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July 2021 Ian chiu
We tested six 128GB mini USB drives from Kingston, Lexar, PNY, Samsung, Sandisk, and Team Group. Unlike their larger counterparts, these compact discs by design can still stay plugged in as semi-permanent storage, yet still be fast enough for everyday tasks.
Our choices
If performance is above all else, Lexar JumpDrive S47 and Samsung FIT Plus are the ones to favor because they come first compared to other mini USB keys during our tests. The S47, however, has an advantage over the FIT Plus when it comes to write performance while the FIT Plus is faster at sequential reads. But if you’re looking for a whopping 512GB, only Samsung and PNY offer it. For the budget-conscious, the cost per gigabyte of either drive is also reasonably low considering its fast performance. Our only complaint may be that the size of the FIT Plus is noticeably larger than that of the JumpDrive S47. The Lexar is covered by a 3 year warranty while the Samsung is protected by a 5 year warranty.
Who would need such a small drive?
Buyers who want a drive that protrudes as little as possible from a USB port should consider one. USB drives in general stand out quite clearly, so that they can easily bend when bumped repeatedly. This could easily lead to data loss and maybe even worse, a broken USB port.
By design, compact discs can still remain seated in a USB-compatible car stereo or laptop as semi-permanent storage for media. They can also free up valuable space on the laptop’s fast SSD for critical tasks. For this reason, a mini USB drive can actually come in very handy for some of us who might need an effortless storage expansion option.
Comparison of features
Mini USB Flash Drives on Amazon
Benchmark analysis
Our large file transfer tests (10GB MP4) proved that Samsung’s FIT Plus was an undisputed leader in sequential playback and that Lexar’s second-generation mini drive – JumpDrive S47 – was the best in terms of performance. ‘writing. Our other test, which involved round-trip copying of 5GB JPEG files (most of which was 4-8MB), found similar results showing Lexar and Samsung outperforming the rest.
It should also be noted that Samsung’s performance varies by capability. The 32GB and 64GB models can reach 200MB / s while the 128GB and 256GB versions can reach 300MB / s. Lexar claimed that its drive can reach 250MB / s, which is pretty close to what our S47 has reached in this benchmark. Finally, we noticed that Sandisk had performance inconsistencies during write operations. Our Ultra Fit would actually drop below 10MB / s before slowly coming back above 30MB / s. The same did not happen with the other drives we tested. And for some reason, Team Group C162 was stuck at USB 2.0 speeds.
Note that these two tests mainly focused on sequential performance, as we felt that most people would primarily rely on a mini-disk as intermediate or secondary storage for media data. These mini drives, without a decent flash controller, are inherently incapable of handling applications requiring fast random access. For this reason, we didn’t bother to do any additional testing.
Design and build
The low profile USB drives shown are all the same size, but as soon as they are placed next to each other, the Lexar JumpDrive S47’s small size compares favorably to others, albeit only a fraction. Once inserted, the Lexar protrudes only 5mm from the edge of a laptop, as shown in the image below. This makes the drive an obvious choice for a complementary drive for semi-permanent storage on your laptop. The second best performer – Samsung FIT Plus – in comparison is noticeably larger, probably in favor of heat dissipation. All but Lexar have a keychain loophole, if you need it.
In terms of durability, Sandisk has taken a step backwards with its spongy plastic connector with the latest version of Ultra Fit 3.1. This is a concern that is already echoed by a number of user reviews on Amazon. That said, if you intend to leave the drive plugged in at all times, that shouldn’t be a big deal. We should say that the other drives with their metal USB connectors protecting the flash components could probably survive if stepped on.
Mini USB Flash Drives on Amazon
Nexcopy manufactures a variety of PC-based and stand-alone USB duplicator solutions.
PC-based systems use our proprietary, feature-rich Drive Manager software with advanced functions, while stand-alone systems are lightning-fast, high-speed copiers that duplicate gigabytes of data quickly and accurately.
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