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The best 16GB USB 3.0 Flash drives for under $20

USB 3.0 Flash Drive assortmentWhether you call it a jump drive, thumb drive, key drive, zip drive, or that thinga-ma-jig, the USB flash drive is an amazing piece of technology. Oh sure, there’s “the cloud” where you can store all your data on some server controlled by “the man”, but there’s nothing like having your data right in the palm of your hand on a nice little chunk of nearly indestructable Flash memory. (okay, seriously, don’t take a hammer to it. That will end badly.) But wow, have flash drives grown!

Originally, they were just a handful of megabytes restricted to a slow USB 1.1 interface. Now they’re all grown-up; 8, 16, and even 32 Gigabytes are common! And now they’re on the fancy, new USB 3.0 with its 5 Gigabits per second interface. (That’s a scorchingly fast 625 MB/s!)

Now that the future has arrived and USB 3.0 is found on all new computers, laptops, and tablets, what is the best flash drive to buy? Well, that’s a tricky question. Most people do not have a lot of money to throw around so this article is focused on keeping the cost under $20. And to keep things even, let us also look at only 16GB drives — A common size in this day and age. Which invites the question:

What’s the best 16GB USB 3.0 flash drive for under $20?

What a tricky proposition! Looking on Amazon.com reveals a plethora of USB flash drives. From the wide variety of drives, one drive was selected from each of the following manufacturers:

  • Silicon Power
  • Leef
  • Adata
  • Transcend
  • Corsair
  • Patriot
  • Sandisk

Of the seven, only the first 2 were relatively newcomers to the USB flash drive game: Silicon Power and Leef. And their offerings seemed different than the rest. At least on the surface. The rest of the competition has been around for quite some time and all have had solid offerings in the past.

Overview

Here is a table with a quick overview of all 7 of the USB 3.0 Flash drives:

Brand / Model Adata Elite S102 Pro Corsair Flash Voyager Leef Supra 3.0 Patriot Supersonic XT SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 Silicon Power Blaze B30 Transcend JetFlash 700
Cost per 16GB $14.50 $12.00 $16.00 $16.00 $20.00 $9.50 $11.50
Warranty Lifetime 5-year 5-year 5-year Lifetime Lifetime Lifetime
Max. Read Speed (MB/s) 112 78 130 109 140 42 92
Max. Write Speed (MB/s) 22 10 16 17 50 30 23
Adata-small corsair-small leef-small patriot-small sandisk-small silpower-small transcend-small

The flash drives in this round-up come in a variety of flavors and sizes. Some are sliders, some have caps, one is a swivel design, while another is tiny and has no cap at all. All of them are apparently well constructed. By now, it appears that most manufacturers have figured out how to design and build a solid flash drive since they all have either 5-year or lifetime warranties.

Speeds and Benchmarking

usb3-flashdrive-read-speedAt the top of the chart are Sandisk and Leef pushing read speeds of 140 and 130MB/sec, respectively. It should be noted that the Leef is generally the fastest at the smaller block sizes (up to 32KB). Tied for 3rd place is the Adata and the Patriot drives pushing data at a still brisk 115MB/sec, although it should be noted that the Adata is particularly slow at smaller block sizes.

After that, the 5th place Transcend puts up a good show at 92MB/sec and the 6th place Corsair clocks in at a reasonable 79MB/sec. And pulling up the rear is the Silicon Power at a paltry 42MB/sec. While not very fast compared to the competition, it is still faster than any USB 2.0 drive (all of which tend to max out at 33MB/sec.)

Without a doubt, the read speed winners are the Sandisk Extreme USB 3.0 (140MB/s) and the Leef Supra 3.0 (130MB/s). But that does not tell the whole story…

usb3-flashdrive-write-speedOne glance at the write speed chart and it is easy to see which USB 3.0 flash drive takes the crown for write speeds: The Sandisk Extreme, which clocks in at a blazing 50MB/sec!! Not only is it the fastest, but it is the fastest at all blocksizes and the nearest competitor is (surprisingly) the Silicon Power (which puts up a good fight at 30MB/sec.)

