Background
I have had the same Kingston DataTraveller DTSE9 since around 2010, when I was still in school. I’ve carried it on my keychain for at least 12 years and it still works, its “the old reliable”.
That said, it’s slow. Very slow. I use it mostly as a boot USB for Linux / Windows, so I need several sticks with decent random read speed, and decent write speed for when I update them.
My criteria were:
- All-metal construction for durability, including the keychain loop
- Sits well on a keychain next to keys
- Reasonable speed, including random reads.
Testing method
I evaluated the sticks in two ways.
I ran CrystalDiskMark with 256 MiB (x5) configuration.
I also measured the angle at which the USB stick sits on a keyring. I found that several of them could not sit perpendicular to a keyring it because of their geometry, which makes it difficult to comfortably use them next to keys.
At the datum of 0 degrees, the key sits perpendicular to the keyring.
Results
The competitors
Here are the 6 main competitors in this space I bought.
All transfer units are in MB/s.
| Product | Price (£) | Angle on keyring (0deg is best) | Sequential reads Q8T1 | Sequential reads Q1T1 | Random reads Q32T1 | Random reads Q1T1 | Sequential writes Q8T1 | Sequential writes Q1T1 | Random writes Q32T1 | Random writes Q1T1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Corsair GTX 128GB | 65 (256GB version) | 0 | 470.214 | 429.330 | 157.436 | 19.390 | 436.990 | 414.201 | 166.829 | 38.937 |
| Samsung Bar 64GB | 10 | 55 | 305.424 | 305.268 | 14.517 | 13.428 | 36.434 | 36.247 | 20.537 | 21.619 |
| Kingston DTSE9G3 64GB | 11 | 0 | 246.705 | 244.496 | 13.756 | 13.028 | 100.236 | 110.054 | 0.484 | 0.474 |
| Integral Arc 3 | 10 | 0 | 162.336 | 161.338 | 15.567 | 11.188 | 49.457 | 47.965 | 5.032 | 4.244 |
| Kingston DataTraveller Micro 64GB | 11 | 0 | 247.000 | 245.247 | 13.788 | 12.961 | 100.932 | 101.292 | 0.496 | 0.470 |
| Sandisk Ultra Luxe 64GB | 12 | 25 | 403.863 | 399.974 | 12.438 | 12.054 | 91.835 | 91.685 | 4.272 | 4.258 |
Some additional notes:
- The Samsung Bar had really sharp corners. You might need to file them down like I did.
- Corsair GTX: the 128GB version is no longer available and the lowest capacity is 256GB. It’s more of a portable SSD in the form of a USB stick, which makes it really fast, but it’s bulkier than a normal USB stick, though not by much. Often it takes up more than one USB port because it’s wide. It’s still very good and I recommend it.
Other devices
Some related products I own but don’t qualify for this comparison but are offered up here for context.
Here’s why they don’t qualify.
-
Crucial P3 Plus: It’s an NVME SSD. Can be made portable with a good enclosure, but too bulky for what I’m looking for.
-
Samsung 860 Evo: It’s a SATA SSD, definitely not the right form factor.
-
Sandisk Ultra Curve: I bought this thinking it was made out of metal, but it was not. It’s fairly flimsy plastic.
-
Kingston DTSE9 16GB: This is my old stick. The old reliable. No longer sold, but I’ve tested its successor.
-
Samsung SD Card: It’s a 2016 MicroSD card connected to my PC via a MicroSD-SD adapter and a USB card reader. I included this as a meme.
