A review of 2 best value pendrives

Two Best Low-End Pen Drives

In today’s world of 4k videos, all that matter is the bulk storage and high transfer speed. Flash drives are now a primary option for data storage, however, after the hard drives. Such flash drives initially appeared with only 8 Megabytes, have now spanned over to 1 terabyte of space. First ever flash drive was released commercially by IBM and Trek Technology, in 2000; which featured five times the space of a floppy drive i.e. 8 MB, which was quite an achievement in those days. By 2005, all the computers started coming with the USB (universal serial bus) port and floppy both; soon floppy drives were taken over by these portable small devices for carrying the bulk amount of data with ease.

The most comprehensive thing about these flash drives is the ease of usage; work on the principle on plug and play and supports most of the operating system. The classification of such USB flash drives is usually done on the basis of their speed and size. There are four generations of USB drives which have been developed till now, as USB 1.0, USB 2.0, USB 3.0 and USB 3.1.

Which one to Choose?

While choosing the USB flash drive, the most important things to consider is the speed, interface type and the capacity. Capacity of these devices are measure in Gigabytes, where in 1 Gigabyte = 1,000,000,000 bytes; which is far from the theoretical value i.e. 1,073,741,824 bytes. The same is the reason capacity of the drive when observed in computers is always less than the capcity prescribed on the product details. Speed depends on the type of interface present in the device; currently USB 3.0 and Type-c are the fastest types.

USB 1.0 is the first in the series with minimum speed 1.5 Megabits/seconds and maximum 12 Megabits/second. This might seem sufficient speed, however, it is megabits/seconds; usually, computers shows speed in megabytes/seconds so the speed would be in between 187 Kbps to 1.5 MBps.

Keeping in view the lower speeds of USB 1.0, USB 2.0 were developed; where speeds could be as high as 480 Mbps (57 MBps). However, as the controller was the same for all the ports, the speed was distributed among the ports; this was soon redesigned by providing multiple port controllers or what we call port replicators. Such controllers also have the capability of support previous devices, so there was no chaos of the outdated drives completely rolling out.

Then came the USB 3.0, where the speed was increased to be up to 5Gbps (572 MBps), theoretically, though. This also had the same issue of a single controller, which have not met any solution so far. They too support all previous technologies developed. Lastly, USB 3.1 which is the type-c flash drive is in the developmental stage for commercial usage.

SanDisk (SDDD2-032G-G46) 32 GB:

San disk ultra USB device is well known for its high speed and high capacity. The flash device is available in four variants on the basis of their storage i.e. 16 GB, 32 GB, 64 GB and 128 GB. All of the variant works on USB 3.0 technology, so are quite good in terms of speed. It can be used in all major operating system including Windows, Mac, and Linux too. However, there are also drivers available if your OS doesn’t support the device. The main specialty of the device is OTG support; wherein it can be used in android phones by directly connecting them to the C-type port; well, yes it does have a C-type connector too, making it all the way more useful and ready for the future devices, where the C-Type interface is going to take over the USB ports.

It has a USB port at the one end and C-Type interface at the other, which can be used to bridge different devices as tablets, mobile phones and laptops with one another on the go.

Technical Description:

• Storage Capacity: 16GB, 32GB, 64GB and 128GB.
• Built on USB 3.0, with support to USB 2.0 and USB 1.0.
• Plug and play support for Windows and Mac.
• OTG support to Android and iOS.
• Dual connector i.e. USB port and C-Type port.
• Read speed up 150 MB/s.
• 5-year warranty by manufacturer

San Disk Cruzer Blade:

San disk Cruzer blade is one of the most popular flash drives. It works on USB 2.0 with a maximum speed of 60MB/s and is available in five variants according to the storage capacity. It lacks C-Type interface and USB 3.0 technology, however, is still of considerable use, due to its price and reliable. It available in 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB and 128GB storage sizes. The device supports plug and play in Windows and Mac operating systems. Sleek design and small size make it a portable memory storage device. Adhering to the USB 2.0 interface the speed of the device is quite, which will gradually more decrease when going from low capacity to high capacity drive.

Technical Description:

• Storage Capacity: 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB and 128GB.
• Built on USB 2.0, with support for USB 1.0.
• Plug and play support for Windows and Mac.
• No OTG support
• USB port present and C-Type port not present.
• Read speed up 600 MB/s.

Both of the above devices are most popular among the USB flash drives under the budget with maximum benefits. If looking for a high-speed media storage device, which is to be used frequently, then go with the Sandisk 32 GB, as it offers USB 3.0 and C type interface, both of them offers speed in the range of 150-160 MBps. However, if the data is to be stored once for a long time, then Cruzer blade would be a good option, as its price is quite lower than that of the former.