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You should try the Lexar Jumpdrive P20. I used to use the Sandisk Extreme USB drives but switched to the P20 (128GB) because they were so much faster (and cheaper) and they feel great.

The P20 is an absolute joke when it comes to random writes.
Random Write 512K Sandisk gets about 18 MB/s, P20 gets 1 MB/s
Random Write 4k, Sandisk gets around 10 MB/s, 2000 IOPS, P20 gets 2 IOPS!

420MB/s?! Those are some blazing speeds for a Flash drive. :cool:

They're literally a Sandisk SSD on a stick. It even uses a USB to SATA bridge chip, and understands TRIM.
 
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I am more interested in the 4K random read/write speed. That separates Sandisk Extreme from other fast USB drive.




Western Digital today announced the launch of its latest SanDisk-branded product, a 256GB SanDisk Extreme Pro USB 3.1 Solid State Flash Drive, which it says is the fastest, highest capacity USB flash drive the company has ever made.

Designed to provide the speed and reliability of a solid state drive in the form factor of a small USB flash drive, the SanDisk Extreme Pro can reach read speeds of up to 420MB/s and write speeds of up to 380MB/s. According to Western Digital, a full-length 4K movie can be transferred to the drive in less than 15 seconds.

sandiskssd.jpg
Western Digital plans to begin offering the SanDisk Extreme Pro USB 3.1 Solid State Flash Drive in late January from retailers like Amazon.com and Best Buy. It will be priced at $179.99.

Western Digital is also debuting a new SanDisk-branded A1 microSD card at CES, which offers transfer speeds of up to 95MB/s. With read IOPS (input-output access per second) of 1,500 and write IOPS of 500, it can open apps and process files more quickly. SanDisk's Ultra microSD card with A1 will be available in January of 2017 for $199.99.

Article Link: CES 2017: SanDisk Launches 256GB Flash Drive With Read/Write Transfer Speeds Up to 420MB/s
 
Such as why would SanDisk launch a flash drive that requires a dongle to work on USB-C ports? Even considering backward compatibility, for that price they should include a USB-A on one end and USB-C on the other.

I can't think of a reason to buy one at all. I don't transfer files (or groups of files) that large often enough to need one.

Besides, in three years these will be given out as promotional items at trade shows (Your Company Logo Here).
use it as a small backup drive?
 
The P20 is an absolute joke when it comes to random writes.
Random Write 512K Sandisk gets about 18 MB/s, P20 gets 1 MB/s
Random Write 4k, Sandisk gets around 10 MB/s, 2000 IOPS, P20 gets 2 IOPS!

Could be. But it's a USB drive that the majority of people use to occasionally copy some files to and frequently use it to read them. In my case, it's much more frequently used to read what I have written to it. I don't keep databases on it so the sequential read/write specs are more important to me. I'm perfectly happy with the P20 and would buy them over the CZ80.
 
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Western Digital today announced the launch of its latest SanDisk-branded product, a 256GB SanDisk Extreme Pro USB 3.1 Solid State Flash Drive, which it says is the fastest, highest capacity USB flash drive the company has ever made.

Designed to provide the speed and reliability of a solid state drive in the form factor of a small USB flash drive, the SanDisk Extreme Pro can reach read speeds of up to 420MB/s and write speeds of up to 380MB/s. According to Western Digital, a full-length 4K movie can be transferred to the drive in less than 15 seconds.

sandiskssd.jpg
Western Digital plans to begin offering the SanDisk Extreme Pro USB 3.1 Solid State Flash Drive in late January from retailers like Amazon.com and Best Buy. It will be priced at $179.99.

Western Digital is also debuting a new SanDisk-branded A1 microSD card at CES, which offers transfer speeds of up to 95MB/s. With read IOPS (input-output access per second) of 1,500 and write IOPS of 500, it can open apps and process files more quickly. SanDisk's Ultra microSD card with A1 will be available in January of 2017 for $199.99.

Article Link: CES 2017: SanDisk Launches 256GB Flash Drive With Read/Write Transfer Speeds Up to 420MB/s

This is just more proof that Apple jumped the gun (and the shark?) in its move to all USB-C. If USB-C were becoming mainstream, this device would sport a USB-C connector....

The lack of USB-C product announcements at CES is telling. Most USB-C products merely serve to connect current products to your computer. LaCie did release new hard drives, but they have always catered to the Mac crowd, with prices to prove it.


Insert snarky dongle joke here

This announcement just goes to show how much the future is still in the future. USB-A will be around for a long time.

USB-C is not the future. It's the current. Others are the past.

No, it's only current for Apple, who is embracing the (far off) future. Everyone else is in the present.

If Sandisk - and others - release flagship devices like these with old connectors, indeed the dongle trolls will be kept fed.

The troll under the bridge is real. Only bleeding-edge Mac users are left out in the cold, and they do not drive as many sales as the other ~99%.

That doesn't mean one have to throw away everything. I wouldn't. But I also wouldn't buy new devices without.

You can't buy devices that don't exist.
 
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This is just more proof that Apple jumped the gun (and the shark?) in its move to all USB-C. If USB-C were becoming mainstream, this device would sport a USB-C connector....

The lack of USB-C product announcements at CES is telling. Most USB-C products merely serve to connect current products to your computer. LaCie did release new hard drives, but they have always catered to the Mac crowd, with prices to prove it.




This announcement just goes to show how much the future is still in the future. USB-A will be around for a long time.



No, it's only current for Apple, who is embracing the (far off) future. Everyone else is in the present.



