SanDisk Extreme 16 GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive SDCZ80-016G-X46

Before settling on the sandisk extreme, I looked at ALL the available options on the market for the past 2 years, from cheap little usb sticks, to actual stick format SSD's with big name controllers like SandForce under the hood. Most were either too expensive overall regardless of performance, or not worth looking at due to lack of performance.Somehow I stumbled on this one while browsing around, and thankfully someone posted some benchmarks that showed the 4k read/write performance, which caught my eye. The 4k read/write numbers on these extreme 3.0 sticks are in another league compared to the competition, and while not up to the levels you would expect from a modern SSD, they're beyond respectable for a USB stick.So I bought the 16GB model, and upon arrival instead of playing with benchmarks I set out to see why these things are so fast in ways other than large file transfer (which I don't care about, I never use these for storing large files but for booting operating system installation disks or live USB systems, cases where 4k performance matters).So what did I find? This stick is essentially a single NAND device (probably with multiple die inside) paired with the same controller found on Sandisks U100 SSDs. While they aren't the leader of the pack, that controller is obviously FAR better than your standard USB stick flash management controller. So quite literally we have an SSD on a stick here.If you pop the cover off this stick you will see the single NAND device, a slightly smaller square chip (the U100 controller) AND a 2nd chip, that 2nd chip is a SATA to USB3 bridge chip, necessary because the U100 controller itself is built for use on a SATAII or SATAIII interface, here the SATAII wiring seems to be in use, but that doesn't limit performance in my estimation.Probably not the cheapest design but the payoff in performance speaks for itself.So basically the layout is like this:NAND <--> U100 Controller <--> USB3 bridge chip <--> USB3 connectorIt's as if you stuck a normal 2.5" SSD in an external USB 3 drive enclosure, but much smaller.If you want to check for yourself, these sticks also happen to support S.M.A.R.T monitoring commands. The controller does, and the little USB converter chip inside the stick also supports S.M.A.R.T, however the operating system of your choice may not support reading S.M.A.R.T info over the USB bus, I had to find a Mac OS X driver that could do it for me before it worked (it's on Github, called OS-X-SAT-SMART-Driver).However that leads me to another bonus, due to the way this stick is designed, you can actually tell the controller to run S.M.A.R.T self tests, and you can see the wear level counter for the NAND and keep track of its lifespan, something that is pretty much unheard of on other USB sticks, but common on real SSDs in 2.5" drive housings.I consider these things a steal for the price, a real SSD controller, quality NAND and S.M.A.R.T monitoring capability. I don't see any problem with the housing either it seems sturdy enough to me and I like the retracting connector (the entire board inside moves, so don't worry there are no ribbon cables to wear out inside).

My first 32gb high speed flash drive was a Transcend JetFlash 600 (USB 2.0 not 3.0), it got eaten by the dog; so I bought another one and it died after less than a year. Enter the Sandisk Extreme. The Sandisk Extreme works great. It has plenty of space and quick speeds. Right now it's running on USB 2.0 ports on a 5 year old computer and it achieves speeds up to 28mb/s, which is slow compared to 3.0 speeds but is the fastest I've ever gotten on my computer. So functionality gets 5 stars for me.Now on to the other aspects of the device. I will first say that although I prefer flash drives with a cap, the locking mechanism feels very secure, more secure than any other drive I've had (including other sandisk drives). There is also room for a lanyard for those that are interested. My only complaints are with the plastic and the light. The plastic feels a tiny bit flimsy when I squeeze it so I would be concerned about it getting crushed, like being stepped on. As for the light, while I don't want a big glowing night light I would prefer something bright enough to see without having to look really closely. It's just a little to dim to notice from far away; not a major deal breaker but it bothers me so I thought I'd mention it.I use this device every day to transfer files (usually movies 1-3gb and music) between computers as well as to watch movies on my PS3 and so far it has performed flawlessly. I haven't used any of the security or encryption software that came with the device so I can't comment on that. I also haven't had this device as long as my transcend (the one that died) so I have yet to see if it will last. Hopefully it will last a long time and I won't have to update this post, if it dies though I'll be sure to let everyone know.For those looking for a fast USB 3.0 flash drive I would definitely recommend. It's a little more expensive than some of the other drives but so far works perfectly for me. I hope others have the same luck I did.