| Product | Sequential reads Q8T1 | Sequential reads Q1T1 | Random reads Q32T1 | Random reads Q1T1 | Sequential writes Q8T1 | Sequential writes Q1T1 | Random writes Q32T1 | Random writes Q1T1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crucial P3 Plus M.2 NVME 2TB | 1598.227 | 1332.131 | 305.220 | 46.643 | 1560.989 | 1452.256 | 238.134 | 102.502 |
| Samsung 860 Evo SATA 1TB | 564.446 | 539.913 | 272.631 | 43.322 | 536.440 | 518.168 | 238.752 | 101.313 |
| Sandisk Ultra Curve | 160.091 | 158.859 | 9.271 | 9.043 | 58.680 | 60.377 | 2.902 | 3.209 |
| Old Kingston DTSE9 16GB | 18.452 | 18.220 | 8.473 | 8.096 | 13.626 | 13.629 | 0.115 | 0.026 |
| Samsung Memory Pro Plus Micro SD Card | 20.765 | 20.969 | 5.146 | 5.102 | 19.493 | 20.316 | 2.181 | 3.421 |
Conclusion
There are no clear winners in this fight.
- The Corsair GTX is the fastest in all categories by a country mile, but has a larger form-factor than other entries and higher price. Very good, but not for everyone.
- Samsung Bar has the fastest random writes, and decent performance in other metrics for its USB stick form factor, but sits awful on a keychain due to the angled hole.
- The Integral Arc 3 has solid random performance, but worst sequential performance than the rest.
- Sandisk Ultra Luxe gets the best overall balance of performance, but does not sit on the keychain super well.
- The two Kingston’s perform effectively the same, with the Micro being much more compact. That said, that can be a disadvantage on a keyring if there are adjacent items.
- All competitors (bar the GTX) had similar random reads.
For me, I’d say the right choice is either the Kingston DTSE9G3. It’s a nice upgrade over my old DTSE9 and sits nicely next to it’s grandfather. If I needed any random writes though, for copying lots of small documents like code files, I’d pick the Integral Arc 3.
Give my GTX. It’s even survived going through the washing machine lol
I replaced my old DataTraveler with a Samsung Bar and the angled hole isn’t really that noticeable to me other than aesthetically being annoying to look at. I was initially concerned about that but it was the only all metal USB drive they had at Microcenter so I bit the bullet. I actually carried it around for like 2 weeks in my pocket and forgot about it until I noticed it was on there when I got my keys out at one point.
Great post OP. I love this kind of thing.
I love the documentation.
Just… Why is it shaped like that? What possessed Samsung to make that design…?
It will stick up at an odd angle in a desk or in a bag. Easy to find.
It also provides a raised grip for removing, but they could do both of those without THAT shape. Even rotating the hole 90 degrees would make it a little better on the key ring and still keep those marginal benefits.
I have had the Sandisk Ultra Luxe 512GB version for a few years now with Ventoy on it and have been very pleased with it. I keep a cheap USB-C to USB-A attached to it and that lets me use it with my phone or on any computer.
I really wish Kingston made their latest datatraveler drive in all-metal. The USB C one seems to just be an Nvme drive with a USB C port.
Out of curiosity, could the Samsung and Sandisk not have been flipped over on the ring to fit at a better angle? I realize they’ll run around the ring and be at the worse angle in your pocket from time to time but, I guess I’m just wondering how you made the measurement. The Samsung bar in the picture is at a solid 90 degrees to the GTX, which would be annoying as hell if the GTX was replaced by a set of keys lol
Like you say, it will just happen on the other side as I don’t normally hang them from a chain. I’d rather pick something that hangs nicely from the start.
I’m curious if anyone has ever done a longevity test. Rather than Io performance, I’m more interested in how quickly they wear out.
I’ve had my Samsung Bar for 5 years now and no issue with it, if that’s worth anything
I don’t have any evidence to backup my statement, but for my usecase (Linux booting troubleshooting toolkit) Kingston sticks last a fair while (~10 years), but Sandisk fail sooner (<5years?)
The main thing I’ve noticed for all brands: there’s no warning before failure. They’re like nicad batteries… all good, then one day - completely dead. So never keep any data on them that you can’t lose.