The troll under the bridge is real. Only bleeding-edge Mac users are left out in the cold, and they do not drive as many sales as the other ~99%.



You can't buy devices that don't exist.
I'm glad all these things are obvious to some people. I love my Apple set up, but there's no way to apologize for a lot of the stupid sh*t they've been pulling.
 
I'm glad all these things are obvious to some people. I love my Apple set up, but there's no way to apologize for a lot of the stupid sh*t they've been pulling.
i wouldnt necessarily call it "stupid"... just over eager. especially since the machines they're selling with them now, thanks to their complete lack of upgradeability, have nearly zero chance of lasting long enough to see a time when their lack of connectivity isnt considered a problem for many.
 
So, who makes the best flash chips? I don't care how fast or slow something is that is just supposed to securely hold my plugin licenses. That's why the write few/read many types appeal to me, though really, Waves should support SDHC for license deposits. And iLok and VSL, Steinberg, etc. Or just a Cloud-checkin now and then. But I've gotten OT...
 
USB-C is not the future. It's the current. Others are the past.

If Sandisk - and others - release flagship devices like these with old connectors, indeed the dongle trolls will be kept fed.

That doesn't mean one have to throw away everything. I wouldn't. But I also wouldn't buy new devices without.
With what logic does that make sense, even if I owned a new MacBook Pro (which I wouldn't buy for many reasons having only USB-C being one of them) what percentage of clients do you think has USB-C on their computers? I guarantee you now that if I sent work to clients on USB-C I would be asked to send it again. Just because Apple has a couple of computers with USB-C doesn't mean the publishing industry for instance does. It takes years for magazines to catch up to the latest machines. USB-C is the future, maybe, but it certainly isn't for here and now. I regularly send work both via HD and memory stick with USB-A and I will be doing that for many years as that's what the majority of computers will have, not USB-C. Apple should have realised this and if they wanted the new MacBook Pro to appeal to people using their laptop for creative work should have catered for them and included both USB-A and USB-C ports. That's how you make it easy for people to both upgrade and keep their workflow during a period of change. Now myself and many people will just skip this generation and wait till apple gets their act together.
 
With what logic does that make sense, even if I owned a new MacBook Pro (which I wouldn't buy for many reasons having only USB-C being one of them) what percentage of clients do you think has USB-C on their computers? I guarantee you now that if I sent work to clients on USB-C I would be asked to send it again. Just because Apple has a couple of computers with USB-C doesn't mean the publishing industry for instance does. It takes years for magazines to catch up to the latest machines. USB-C is the future, maybe, but it certainly isn't for here and now. I regularly send work both via HD and memory stick with USB-A and I will be doing that for many years as that's what the majority of computers will have, not USB-C. Apple should have realised this and if they wanted the new MacBook Pro to appeal to people using their laptop for creative work should have catered for them and included both USB-A and USB-C ports. That's how you make it easy for people to both upgrade and keep their workflow during a period of change. Now myself and many people will just skip this generation and wait till apple gets their act together.

This.

But also, at what point does the USB-C bus even come close to being saturated in this situation? I understand wanting to have one connector to rule them all, but they (everyone) never seem to let an external connection method sit in the market long enough to let it become the standard -the exceptions being USB A and Ethernet.
And that's just aggravating and a glaringly good indicator of planned obsolescence.
I have a BMD (Thunderbolt 2) 4-bay SSD unit and the closest I've come to saturating the 10Gbs bus is when I (software) RAID-0'd two identical SSDs and got about 750MBs R/W and no TRIM. Which brings me to another point: Does this drive support TRIM? If not, or you have more pressing needs, why not promote this? http://www.angelbird.com/en/prod/ssd2go-pkt-1031/
 
With what logic does that make sense, even if I owned a new MacBook Pro (which I wouldn't buy for many reasons having only USB-C being one of them) what percentage of clients do you think has USB-C on their computers? I guarantee you now that if I sent work to clients on USB-C I would be asked to send it again. Just because Apple has a couple of computers with USB-C doesn't mean the publishing industry for instance does. It takes years for magazines to catch up to the latest machines.
I'm on my second USB-C macbook and I loved the new port(s) (first port, now ports) from day one. I 'invested' some (but not all that many) bucks in getting all my cables replaced with USB-C ones. Don't use any dongles except a LAN dongle - a dongle which anyway I needed also for the MBA.

Since word spread around I regularly have people in the office building coming to my desk to borrow USB-C cables - and mostly it's not for using on Apple devices, but instead it's for their Androids and Chromes.

My small cable pouch has the following
- USB-C to micro USB-B 2.0
- USB-C to micro USB-B 3.0 (the wide one for portable hard drives)
- USB-C to gigabit LAN with integrated 3 ports USB 2.0 hub
- USB-C to USB-C (for when I lost/forgot my normal one)
- USB-C to USB-B (for charging on the plane)
- USB-C to MicroSD mini dongle
- USB-C to USB-B 3.0 female mini dongle

Total price for all above, including pouch, was way short south of $20. Fortunately I was able to buy them in various Asian malls. There's an abundance of USB-C cables and devices available and it's certainly not only for Apple users only.

I'd like to mention that none of these cables (except for the 2 mini dongles ones) are extra carriage. All of these cables - in their old USB state of existence - were necessary in my pouch before. The biggest bulk still are my travel adaptors. Singapore / Japanese and HK ones being the largest ones.

I'm a happy camper with my USB-C life and I truly hope one day, you'll be to. It's a transition yes you are absolutely right. But IMHO it's a good one.
 
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