Taking a closer look at the chart, we can see a separation right at the smallest blocksize (0.5K) on the left side of the chart. The Sandisk, Silicon Power, Transcend, and Leef all start out relatively strong at around 2.5 to 3.25MB/s, while the Adata, Corsair, and Patriot cannot even break 1MB/s at the smallest blocksize. While not exactly a detriment because most flash drive writing doesn’t operate at that small a size, it IS a strong indicator of the quality of the flash drive controller.

UPDATE 8/13/2014: Drive size value chart

usb3-drive-size-value-in-dollars-per-gigabyteThis last chart is a little less interesting, but it gives a good idea of the “value” of the drive in terms of Dollars per Gigabyte. The average of the group being around 89 cents per GB.

The Silicon Power tops the charts with being $0.59 per GB, while the SanDisk on the opposite end costs a pricey $1.25 per GB. The Transcend and the Corsair both come in at $0.72 and $0.75 per GB, respectively, while the rest of the field hover around the “buck a Gig” mark.

And the awards go to…

After reviewing all the drives, it was apparent that there were 3 drives definitely worth looking at. Without further ado…sandisk-small

The Fastest: The SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 has a read speed of 140MB/s and a write speed of 50MB/s and just mops the floor with competition. The only drawback is that it costs the most at around $20 for 16GB. If speed is your main goal, this drive is an easy choice.

 

transcend-smallBest Bang-for-Buck: The Transcend JetFlash 700 is a real “sleeper” of a drive. It doesn’t look like it would be worth much. Heck, if you look on Amazon’s website, you’ll see a pile of reviews that say this drive sucks (apparently, the first batch or so had a connector glitch which Transcend quickly corrected and replaced on their own dime — the mark of a company with good customer service) and as such this drive only retails for $11.50. But boy does it put in a good performance with a respectable read speed of 92MB/s and the 3rd fastest write speed of ~24MB/s. If $20 is too rich for your blood, this 16GB drive is a bargain at $11.50.

leef-smallPerfect companion for a tablet or laptop: The Leef Supra 3.0 — Okay, sure. It’s the only tiny USB drive in this review and there are definitely others out there, but it is FAST: 130MB/s read speed; almost as fast as the Sandisk Extreme. And write speeds of 16MB/s aren’t too shabby, either. And the price is right: $16 for 16GB. Just plug this baby into the USB 3.0 port of your tablet or laptop and forget about it. Instant storage expansion!

 

silpower-smallThe rest: The Silicon Power Blaze B30 is also worth considering because it has such a strong write speed and is so cheap at $9.50 for 16GB, but the poor read speed is its Achilles’ heel.

The 16GB Adata Elite S102 Pro puts up respectable numbers (110MB/s read), but the 32GB model of the Adata Elite S102 Pro is a much better value at $17 (still under $20!). The Patriot and the Corsair are both lackluster and overpriced for their performance.

Epilog

When USB 2.0 was king, all flash drives eventually ran into the 480Mbps limit. Now that USB 3.0 has fully arrived, it is easy to see that some flash drives are clearly better than others. And we’ve only just begun to tap the full potential of USB 3.0. There will certainly be better flash drives in the future as flash memory and flash memory controllers continue to get smaller and faster. Stay tuned! 🙂

 

5 replies on “The best 16GB USB 3.0 Flash drives for under $20”

Any chance the silicon power was somehow falling back to a USB 2.0 mode instead of 3.0? It capped out at 40MB/s flat (which corresponds with the USB2.0 480Mbit/s roughly) and with such fast write speeds Im surprised it couldnt keep up in read mode.

Yeah, that really surprised me, too.

The specs for the Silicon Power Blaze B30 say 40MB/s Read and 20MB/sec Write. My tested results were 42 read and 30 write, so in both cases, the product exceeded its own advertised specification.

As a side note, I’ve observed that 32 and 64GB drives seem to have higher advertised read and write speeds, Silicon Power included. My next flash drive review will probably target 64GB drives and eliminate the price restriction. I’m curious to see what the results will be as I suspect the read and write speeds will be higher. But how much higher, I don’t know.

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