Flash memory on a USB stick is easy enough to understand concerning the way it works. The memory is a type of EEPROM and non-volatile, which is the reason it doesn’t require a battery or external power source to retain the information stored on it.
But if you ever asked the question, "Is there a difference between brands?", the answer is yes and no.
Concerning data reliability, all USB sticks are roughly the same. It is very rare that one would absolutely fail on you unless put it through several hundred thousand erase cycles. Some can even go up to a million.
Concerning construction, yes there are differences. Some sticks have a poor casing, causing them to fall apart prematurely. It doesn’t happen often but it’s not out of the realm of possibility.
Concerning data transfer rate, this is where the biggest differences lie. Some sticks are legitimately slow.
Sandisk (which everybody has owned at one point or another, I have 3 of them,) routinely has the slowest transfer speeds. Reliable, yes, but slow.
Patriot on the other hand routinely has the highest transfer rate. In particular, the Patriot Xporter series. You will pay more for these, but you will also get faster transfers, both for average and burst rate. The customer ratings speak for themselves on Patriot flash memory products.
(And if you happen to have $300+ that you want to spend, Patriot has a Magnum stick that boasts super-high speeds and has 128GB of storage. Yes, 128GB. That’s not a typo.)
Do transfer rates matter?
This all depends on how you use your USB stick.
If using the stick for:
- Bootable biz-card sized Linux
- Routinely transferring files over 25MB in size
- Routinely transferring large amounts of data
..then you will legitimately need a fast-transfer USB stick.
If using the stick for:
- Photos
- Documents
- MP3s
- Smaller files
..then a faster stick won’t really matter unless you’re transferring many small files equaling a large amount of data.
What’s your favorite (or least favorite) brand of Flash memory?
Sandisk, A-Data, Corsair, Advent, Lexar, etc.? Which do you use? Does it live up to expectation or "act weird" periodically?
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