Yeah at least hard drives usually have the decency to warn you that they’re about to die, but USBs will just not work one day and that will be it
I also have a DTSE9 and it’s been on my keychain for at least 10 years now :D
Recently I have just gotten 2 nvme ssd enclosures and have been very happily using them for the super quick image writes. I just checked if there’s some compact 2230 enclosures and some of those even have keychain attachment points… they definitely are a bit bulky for a keychain but I’d argue they still are an option and will look similar to a keyfob :)
Have you come across a USB c only key that would be compact? Like just a stick the width of the USB c port
I’d love one with both USB-C and USB-A, or perhaps a USB-A adapter that stays snugly attached but can be removed.
There are many with both C and A!
Example.
https://www.kingston.com/en/usb-flash-drives/datatraveler-microduo-3c-g3
Anything that would work on a keychain? The ports would need some kind of protection.
Reminds me of a tiny Verbatim USB A one I had on my key ring for ages. https://www.storagereview.com/review/verbatim-tuff-n-tiny-usb-drive-review?amp
I had this one! And a TDK of the same size
This is dope! I wish there was a proper community that did tests like this in mass using open source standardized methods/hardware.
Here’s your opportunity to start one
This fucking rocks, you rock, thanks for making this!!
One of these took me through university in 2002
I really miss the hardware read only switch.
Computer labs did not have front USB back in those days, so we had to choose between floppies or diving under the desks. I was in the diver club.
32MB was massive for documents at the time. It could hold your entire academic life back then.
There’s one out there, named something like kangaroo, where they actually have signed firmware, and a hardware read/write switch (most of the time, the read/write switch is software based) parentheses.
32MB was massive for documents at the time. It could hold your entire academic life back then.
Nowadays you need like 32 Gigabytes lol
Afaik, if it works the same as SD, it just tells the OS/device nicely to not write. Not very secure.
I believe there are small microSD adapters that ensure read only so ymmv
Oh I forgot about those switches. I think that means I probably don’t really miss them, I mean, it’s not like putting something on it necessarily deletes what’s on there and it’s kind of hard to accidentally write to one.
I remember 256MB sticks were a game changer for me. 1TB still seems unnecessarily to me. You carrying Wikipedia in there?!
Wikipedia is only 110GB… https://library.kiwix.org
is that just the text
Nope
I carry around PowerPoint presentations that contain huge loops of satellite data. I love my 1TB USB stick.
Thanks for the post! I’d be interested in having a similar analysis but with USB c’s - I already have most my devices use it and I think it would be a nice future proofing. Then again for PC’s specifically I think I would go with your recommendation as well. Also have a Kingston data traveler from way back and it’s still slow and kickin. Thanks!
Bought December 2007, downtown Portland Radio Shack, which was coincidentally my last purchase from the chain.
It’s also the very last of the Disk of Death hacker series started in 1995 on Floppies.
May its light continue to shine (unnecessarily)
had a bunch of these, the ones with U3 partitions were super hack tools, could autorun apps and scripts like a CD, windows didn’t know wtf to do.
I bought 2, probably around the same time. One of them failed after years of serving as my NAS boot drive, so I replaced it with its twin, and that one is still going strong.
8GB in 2007?! How much did that cost?
I don’t remember, but I do remember it was a special trip there for it (a 5 block walk).
Still have the 4GB version of this one somewhere. Bought in the same year
Served be well over the years
Mine has been relegated to BIOS updates, still doing a great job just a bit small these days.
Shit I had one of those. Now I’m feeling all nostalgic remembering fidgetting with the slider
8GB hot damn. I thought I was shit hot with 2 haha.
Still have this same usb stick and it works flawlessly
Oh my god, thank you so much for this. I have always had the hardest time finding these exact same requirements, and this is perfect. All metal construction and coexisting with keys has always been a priority for me, but it seems like everyone is inexplicably fine with copping out by just dangling their data on this flimsy little string tied to a brittle plastic case and I cannot understand it.
I’m not currently looking for one at this exact moment, but I will be returning here when I am. You’re doing the lord’s work out here!
