For the first time ever I have USB-C ports on my desktop and phone that I might actually want to use. 1 TB for $69 MSRP seems reasonable for this, and I think the 85 GB buffer is probably fine for me.
I agree. For the price this certainly fits the "good enough" category. Once I write most of my tools and images, I would rarely be changing more than 85GB at one time. The catch is for it to flush the buffer to TLC the drive has to remain connected and the algorithm has to determine a idle state phase to process that flush in the background. It's unusual for my to connect a USB flash drive and just 'leave it there' for an extended period of time.
Price Point at that capacity (1TB and 2TB later on), correct read speed, with the 80GB+ limitation on continuous writing at correct speed. I see many usages for this dual-USB key where it would be less expensive and more performing than what I actually use, wether my slow USB Keys or 2.5-inch hard drives.
"...other vendors have tried to differentiate themselves from the Kingston drive..."
Is that insider knowledge or just fluff text filler gone wrong? As a writer I would be VERY careful about supporting that with something from at least Transcend and as an editor I would have revised the article to avoid a claim like that.
I do not see where insider knowledge comes into the picture here. The statement is one that I made as a market observer.
Kingston was the first to introduce a high-capacity (1 TB) thumb drive. Now, other vendors like Transcend and OWC are trying to produce 1 TB thumb drives. If they have to present themselves as credible alternatives, it is clear that they need to differentiate themselves from the existing Kingston drive.
If I were working at Transcend or OWC, as a competitive analyst, I would work towards creating a thumb drive that addresses the shortcomings of the Kingston drive. In this case, there are two obvious low-hanging fruits. The Kingston drive, with its plastic construction is flimsy. It also has separate SKUs for Type-A and Type-C. Products such as the Transcend ESD310C and the OWC Envoy Pro Mini address these aspects.
Okay, well that does at least confirm that it was an assumption rather than a manufacturer's explicit statement. As I said, I wouldn't venture out on that proverbial limb as a writer, but I don't think anything dreadful will come of it since the product is a low-cost thumb drive and the place of publication is a small tech review site. And it's already been stated a few times that AT does not have editorial review so, well, here we are.
It is a presumption, but an educated one as this is his beat and he knows how product design and marketing works. Reviews contain both hard facts and analysis, which is a form of opinion. It is not the same as Wikipedia, which requires citations for each assertion - rather, it is a work which might itself be cited, based on the authority of the source and/or the author.
Anandtech is an afterthought site with little insider knowledge or access to information that anyone with a search engine can't get themselves. Companies hocking products barely provide free junkware like thumb drives because the site gets so very little attention which I can support with evidence:
There's an interesting downward spiral over time and the site has done little to innovate and a lot to clutter itself up with ads including a CPU buying video that's been out of date for ages.
Future PLC puts their loot into Tom's Hardware because it gets about eight times more traffic (also supported with evidence)
So no, a journalist here isn't any more credible than most of the people posting comments and some of the comments box's declining participant numbers are arguably more informed and better writers even when excusing Anton being an English as a second language writer.
And just another fast but large usb driver - almost as large as an 2242 ssd in an enclosure. If I plug it into my laptop to expand storage, the usb port will be dead in 6 months - simply because accidents happen. I am still hoping for a small pen drive with a capable controller, and would be willing to pay a premium - until then even microsd-cards with tiny card readers are a better choice than what most small pen drivers offer.
Pretty much the only pen drives that will hold up to accidents when connected to a USB port are ones like the SanDisk Ultra Fit, Samsung FIT, and Mushkin Atom. These already achieve the perf you can get from micro-SD cards with tiny card readers and are more compact.
> SanDisk Ultra Fit, Samsung FIT, and Mushkin Atom. > These already achieve the perf you can get from micro-SD cards
Unfortunetly not when it comes to random write performance, all those tiny drives use "traditional" controllers which suffer a lot. At least some microsd cards are a bit better thanks to the A2 rating. Furthermore the FIT is limited to 256GB, whereas the Sandisk is extremly slow and tops out at 512GB.
I understand that those small form factors mean thermal limitations, but UFS chips show what is possible with very little power. Why not solder an UFS chip + usb bridge on a small PCB? A lot of performance with off-the-shelf components. I doubt there isn't a market for that.
I've looked for something like that too. It is not really possible and even then simply too niche. "Why not solder an UFS chip + usb bridge on a small PCB?" that heat has to go somewhere ie a heat sink ie bigger case.
