sec,
vs Generic USB 2.0 drive at 28.7 MB/sec, vs Silicon Power USB 3.0
drive at 117.1 MB/sec.

On Sun, 14 Aug 2016 18:47:49 +0200, "s|b" wrote:

All my flash drives are SanDisk (512MB, 4GB, 16GB, 64GB, 128GB). So far
no complaints.

That's pretty fast, Charlie, even having the ability to measure 41-28
vrs 117. Wish I had updated MB USB3 ports instead of my old USB2 MBs
-- reliable MBs though they are.

SB, yeah, SanDisk does well in ratings. I was glad for that this time
around, not having bought a flashdrive since my last 128G -- hm, and a
Sandisk that "old" drive is, I recall for an unusual (low $30) sale,
being a year ago when 128G was more along a $50 price tag. A nice
settling point for pricing them now, where most all settled at a
common value/price: Just buy the quality at the same cost as there's
not much point to looking at the rest.

Of course there are occasional lowballed SSDs - saw BestBuy yesterday
selling a decently branded 128G unit for $39, 256G for $59. $10 higher
than a same size flashdrive at multiples faster speeds is pretty big
print. Immediately sold out, posted 12 hours before I checked, and not
available in my ZIP code. Much more and how long before SDDs become
serious contenders to USB storage yet could happen. Adding a
drive-bay SATA external adaptor to augment/replace USB flashsticks
would be the next step when or if SSDs do. Only thing which may be
lacking is the hot-swap BIOS/OS ability.

The old one I misidentified. It isn't a SanDisk, but a
Corsair 128G Slider.

Appears long-term rugged for a lot of usage for the past year.
Decent speeds. Basic model - no LED activity.

On Sun, 14 Aug 2016 17:58:19 -0400, Flasherly
wrote:

On Sun, 14 Aug 2016 09:36:18 -0500, Charlie Hoffpauir
wrote:

Yeah, cheap often really is. I bought an ADATA 32 GB USB 3.0 drive
from Newegg recently (on sale) and found out after testing it that
it's only slightly faster than a similar USB 2.0 drive. 41.4 MB/sec,
vs Generic USB 2.0 drive at 28.7 MB/sec, vs Silicon Power USB 3.0
drive at 117.1 MB/sec.

On Sun, 14 Aug 2016 18:47:49 +0200, "s|b" wrote:

All my flash drives are SanDisk (512MB, 4GB, 16GB, 64GB, 128GB). So far
no complaints.

That's pretty fast, Charlie, even having the ability to measure 41-28
vrs 117. Wish I had updated MB USB3 ports instead of my old USB2 MBs
-- reliable MBs though they are.

Simply measured using HD Tune. But "real life" transfers of large
quantity of small HTML file indicates the speed variation is huge
between the cheap USB3 drive and the Silicon Power one. Of course, as
best I can recall, the Silicon Power one was 3-4 times the cost of the
ADATA one. I only bought the ADATA one because it WAS cheap.

Charlie Hoffpauir wrote:
On Sun, 14 Aug 2016 17:58:19 -0400, Flasherly
wrote:

On Sun, 14 Aug 2016 09:36:18 -0500, Charlie Hoffpauir
wrote:

Yeah, cheap often really is. I bought an ADATA 32 GB USB 3.0 drive
from Newegg recently (on sale) and found out after testing it that
it's only slightly faster than a similar USB 2.0 drive. 41.4 MB/sec,
vs Generic USB 2.0 drive at 28.7 MB/sec, vs Silicon Power USB 3.0
drive at 117.1 MB/sec.

On Sun, 14 Aug 2016 18:47:49 +0200, "s|b" wrote:

All my flash drives are SanDisk (512MB, 4GB, 16GB, 64GB, 128GB). So far
no complaints.

That's pretty fast, Charlie, even having the ability to measure 41-28
vrs 117. Wish I had updated MB USB3 ports instead of my old USB2 MBs
-- reliable MBs though they are.

Simply measured using HD Tune. But "real life" transfers of large
quantity of small HTML file indicates the speed variation is huge
between the cheap USB3 drive and the Silicon Power one. Of course, as
best I can recall, the Silicon Power one was 3-4 times the cost of the
ADATA one. I only bought the ADATA one because it WAS cheap.

Interesting. After using SP USB 32 GB flash drive, I notice it starts
having problems reading and writing. It gets very hot too.
--
Quote of the Week: "I've been on some fairways that are as good as the
greens we putted on back then. We had crab grass. I remember one green
where I putted through ants." --Sam Snead
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Flasherly wrote:
....
Moral of story for your grandchildren: Do try and avoid buying crap,
sony boy.

So, what are the good brands?
--
Quote of the Week: "I've been on some fairways that are as good as the
greens we putted on back then. We had crab grass. I remember one green
where I putted through ants." --Sam Snead
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://antfarm.home.dhs.org (Personal Web Site)
/ /\ /\ \ Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net
| |o o| |
\ _ / Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail privately. If credit-
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On Sun, 14 Aug 2016 18:24:54 -0500, (Ant) wrote:

Flasherly wrote:
...
Moral of story for your grandchildren: Do try and avoid buying crap,
sony boy.

So, what are the good brands?

Most of my needs are for the smaller drives, 8 GB or less, so I
decided to go with the cheapest. I found no-name (ie generic) USB2
drives advertised for 5 for $13.89 with free shipping. I figured that
it would be hard to go wrong with that, and so far have been very
pleased.... no bad drives and reasonable speed.

For an SSD, I think I'd stick with Intel or Samsung. (I have one of
each, also an old OCZ that's showing errors)

On Sun, 14 Aug 2016 18:24:54 -0500, (Ant) wrote:

Flasherly wrote:
...
Moral of story for your grandchildren: Do try and avoid buying crap,
sony boy.

So, what are the good brands?

Sandisk has been around long enough to have gathered up most of the
best reviews for midrange to fair pricing.

That doesn't mean, though, a drive is best in terms of performance
because it's popular. For that you'll still have to hit the sites
publishing flash drive benchmarks.

The Sandisk "ultra" model (and below) and nowhere near the highest
rated model, its "extreme," for performance.

Tradeoffs:

-- Heat being one when able and with the correct ports to realized a
drive's top rated benchmarks. Some will tend to get pretty toasty -
potentially a melt-down, failed drive situation.

-- Construction. Is the drive flimsy, exhibits poor construction or
quality, breaks its connections, or will be the mystery grab-bag
selection from no-name brands ... a "take a chance" drive on how long
it'll last?

Prices are down, among somewhat more settled and easier to identify
review trends, two pluses, although added time both for researching
performance and enduser criticism also presents residual benefits.

I want something that's solid, not going to break due to questionable
quality, writes acceptably fast;- USB3 ratings will proportionally
help deliver in that regard for my USB2 rated MBs. All that, the
added performance margin in quality brands, should now be more easily
attainable at a lower cost. Which wasn't the case (as good a market
as now) a year ago, last time I bought a 128G (the Slider) - a decent
drive, IMHO, on an **especially** decent sale, IMO, for $30.

I'm [re]looking for a 64G class stick, now, having cancelled the OP
order, because I mistakenly bought a USB2 drive, thinking it was USB3.

Yours truly -
Duuuhhhh