When we last took an in-depth look at USB flash drives in 2005, the landscape was a bit different. A 2GB drive ran nearly $200, and speeds were quite a bit slower then. At the time, we noted that while the then-current crop of drives was pretty fast, they still were not close to saturating the bandwidth of USB2. To top it off, a good drive was still going to set you back $50 or $70—not exactly a cheap proposition. Since our first roundup, this picture has changed considerably, and it leads to a question: has the flash drive become an undifferentiated commodity, just like any other cheap plastic tsotschke that you might find at an office supply store checkout counter?

Consider the following factors:

The majority of flash drives sold are either 4GB or 8GB,

which is more than plenty of storage for most people.

which is more than plenty of storage for most people. Most of the drives in this size range are under $20.

Accessories (like neck straps, USB extension cables, spare

caps, etc.) are no longer included.

Normally, twenty dollars is not something that most of us would think twice about, but don't most of us still want to know that we are getting our money's worth? To test this commodity theory, we selected a cornucopia of mostly 4GB and 8GB USB flash drives ranging from $9 to $30 dollars (average: $19.00)

Products (tallest to smallest)

Each drive was evaluated on just a few factors:

Features

Construction

Read / write speed

The following system was used for our testing:

Windows test system

Asus P5Q-E (P45 chipset)

Intel Core2Quad Q9550 (2.83Ghz)

Corsair XMS2 4GB PC2-6400 (DDR2-800)

WD SE16

640GB (SATA)

Windows Vista x64 Ultimate SP1

We benchmarked each USB Flash drive using a Microsoft command-line tool, diskspd.exe, which allowed us to disable Windows disk caching, batch script our tests, and output our results to a spreadsheet. Each drive was tested on sequential reads and sequential writes as well as random reads and random writes starting at 512-byte blocks and doubling in size each time until reaching 32MB blocks. Each drive was tested non-stop for a minimum of 30 minutes.

Common features and construction options

Retractable USB connector: Most USB flash drives have

caps (that can be easily lost), but some drives come with

retractable connectors. Waterproof / shockproof: A few drives tout waterproof

and/or shockproof ability. Something nice to have in the

rough-and-tumble world of mobile computing (or if you are the

clumsy type that is likely to drop your flash drive into your

coffee.) Keychain ring: Some drives have an additional connector

to help attach your drive to your necklace or keychain. Extra software and warranty: Long gone are Win98SE

driver disks, but some drives still offer support software to

make your drive better. Some manufacturers have no faith in

their drives and offer short warranties, while others know that

their drives will be long obsolete before they break and offer

limited Lifetime warranties.