This stick is consistently reviewed as the best on the market in summer 2013 (most recently on Tom's Hardware) and has not disappointed me in use. I wanted this to put Mac OS X on so I could boot my computer from it, and it does that very well. When booted from this USB drive the computer is responsive and I can do the housekeeping (running DiskWarrior) with no fuss.When I tested this drive with BlackMagic speed-testing software it was a little faster than the manufacturer claimed on the packaging. By comparison, another USB 3 drive I bought before reading any reviews had a quarter of this drive's read speed and one tenth of the write speed. The other drive cost less per gigabyte but did a poor job booting the computer. With the technology currently on the market there are enormous variations in performance and if you want a fast flash drive this SanDisk Extreme is a safe choice.

I bought this drive to use for booting to Hyper-V Server so I wanted something with decent performance. When I first looked at the box, I noticed the rated write speed was 55MB/s, even though the Amazon product details page does not specify the rated write speed for the given capacity. I was a bit dismayed by this but somehow suspected it before I bought it.When I tested it on my system with a USB 2.0 port using CrystalDiskMark 3.0.2, I got average sequential speeds of 34 and 30 MB/s for reading and writing, respectively, which is good. When I transferred a 1.8GB ISO, it averaged 29MB/s.When I tested it then on my laptop with USB 3.0, I actually got 186 (read) and 60 (write) using CrystalDiskMark. I tried transferring a 3GB ISO to the flash drive and got an average transfer rate of 57MB/s, so the write speeds actually exceed the manufacturer's quoted write speed, which is always welcome.Some people complained about build quality. I found the build quality to be acceptable and what I'd expect from any normal non-rugged USB flash drive so I don't know what people expect.I give this product 5 stars because the price is very competitive and the speeds are a very pleasant surprise.

I bought this flash drive a few days ago, and looking back it has been a very useful and wise purchase.It is very very fast , with 190 MB/s read speeds and 117 MB/s write speeds, for the 32 GB version- Amazon mixes reviews for different versions together. However, you will need a PC based on the newest Intel of AMD chipsets, which have native support for USB 3.0, in order to enjoy these fast speeds. Also, this flash drive has better sequential reads/writes than many hard drives out there, so that might be a bottleneck in the speeds.The flash drive is a bit on the long side, but not too much so, and for this performance, it's more than acceptable.If you want performance, don't be fooled into buying other "performance" USB 3.0 drives, because speeds vary greatly with brands and models. Look for benchmarks if you are looking for a fast drive.I would recommend this drive for for anyone who wants extremely fast speeds.Also, impeccable Amazon service as usual.

I am using this in an Intel NUC mini computer in order to boot as a "hackintosh" into OS X for occasional use when not running Windows which is installed on the main SSD.I originally had another brand's USB2 stick for this and although it allowed the OS to boot it was a bit too slow to be usable and was prone to lag and stuttering. After reading the reviews on this I decided it was worth a try even though it was going to be used in a USB2 port and I am pleased to report it was speedy enough to completely fix the problems previously experienced. My fake Mac now runs no differently than when running from an actual USB HDD.In summary, although in my use-case it is nowhere near the speeds attainable if plugged into a USB3 port it is still probably the fastest USB2 memory stick when used as such.

First of all it came with some security software which was great, but I didn't need. You'll probably want to re-format it as soon as possible to use the NTFS file system - to enable the ability to store single files of >4GB, which is the limit of FAT32. NTFS isn't as portable as FAT32 but it's fine if you're only using Windows and some other OS's.I did a test on a 2.45GB folder, consisting of a lot of documents and program files, and this is how they compared. I am aware the speeds would be much greater on a USB 3.0 port but I used a 2.0 for the comparison.2.45GB folderOld read - 4:20min 9.42MB/sOld write - 25min 1.63 MB/sNew read - 1:35min 25.6 MB/sNew write - 2:51min 14.2MB/sThe speeds when copying other files were even faster (perhaps more sequential), making it a plus!