To me, the most interesting aspect is use as a bootable thumbdrive. Most typical flash USBs are fast enough, but fail quickly because of all the small random writes. When I was searching for a thumb drive form factor SSD a few months ago for this, I didn't see anything close to this for the $/GB.
I see the 5 year limited warranty quoted everywhere but no TBW rating listed anywhere. Maybe there's no total data written limit accompanying the warranty?
This is a very reasonable complaint as "SSD products and memory cards are covered by the Warranty Service only when the S.M.A.R.T. analysis tested by Transcend is greater than 0%." - https://us.transcend-info.com/Legal/?no=17
Perhaps Ganesh could obtain clarification as to this detail (or the SMART data may imply an answer, comparing the raw value of e.g. bytes written vs. the lifetime score).
Been using the Kingston Data travellers a lot, both in 250GB and 1TB variants as a replacement for replaceable SATA SSDs, which I keep in trayless docks on my workstations.
They are actually twice as fast those SATA and much more flexible.
Only disadvantage is that they quite literally stick out, which can be a bit of a hazard. I used mostly the USB-C variant and then an adapter to fit them into USB-A where required, the other way around with a cable reduces the "stick out" a bit, but that doesn't really help portability, either. So the single device with both ports is definitely a plus but I like those SANdisk devices, where you have a slide-out for USB-A and USB-C and a neutral position hiding both... I guess these would be a bit unwieldy for this as their much more powerful internals can't quite fit in to that form factor (yet).
Makes you wish notebooks had a dock to hide them in just like the older notebooks could usually convert a CD/DVD/BD drive in to a SATA SSD caddy, which I used extensively to switch between operating systems.
All other things being equal, I guess the next round will be Transcend for the form factor advantages, especially the side-by-side mounting, which has been an issue on various notebooks.
A 2TB variant is greatly appreciated but pricing needs to be in line with NVMe, which is dropping very quickly.
These drives pretty much kill NVMe-2-TB storage adapters for me, as most of those only allow 2 lanes of PCIe 3.0 anyway and have turned out to die rather quickly, too. And with the equivalent of 2TB of storage in asking price, they are now really just about being able to copy NVMe media, without having to tear apart the temporary host.
At that capacity (1 TB) and relative speed, it's not bad if the price - $69 shown - stays where it is. Having both USB A and C compatibility is a good differentiator and nice to have. Yes, there a external SSDs that are a lot faster, but they're also a lot bulkier, and usually more expensive. This will do for temporary file backup and transfer in a pinch and is very portable.
@Ganesh: Forgot to ask: how well do the covers/caps on each end stay on, especially after multiple times of taking them off? In other words, do they stay snuggly on after a few weeks of use when carried around in, let's say, one's pockets in one's jeans?
The caps are fairly tightly-clasping. Unlike the usual caps with clasping ridges only on the side, these do have ridges on the long side too. In the course of the review, I must have taken them off and put them back on around 20 - 30 times, and I didn't feel any change in the strength of the clasping.
At the end of the day, these are made of plastic. and I suspect the ridges might wear off after around 500 - 600 cycles (but, don't quote me on this).
And yes, after> 500 cycles (cap off-on), I wouldn't expect anything like these to still be good as new. To me, even details like adding the clasping ridges to the caps also shows that whoever designed it actually thought about daily use. Which is a good thing!
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nandnandnand - Thursday, June 22, 2023 - link
For the first time ever I have USB-C ports on my desktop and phone that I might actually want to use. 1 TB for $69 MSRP seems reasonable for this, and I think the 85 GB buffer is probably fine for me.Samus - Thursday, June 22, 2023 - link
I agree. For the price this certainly fits the "good enough" category. Once I write most of my tools and images, I would rarely be changing more than 85GB at one time. The catch is for it to flush the buffer to TLC the drive has to remain connected and the algorithm has to determine a idle state phase to process that flush in the background. It's unusual for my to connect a USB flash drive and just 'leave it there' for an extended period of time.iAPX - Monday, June 26, 2023 - link
Price Point at that capacity (1TB and 2TB later on), correct read speed, with the 80GB+ limitation on continuous writing at correct speed.I see many usages for this dual-USB key where it would be less expensive and more performing than what I actually use, wether my slow USB Keys or 2.5-inch hard drives.
This products is exciting for me!
