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Best USB 3.0 flash drive (2012 MBP users)

M

MacBookProzak

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 16, 2011
131
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Thought about asking this here instead of in the peripheral forum since this application would be for the 2012 MBP in both non-retina and retina since we got USB 3.0 in them.

Was wondering what peoples thoughts on which USB 3.0 in 32GB or larger was the best (if there is a real difference between the read/write speed). the other thing that I recently found while browsing at the Frys store was that some of the larger capacity ones are pretty thick so if you were to use one of them, you would not be able to use the other USB port unless you used a dongle -which I then feel you lose the aspect of just having a single small device in your pocket and not you have this other item in your pocket as well.

The one I did find there that seemed to not be as wide that would block the other port was the Patriot supersonnic XT in 32GB for $29.00.

What are your thoughts on these and who is using which ones and how are they working out.
 
MacBookProzak said:
Thought about asking this here instead of in the peripheral forum since this application would be for the 2012 MBP in both non-retina and retina since we got USB 3.0 in them.

Was wondering what peoples thoughts on which USB 3.0 in 32GB or larger was the best (if there is a real difference between the read/write speed). the other thing that I recently found while browsing at the Frys store was that some of the larger capacity ones are pretty thick so if you were to use one of them, you would not be able to use the other USB port unless you used a dongle -which I then feel you lose the aspect of just having a single small device in your pocket and not you have this other item in your pocket as well.

The one I did find there that seemed to not be as wide that would block the other port was the Patriot supersonnic XT in 32GB for $29.00.

What are your thoughts on these and who is using which ones and how are they working out.
Click to expand...

Funny, I was just at Fry's the other day making the same decision. I was looking at the Patriot sticks as well and was choosing between the "Boost" and the "Pulse". I ended up going with a 16gb pulse, mainly for the slimmer design. I don't have any benchmarks or anything, but my experience was very positive having installed Win7 from the stick and copied large sets of files with it.
 
When my rMBP finally arrives I will be putting my Samsung SSD into my USB 3 enclosure...I have a feeling that will take more advantage of the speed offered.
 
gentlefury said:
When my rMBP finally arrives I will be putting my Samsung SSD into my USB 3 enclosure...I have a feeling that will take more advantage of the speed offered.
Click to expand...

That's what I did with a Toshiba SSD from a mid 2010 MBP.

86605264.png
 
gentlefury said:
That is very promising!! Thanks for that! Can you boot windows bootcamp off of a USB3 device? Those speeds are more than suitable to game off of...and it would allow me to keep my entire internal SSD intact.
Click to expand...

AFAIK only OSX can boot from an external drive in Mac computers. Windows can't. (I already thought about that, lol)

BTW, that's a SATAII SSD in a pretty cheap enclosure (15€).
 
gentlefury said:
Damn, oh well. Ill just use it for media.
Click to expand...

I use it to keep my iPhoto and iTunes Library, as well as some custom backups using rsync. (I don't use the version options of Time Machine so I just don't use it). And I can tell you, it's damn fast!
 
I don't have a 2012 MBP, but I use Transcend JetFlash 700 32GB (USB 3) and it's pretty good.
 
I just got the patriot supersonic pulse 16GB USB 3.0 for my rMBP and I was expecting it to be faster. I did a bench mark on it and it was 11mbs write and 30mbs read. The read speed seems good but it that a normal write speed?? I couldn't find the read/write speeds on patriots website.
 
Last edited:
gentlefury said:
That is very promising!! Thanks for that! Can you boot windows bootcamp off of a USB3 device? Those speeds are more than suitable to game off of...and it would allow me to keep my entire internal SSD intact.
Click to expand...

dasx said:
AFAIK only OSX can boot from an external drive in Mac computers. Windows can't. (I already thought about that, lol)

BTW, that's a SATAII SSD in a pretty cheap enclosure (15€).
Click to expand...

You guys should check out Windows to go. Very promising from what I've read.
 
dasx said:
I use it to keep my iPhoto and iTunes Library, as well as some custom backups using rsync. (I don't use the version options of Time Machine so I just don't use it). And I can tell you, it's damn fast!
Click to expand...

