Fastest USB Flash Drive 2011

USB technology based devices have taken the computing world by storm. The 'plug and play' facility provided by USB flash drives is their USP. Only the ones who have carried around tons of floppies in the early computing era, can truly appreciate the luxury of portable data storage that aUSB flash drive offers. With storage capacities of USB flash memory drives going beyond 100 gigabytes, they are as good as mini external hard drives! In this article I present the top challengers for the spot of the fastestUSB flash drive (2010).

In this age of technology what grabs attention is speed! Be it motorbikes, cars or USB flash drives, speed matters and influences our decisions. The data write and read speed of a flash drive decides how fast any kind of data can be transferred from it or to it. USB flash drives score on all counts, including portability and hot plugging facility, but the only point where they score low is the data transfer speed. With USB 2.0 standard released, the speed was enhanced substantially, yet the flash memory devices have failed till now to utilize the maximum data transfer capacity. The recently launched USB flash drives are trying to break the speed barrier and go beyond. I am sure nobody needs to be explained how to use a USB flash drive, as it is widely used by everybody. Given in the next section is the review of the main contenders for the title of fastest USB flash drive (2010).

Fastest USB Flash Drive: Review

In the USB flash drive sector, there is immense competition as many manufacturing companies are competing with their products. What are the features that an average user looks for in aUSB flash drive? What are the features that one would like to see in the best USB flash drive ? Besides high storage capacity and reasonable cost, one wants high data transfer rate, that can enable rapid copying and transfer of data files and reasonable price of course! These points should also be taken into consideration while making the fastestUSB flash drive comparison. Now you can even convert any jump drive into a bootable USB flash drive using appropriate software. Here are the main products in the race to be the fastest USB flash drive (2010). After researching, I narrowed down to three.

Corsair Flash Voyager GTR
The Corsair Flash Voyager GTR has 'Winner' written all over it as it scores high on all counts. The looks, the speed, the capacity, this one has it all. The unique quad channel technology developed by Corsair enables this flash memory device to attain speeds of 34 MB per second, while writing files and a reading speed of 28 MB per second, when reading data. They come in 32 GB, 64 GB and 128 GB capacities. With a tough exterior rubber casing and a 10 year warranty, it is simply one of the best products available today. The 32 GB one comes with a price tag of $95, while the 128 GB Corsair USB Flash Voyager GTR, costs $275.

SanDisk Extreme Cruzer Contour
With a predicted writing speed of 18 MB per second and a reading speed up to 25 MB per second, the SanDisk Extreme Cruzer Contour is a strong contender for the title of fastestUSB flash drive . It comes with 4GB, 8 GB, 16 GB and 32 GB storage capacities. The 32 GB drive can be purchased at a price of $116 after discounts.

Kingston DataTraveler 200
That brings us to the last of the USB flash drive reviews. With a writing speed of 10 MB per second and a reading speed of 20 MB per second, the Kingston Data Traveller 200 is one of the fastest of the lot available in the market, after the above two. It comes in 32 GB, 64 GB and 128 GB models and comes with a 5 year warranty. The 128 GBKingston Data Traveler 200 will cost you about $300.

High speed and high storage capacity are the two things that one looks out for when buying a flash drive and when you get both at a reasonable price, there is not much thinking that you need to do, before arriving at a decision. Now that you know which is the fastestUSB flash drive (2010), go ahead and buy one to enjoy high data transfer speeds.
By Gray Pilgrim