Sandisk had phenomenal success with the Sandisk Extreme which I reviewed nearly two years ago. The Extreme is still one of the best flash drives available. I had high hopes for the Ultra despite its marginally more budget orientation. Unfortunately the 16GB Ultra turned out to be a disappointment. With sequential read/write speeds of just 75/9 Mbps the Ultra lies in the bottom 25% of 16GB USB 3.0 flash drives. Small file (4K) read/write speeds clocked in at 8.35/0.08 MBps which is also in the bottom 25%. On the bright side the Ultra USB 3.0 isn't overpriced so it does represents reasonable value for money but I would happily spend a little more and get the record breaking 16GB Sandisk Extreme[Feb '14USBFlashPro]
We like this drive, it has the highest sequential read speed we have seen to date and the remainder of its performance profile is also respectable. At 198 MB/s the read speed is almost double the speed stated on the drives box, and 33% higher than the speed quoted on Lacies website, an unusual result that needs verification (comments from owners welcome). In terms of form factor we are very disappointed with the oversized orange cap and can't realistically see anyone leaving it attached to the drive. Without the cap this drive is superbly strong, ultra compact and performs respectably, we like it a lot. The only problems we do have with the Lacie RuggedKey are its price which is simply not competitive at this time and we would have liked to have seen higher random 4k speeds for this top end drive. [Aug '12USBFlashPro]
We highlight the best USB flash drive in terms of balanced performance and value for money using current prices, sequential read, sequential write , 4k read and 4k write speed. The speeds are combined to form a single effective speed which measures performance for tasks such as copying photos, music and videos. Effective speed is adjusted by current price and capacity to yield value for money. Finally thousands of individual user ratings are used to validate our benchmark figures. [USBFlashPro]
Welcome to our PC speed test tool. UserBenchmark will test your PC and compare the results to other users with the same components. You can quickly size up your PC, identify hardware problems and explore the best value for money upgrades.