I do visual effects for feature films and television and I occasionally have to use my machine on the go...so an external SSD with good speeds would be very nice to have so I can plug it into a server and grab my shots and work, instead of having to constantly upload them to my internal ssd.

BTW, what model toshiba is that? What is the SATA read/write speeds...are they comparable or higher? My Samsung SSD read/write is about 250/250, I'm wondering if I should expect a 170 cap or the full 250.
 
Jazwire said:
I went with:

http://www.everythingusb.com/lexar-jumpdrive-triton-usb-3.0-flash-drive-21461.html

Actually has a faster write than the Kingston, and a lot cheaper, and the Kingston blocks other ports because of width.
I spent hours researching these drives last week. :)
Click to expand...

That is a nice one... just a little ouch on the price.... but nice things do cost money.

I ended up with the Patriot supersonnic XT in 32GB for $29.00. This will ease me into the 3.0 world till we perhaps see some prices come down on the larger capacities
 
gentlefury said:
I do visual effects for feature films and television and I occasionally have to use my machine on the go...so an external SSD with good speeds would be very nice to have so I can plug it into a server and grab my shots and work, instead of having to constantly upload them to my internal ssd.

BTW, what model toshiba is that? What is the SATA read/write speeds...are they comparable or higher? My Samsung SSD read/write is about 250/250, I'm wondering if I should expect a 170 cap or the full 250.
Click to expand...

Well, this Toshiba SSD is the one I had in my MBP before I accidentally spilled coffee over it. So I took it out and put it inside the enclosure. I can't tell you what the original speeds were because I never ran Blackmagic SpeedTest on that drive when in the MBP, so can't really tell you. It's a SATAII drive so it probably wasn't as fast as the drives they're mounting in today's Macs. I don't know. I bet it depends on the enclosure too. They have an internal PCB that takes care of the SATA to USB3.0 conversion.

Best thing you can do is try. Even if you only reached those 170MB/s for both read and write it'll still be pretty faster than a regular drive, so will be more than useful.

----------
Jazwire said:
I went with:

http://www.everythingusb.com/lexar-jumpdrive-triton-usb-3.0-flash-drive-21461.html

Actually has a faster write than the Kingston, and a lot cheaper, and the Kingston blocks other ports because of width.
I spent hours researching these drives last week. :)
Click to expand...

What about the speeds? Are they really around 150MB/s for read and write as they say in that link? If it's true, then 120€ for the 64B version looks pretty OK to me, considering how small it is and all that...
 
Jazwire said:
I went with:

http://www.everythingusb.com/lexar-jumpdrive-triton-usb-3.0-flash-drive-21461.html

Actually has a faster write than the Kingston, and a lot cheaper, and the Kingston blocks other ports because of width.
I spent hours researching these drives last week. :)
Click to expand...

OK, check this video out. It seems to be a radio show I've never heard of. At 31.00 they test two USB3.0 flash drives, a Corsair Voyager GT and a Kingston HyperX with BlackMagic Speedtest.

The first one only does 140/80 MB/s for read/write. The Kingston does 240/100 MB/s, which is much better than the Corsair one. The write speeds though aren't that good compared to what I get. The benefits from these drives though are their size.

--------

This is probably the fastest USB stick out there.
Super Talent RAIDDrive. The beast does over 300MB/s. :O
Review here.
 
Last edited:
Jazwire said:
I went with:

http://www.everythingusb.com/lexar-jumpdrive-triton-usb-3.0-flash-drive-21461.html

Actually has a faster write than the Kingston, and a lot cheaper, and the Kingston blocks other ports because of width.
I spent hours researching these drives last week. :)
Click to expand...

The jumpdrive triton is great but not as good as the sandisk extreme for small (4K) file writes : There is a pretty comprehensive comparison of USB 3.0 flash drives here.
http://www.whoratesit.com/Best-Flash-Drive/Comparison/1

Take care before buying the sandisk extreme though as some users have had issues with it on a MBP (might need to format it on a PC before it works).
 
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