Hey guys,
So this is a timely return to the collective b/c I've been researching (my method of dithering) over the purchase of the "best (and biggest size for the buck too)" USB flash drive for months now. I've been trying to find speed tests/comparisons and it's been hit or miss on getting recent enough reviews as new stuff keeps coming out (and keeps getting bigger!). And user reviews on newegg and amazon and the like are also not consistent b/w sites or even within the same site for the same drive, so they're not much help! For example, turns out I've had one of the fastest USB drives for years, the Kingstong DataTraveler Elite 2GB one; so w/o realizing it at the time, I'm used to a certain level of performance. Now, especially if I get a bigger one, I don't want to deal with waiting for long file transfers b/c it's a slow drive, so I'd like to get the speediest (and most reliable too of course) one! So anyone been able to find out the straight dope on this? It seems to me that reviews need to get into SLC vs MLC (SLC being faster but not as big as the MLC ones) and maybe even what controller chip they use, as that might affect performance too, but no one (at least in reviews I've found) seem to get into that level of detail on a regular basis. .kind of like when you review computer monitors, it turns out that even though there are hundreds of brands, the panels themselves are made by like 3-4 main manufacturers and are just put into different bodies by Dell, Samsung, etc, etc so you really want to know who makes the panel itself; so with USB flash drives, would the same thing apply with the type of memory and the controller chip.? Any recommendations based on what people have and links to back that up? I've considering spending the cash to get up to 32GB, as that becomes a good backup solution, and could be persuaded to 64GB if there's some significant performance gain to it. And on a similar note about getting into the details and perf tests, can the same thing be said about SDHC cards nowadays, or do the class ratings tell you everything, so just buy a class 6 SDHC card as big as you can afford and you're set? If not, is there any relation b/w the parts in an SDHC card and a USB drive, as it seems like in a lot of cases, the USB drives are SDHC or even mini or micro SDHC cards in a case?! See where I'm going with this? Thoughts/expertise on this? TIA! BINO
