Generic USB Flash Drives vs Sandisk etc

futureal33

futureal33

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Morning all,

I am looking at buying a massive 64 or 128GB pen drive to use with my new Nexus 10 tablet to store the bulk of my music, films and bulky files on.

I am just wondering what the differences in reality are between the likes of a Sandisk drive which will cost me over £50 and an eBay one which is about a tenner!

None of the data is critical, and it is purely going to be stored with my iPad in a bag and used every now and then for when I am on a plane or want to watch a film etc.

Cheers
 
Speed!!!

the sandisk drives have a faster transfer rate.

in fact i'm typing this on a Linux installation running on an 8GB Sandisk Cruzer pen drive, no slow down at all.

You get what you pay for.



:)
 
A 128GB £10 pen drive on ebay will most likely be a 1GB drive formatted to look like 128, then when you put anything more than 1GB on it, it will just corrupt.

My advice is only ever buy memory cards/sticks from trustworthy sources, so you don't end up with a fake.

When deciding on what to get, make sure it's fast enough in real world terms for what you are doing with it, and check reviews for failure rates.
 
7dayshop, cheap, but you know you can trust them. Lexar usb3 less than £30.
 
mymemory.co.uk are a good source, The biggest I have is 32gb and it's Patriot usb3, I've also got sticks by Kingston, Sandisk, Transcend. The only brand I've ever felt let down by was the Transcend, purely on it's performance as it was markedly slower than advertised.
 
futureal33 said:
Morning all,

I am looking at buying a massive 64 or 128GB pen drive to use with my new Nexus 10 tablet to store the bulk of my music, films and bulky files on.

I am just wondering what the differences in reality are between the likes of a Sandisk drive which will cost me over £50 and an eBay one which is about a tenner!

None of the data is critical, and it is purely going to be stored with my iPad in a bag and used every now and then for when I am on a plane or want to watch a film etc.

Cheers
Click to expand...

It is a matter of Brand Name vs Brand-X.

SanDisk along with Lexar and similar companies would have spent millions on research, testing the prototypes, improving it, and ensure they made it to higher standards if they can. They sell those at a higher costs to pay off the costs of research and testing. Whereabouts Brand-X stuff just copy Brand Names, buy the parts needed, build it, sell it, and as they did not do any research, they can sell it cheaper, but often as they don't really do research or testing or anything like that, their productions may not be really good. Because of such things like that, Brand Name can be better than Brand-X, but Brand-X can be cheaper than Brand Name. So you end up with the option of good working order or cheap costs.

But buying cheap Brand-X from supermarket would be much better than buying the same cheap Brand-X from eBay because...

There are no surefire way of making sure the Brand Name or Brand-X items from eBay is in good working order as eBay is all about selling used items. Brand Name items could have been used to its limits and got damaged, Brand-X could be doggy goods shipped from somewhere that use sub-standards.

Then there's the matter of who knows if anyone could have re-programed the memory on those cards or USB flash memories, leaving virus and likes, or even as one member above mention, buy really cheaper 4GB, 2GB, or even 1GB memory card or USB drive, hack into it systems and re-program it so it would say 64GB or 128GB, and they also change the outside looks, like putting on a new sticker or reprinting the text on the items.

The different is a matter of...

Chose to spend too much of your money on something in real good working order or risk saving money and hope what you buy is not a lemon.
 
I'd second mymemory - good prices and delivery is pretty quick
 
MyMemory, Premier-ink.co.uk, Amazon, etc, are all companies, they will have followed business rules and laws, they would have registered, and all that. So they may sell their stuff at cheaper prices but they sell them new, unless stated "used" so buying from them, either Brand Name or Brand-X, would be more safer than buying from eBay which is really originally for selling your used or unwanted items by private sales. eBay will most likely sell more used items than unwanted items, whereabouts such websites like MyMemory, etc., etc., will most likely sell more new items than used items.
 
Major Eazy said:
It is a matter of Brand Name vs Brand-X.

SanDisk along with Lexar and similar companies would have spent millions on research, testing the prototypes, improving it, and ensure they made it to higher standards if they can.
Click to expand...

Or maybe the have spent those millions on advertising, so we think they are better than others.
 
Why not go a more flexible route and buy a USB SD card reader for a few £, then use SD cards? This is what i've done now with my N7...... I think USB sticks are fast becoming obsolete and useless.

As for the Sandisk argument, your paying purely for for quality. The quality procedures used during the manufacturing process. It's not a guarantee, but i'd rather buy a product that was rated at 1ppm failure rate, rather than one at 1000ppm.

When your a top brand, you can afford the best quality control.
 
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Lyonspride said:
Why not go a more flexible route and buy a USB SD card reader for a few £, then use SD cards? This is what i've done now with my N7...... I think USB sticks are fast becoming obsolete and useless.
Click to expand...

I don't think they are becoming useless, but I can see where your coming from, with many devices and computers now having SD slots built in it does look a very viable alternative .

But we'll still end up with everyone thinking Sandisk are better then everyone else for some stupid reason :D
 
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sponner said:
7 day shop own brand 64 gb usb 3 seems fine
Click to expand...

Yup, cheapo memory of all kinds seems fine, right up to the point when all the data on it is irretrievably lost. While I've read reports of premium memory failing, such reports are few compared to cheapos carping out. Nod's (aka S*d's and Murphy's) law shows that such failures only ever happen when the shots are non reshootable - in my case, due to a sad bereavement of the guest of honour... Luckily, somebody manage to retrieve some of the shots, including a group with the whole family. I now use SanDisks exclusively unless it's simply for shifting data from machine to machine.
 
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