PeachNCream - Thursday, June 22, 2023 - link
"...other vendors have tried to differentiate themselves from the Kingston drive..."Is that insider knowledge or just fluff text filler gone wrong? As a writer I would be VERY careful about supporting that with something from at least Transcend and as an editor I would have revised the article to avoid a claim like that.
ganeshts - Thursday, June 22, 2023 - link
I do not see where insider knowledge comes into the picture here. The statement is one that I made as a market observer.Kingston was the first to introduce a high-capacity (1 TB) thumb drive. Now, other vendors like Transcend and OWC are trying to produce 1 TB thumb drives. If they have to present themselves as credible alternatives, it is clear that they need to differentiate themselves from the existing Kingston drive.
If I were working at Transcend or OWC, as a competitive analyst, I would work towards creating a thumb drive that addresses the shortcomings of the Kingston drive. In this case, there are two obvious low-hanging fruits. The Kingston drive, with its plastic construction is flimsy. It also has separate SKUs for Type-A and Type-C. Products such as the Transcend ESD310C and the OWC Envoy Pro Mini address these aspects.
PeachNCream - Thursday, June 22, 2023 - link
Okay, well that does at least confirm that it was an assumption rather than a manufacturer's explicit statement. As I said, I wouldn't venture out on that proverbial limb as a writer, but I don't think anything dreadful will come of it since the product is a low-cost thumb drive and the place of publication is a small tech review site. And it's already been stated a few times that AT does not have editorial review so, well, here we are.Skeptical123 - Saturday, June 24, 2023 - link
The wording is clear and to call it an "assumption" is wrong.GreenReaper - Sunday, June 25, 2023 - link
It is a presumption, but an educated one as this is his beat and he knows how product design and marketing works. Reviews contain both hard facts and analysis, which is a form of opinion. It is not the same as Wikipedia, which requires citations for each assertion - rather, it is a work which might itself be cited, based on the authority of the source and/or the author.PeachNCream - Wednesday, June 28, 2023 - link
Anandtech is an afterthought site with little insider knowledge or access to information that anyone with a search engine can't get themselves. Companies hocking products barely provide free junkware like thumb drives because the site gets so very little attention which I can support with evidence:https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&...
There's an interesting downward spiral over time and the site has done little to innovate and a lot to clutter itself up with ads including a CPU buying video that's been out of date for ages.
Future PLC puts their loot into Tom's Hardware because it gets about eight times more traffic (also supported with evidence)
https://www.semrush.com/website/anandtech.com/over...
So no, a journalist here isn't any more credible than most of the people posting comments and some of the comments box's declining participant numbers are arguably more informed and better writers even when excusing Anton being an English as a second language writer.
ceisserer - Thursday, June 22, 2023 - link
And just another fast but large usb driver - almost as large as an 2242 ssd in an enclosure.If I plug it into my laptop to expand storage, the usb port will be dead in 6 months - simply because accidents happen.
I am still hoping for a small pen drive with a capable controller, and would be willing to pay a premium - until then even microsd-cards with tiny card readers are a better choice than what most small pen drivers offer.
ganeshts - Thursday, June 22, 2023 - link
Pretty much the only pen drives that will hold up to accidents when connected to a USB port are ones like the SanDisk Ultra Fit, Samsung FIT, and Mushkin Atom. These already achieve the perf you can get from micro-SD cards with tiny card readers and are more compact.meacupla - Thursday, June 22, 2023 - link
I am hoping 2242 enclosures become more popular, because all I can find are 2280JaqenHghar - Thursday, June 22, 2023 - link
Nice 2230 enclosure, USBC onlyhttps://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shargetech/sh...
ceisserer - Friday, June 23, 2023 - link
> SanDisk Ultra Fit, Samsung FIT, and Mushkin Atom.> These already achieve the perf you can get from micro-SD cards
Unfortunetly not when it comes to random write performance, all those tiny drives use "traditional" controllers which suffer a lot. At least some microsd cards are a bit better thanks to the A2 rating. Furthermore the FIT is limited to 256GB, whereas the Sandisk is extremly slow and tops out at 512GB.
I understand that those small form factors mean thermal limitations, but UFS chips show what is possible with very little power. Why not solder an UFS chip + usb bridge on a small PCB? A lot of performance with off-the-shelf components. I doubt there isn't a market for that.
