I'm looking for a high-quality, long-lasting USB stick?

I'm looking for a USB stick that's big, lasts a long time and is fast?
What USB stick do you use - I'm grateful for any tips!

 

Thank you @frankzappa.fz for your help, I will buy it!

 

Bought Corsair Voyager 8GB 15-ish years ago and it still works perfectly. I also have a Kingston DataTraveler 16GB which is 10-ish yo and still works perfectly. 8GB/16GB these days is quite small, but it's fine for OS installations.

Why I haven't bothered buying bigger flash drives? Because I have too many 2.5" 500GB hard drives. ;)

 

Last edited: Feb 19, 2025

Thank you @SineWave for your help and experience!

 

And check Amazon LAST reviews.

Because over the years, i have seen COUNTLESS USB pendrive makers changing the internal ... and selling under the same name.
So the tester review the first batch ... and when you buy it, it is pure SLOW and unreliable crap.

Kingston DataTraveler Max (bought on Amazon, so "legit") get good reviews, even on the last batch.

 

An alternative is to get a cheap M2 drive and a USB case, though the very cheapest ones can have compatibility/latency issues.

The fastest drives on the list above eg DataTraveler Max are basically the M2 hardware but on a proprietary interface.

 

That's what she said

 

I have several older Kingston, Silicon Power and Corsair USB drives and they are still ok after many years they just don't die like the ADATA ones I tried with BS warranties. you get what you pay for cheap ones don't last and end up corrupting your data.

 

One thing to look at is heat. Most USB storage sticks die from overheating when writing larger amounts of data repeatedly, typically large sample libraries or videos. Higher room temperatures in summer can make this happen more likely.
Good small external SSD drives have a larger aluminum case with a much better thermal management than a small USB stick.

Unfortunately, most tests only look at read and write performance which says nothing about durability.

 

if you dj this one is good.

https://store.djtechtools.com/produ...6L1EwlqMyxWREu-DAlJP5g-kilzY1gYIaAub-EALw_wcB

 

Sandisk Extreme Pro 128gb (~400mb/sec read) and Kingston Data Traveler Max USB-C 512gb (~1gb/sec read). But winner is Sandisk because it comes with a Lifetime Waranty. Kingston although is the fastest, it comes with a 5 years warranty and a hefty price hehe.
Cheers

 

I use the Samsung 256gb thumb drives.two of them permenantly attatched to macbook.never any issues.they even colour code to the machine