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The Best USB 3.0 Flash Drive


After more than 16 hours of researching and testing, we found that the 64GB SanDisk Extreme CZ80 USB 3.0 is the best flash drive for most people. On both PCs and Macs, the SanDisk Extreme is one of the fastest drives we tested, outpacing SanDisk’s own claims. It has the best combination of speed, price, capacity, and usability of any thumb drive we’ve found.
Last Updated: February 24, 2016
SanDisk has released a new flash drive featuring the new USB Type-C standard. SanDisk claims that the Ultra USB Type-C drive offers sequential read speeds up to 150 MBps in capacities up to 128 GB, but the company hasn't announced the write speeds for the new drive. The product is already available on Amazon, though it currently has a wait time of several weeks.
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Our pick: Fast and easy to use
SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 Flash Drive
Our pick for the third year in a row, it’s fast and affordable with a one-piece design that’s simple and comfortable to use.
$30* from Amazon
*At the time of publishing, the price was $33.
The SanDisk Extreme is the same flash drive we’ve recommended for years. It’s had several quiet speed boosts since we first tested it, and we now recommend the 64GB version; that’s the new sweet spot for price and capacity.
Also great

$38* from Amazon
*At the time of publishing, the price was $40.
Runner-up: If you need (a bit more) speed
64GB Lexar JumpDrive P20 USB 3.0 Flash Drive
It's a little faster than the SanDisk Extreme, but its sliding mechanism is so uncomfortable that it's not for most people.
If you can’t find the SanDisk Extreme or it becomes too expensive, get the 64GB JumpDrive P20 USB 3.0 Flash Drive from Lexar. It’s almost as fast as our pick in most benchmarks, and it’s faster in real-world file copy tests, but it’s slightly more expensive and it’s a literal pain to use, thanks to a very stiff sliding mechanism. It’s still the second-best flash drive if you don’t mind some finger pain or need an extra speed boost, but most people should get the SanDisk.
Also great

$30 from Amazon
Budget pick: Twice the storage for the same price
128GB SanDisk Ultra Fit USB 3.0 Flash Drive
It’s not as fast as other USB 3.0 drives, but it's tiny and half the price of our pick.
If you care more about capacity than speed or want a drive that barely protrudes from the USB port, get the SanDisk Ultra Fit. It’s not nearly as fast as our pick or runner-up, but it’s a quarter the size and half the price—the 128GB version is about the same price as our 64GB main pick. It’s still much faster than any USB 2.0 drive, and the tiny size is convenient for laptops. (A newer model of the Ultra Fit, the SDCZ43-128G-GAM46, just launched, but it’s $10 more expensive than the model we tested. We’ll test it and update this guide accordingly.)
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