Skeptical123 - Saturday, June 24, 2023 - link
I've looked for something like that too. It is not really possible and even then simply too niche. "Why not solder an UFS chip + usb bridge on a small PCB?" that heat has to go somewhere ie a heat sink ie bigger case.jaydee3839 - Friday, June 23, 2023 - link
To me, the most interesting aspect is use as a bootable thumbdrive. Most typical flash USBs are fast enough, but fail quickly because of all the small random writes. When I was searching for a thumb drive form factor SSD a few months ago for this, I didn't see anything close to this for the $/GB.garblah - Friday, June 23, 2023 - link
I see the 5 year limited warranty quoted everywhere but no TBW rating listed anywhere. Maybe there's no total data written limit accompanying the warranty?GreenReaper - Sunday, June 25, 2023 - link
This is a very reasonable complaint as "SSD products and memory cards are covered by the Warranty Service only when the S.M.A.R.T. analysis tested by Transcend is greater than 0%." - https://us.transcend-info.com/Legal/?no=17Perhaps Ganesh could obtain clarification as to this detail (or the SMART data may imply an answer, comparing the raw value of e.g. bytes written vs. the lifetime score).
abufrejoval - Saturday, June 24, 2023 - link
Been using the Kingston Data travellers a lot, both in 250GB and 1TB variants as a replacement for replaceable SATA SSDs, which I keep in trayless docks on my workstations.They are actually twice as fast those SATA and much more flexible.
Only disadvantage is that they quite literally stick out, which can be a bit of a hazard. I used mostly the USB-C variant and then an adapter to fit them into USB-A where required, the other way around with a cable reduces the "stick out" a bit, but that doesn't really help portability, either. So the single device with both ports is definitely a plus but I like those SANdisk devices, where you have a slide-out for USB-A and USB-C and a neutral position hiding both... I guess these would be a bit unwieldy for this as their much more powerful internals can't quite fit in to that form factor (yet).
Makes you wish notebooks had a dock to hide them in just like the older notebooks could usually convert a CD/DVD/BD drive in to a SATA SSD caddy, which I used extensively to switch between operating systems.
All other things being equal, I guess the next round will be Transcend for the form factor advantages, especially the side-by-side mounting, which has been an issue on various notebooks.
A 2TB variant is greatly appreciated but pricing needs to be in line with NVMe, which is dropping very quickly.
These drives pretty much kill NVMe-2-TB storage adapters for me, as most of those only allow 2 lanes of PCIe 3.0 anyway and have turned out to die rather quickly, too. And with the equivalent of 2TB of storage in asking price, they are now really just about being able to copy NVMe media, without having to tear apart the temporary host.
Now we just need proper JBOD/RAIDx for them!
Viji - Tuesday, June 27, 2023 - link
ordered mine from Amazon , it ships from Japangteichrow - Tuesday, June 27, 2023 - link
Curious if this would make a good TimeMachine drive for a mac. Any thoughts?eastcoast_pete - Thursday, June 29, 2023 - link
At that capacity (1 TB) and relative speed, it's not bad if the price - $69 shown - stays where it is. Having both USB A and C compatibility is a good differentiator and nice to have. Yes, there a external SSDs that are a lot faster, but they're also a lot bulkier, and usually more expensive. This will do for temporary file backup and transfer in a pinch and is very portable.eastcoast_pete - Thursday, June 29, 2023 - link
Oh, and damn the autocorrect in Gboard and damn still no edit function on this site. "..there are external.." became "there a..".eastcoast_pete - Thursday, June 29, 2023 - link
@Ganesh: Forgot to ask: how well do the covers/caps on each end stay on, especially after multiple times of taking them off? In other words, do they stay snuggly on after a few weeks of use when carried around in, let's say, one's pockets in one's jeans?ganeshts - Wednesday, July 5, 2023 - link
The caps are fairly tightly-clasping. Unlike the usual caps with clasping ridges only on the side, these do have ridges on the long side too. In the course of the review, I must have taken them off and put them back on around 20 - 30 times, and I didn't feel any change in the strength of the clasping.At the end of the day, these are made of plastic. and I suspect the ridges might wear off after around 500 - 600 cycles (but, don't quote me on this).
eastcoast_pete - Sunday, July 9, 2023 - link
Thanks for answering, Ganesh!eastcoast_pete - Sunday, July 9, 2023 - link
And yes, after> 500 cycles (cap off-on), I wouldn't expect anything like these to still be good as new. To me, even details like adding the clasping ridges to the caps also shows that whoever designed it actually thought about daily use. Which is a good thing!