Friday, March 29, 2024

The largest flash drives

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Storage tech has advanced to the point that solid state drives (SSD) can be shoved into tiny packages, and portable conventional hard drives can easily cram three terabytes of data or more into a casing the size of a wallet. But there’s still a niche for the good old USB flash drive, especially now that faster USB 3.0 ports are standard on pretty much all new laptops (and even some tablets). Here are the most capacious ones that money can buy, the largest flash drives in the world, and a few others worth considering for those who need massive storage in a tiny package. 

If you find yourself in need of even more storage, you could opt for a large external hard drive, or use one of the best cloud storage services.

Best of the big drives

Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate GT 2TB ($1,650)

Kingston eclipsed its own record-breaking USB drives with the release of the DataTraveler Ultimate GT in 2017, offering a staggering 2TB of space in a relatively compact package. It’s not as slimline as some of the other entries on this list, but considering it sports the kind of capacity that only a few years ago was the reserve of platter-spinning hard drives, that’s no surprise.

With full support for USB 3.1, the Ultimate GT is no slouch when it comes to file transfer speeds. It can read at 300MBps and write at 200MBps. It supports Windows 10, 8.1, 8 and 7, as well as Mac OSX, Linux and Chrome OS. Much like it’s smaller cousin, the HyperX Predator, this USB drive’s only real downside is its price. At more than $1,500, you would need to have a very good reason to pay that much for a USB drive, when you could simply use multiple smaller drives and spend a fraction of that.

Buy one now from:

Amazon Best Buy

Kingston DataTraveler HyperX Predator 3.0 USB 1TB ($700+)

Kingston’s previous jewel in its storage crown, the DataTraveler HyperX Predator 3.0 (say that three times fast) is still a fantasticly hefty USB drive. It’s a bit chunky simply so that it can fit all of the hardware necessary for that capacious drive, but it’s still small enough that it won’t feel out of place on a keychain. The Predator uses USB 3.0 for speedy data transfer, but at nearly $700 even at the reduced street price, it’s more than twice the cost of some of the 512GB options in the list below.

Buy one now from:

BestBuy PCNation

Corsair Flash Voyager GS USB 3.0 512GB ($260)

Corsair’s fastest flash drive is also one of its largest. The Flash Voyager GS USB 3.0 combines a sleek metal alloy housing with quoted read and write speeds of up to 290MB/s, assuming you have the USB 3.0 or higher ports to handle it. Street prices are hovering at right around $260 at the time of writing. That’s on the 512GB version – the lower-capacity GTX Voyager 3.0 can read at up to 450MB/s, but only comes in 256GB. For those who would rather save a bit of green, Corsair also offers the Flash Voyager GT and Flash Voyager Survivor series, both of which can be found at under $100 at the 256GB capacity.

Buy one now from:

Amazon Newegg

Patriot Super Sonic Rage 3.0 512GB ($250)

Patriot has upgraded most of its line of USB 3.0 flash drives to 512GB, and the fastest among them is the aggressively-named Sonic Rage 2. It can write at up to 400MB/s and read at 300, but you’ll need to pony up at least $250 for the privilege. The less robust Supersonic Magnum 2 and Supersonic Mega also come in 512GB flavors, for $170 and $150 respectively at the time of writing.

Buy one now from:

Amazon

VisionTek Pocket USB SSD 512GB ($265+)

The latest versions of VisionTek’s “Pocket SSD” line, which crams flash storage and an SSD controller into a tiny package, have improved the available storage considerably. The top-of-the-line model offers write speeds of up to 450MB/s with compatible hardware and up to 512GB of storage. But at over $250, it’s also one of the most expensive options at its capacity.

Buy one now from:

Amazon

PNY Pro Elite 512GB USB 3.0 512GB ($150)

Touting sustained read and write speeds of 400MBps and 250MBps respectively, the PNY Pro Elite 512GB is a very affordable way to get yourself a massive amount of storage in a small form factor. It’s hardly the most eye-catching of USB drives, but it’s quick, compact and can fit just about anything you want. Game installs? No problem. Hundreds of hours of video? It can do it. Your entire music collection? Easy.

Some reviews have noted that smaller files take longer to transfer than larger ones, but if you just need a lot of space and have a relatively constrained budget, this device will see you right.

Buy one now from:

Amazon

Alternative options

SanDisk Ultra Dual 128GB USB 3.0 ($40+)

USB-C drives aren’t all that popular at the moment, but they should grow in demand as more PCs and laptops switch to the newer port standard. SanDisk’s Ultra model offers a design that features both the USB-C port and an older standard USB 3.0 port, but the maximum capacity for the moment is 256GB on the $90 model. Expect more capacious options to arrive on the market soon.

Buy one now from:

Amazon Sandisk

SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick 256GB ($125+)

There’s also SanDisk’s Connect Wireless Stick, which combines a Wi-Fi radio with a large 256GB capacity. The USB 2.0 port charges the drive, and even when not connected it can serve files to PCs or mobile devices (with a bundled app) over the local wireless network. Though the older connection port is a bit of a downer, the Wi-Fi hosting and streaming capabilities make it unlike any other flash drive available right now. At around $125 for the street price, it’s a decent deal to boot.

Buy one now from:

Amazon Newegg

Samsung T3 Portable SSD ($109+)

Though it’s not small enough to be a “thumb drive,” Samsung’s T3 Portable SSD takes the capacity crown, and is only twice the size of a typical USB flash drive. Capacities start at 250GB, for which you’ll pay about $120. From there they shoot up to an incredible 2TB, with an equally incredible price tag of $750. Aside from its storage capacity, the T3 is notable due to its speed. In our review we found it was nearly as fast as an internal SATA solid state drive, which means it’ll easily beat most of the flash drives on this list.

Buy one now from:

Amazon

Updated 01/11/2018 by Jon Martindale – Added new 2TB and 512GB options.

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