In today's review we are going to look at a very interesting flash drive from the world-famous company SanDisk. Why interesting? Because it can be called without exaggeration one of the most versatile flash drives on the market. It can be used with both computers and mobile phones and for a truly wide range of tasks. So how does SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive Did USB-C lead in our test?
Technical Specifications
flash disk Ultra Dual Drive is made of aluminum in combination with plastic. It has two connectors, each of which protrudes from a different side of the body. These are specifically the classic USB-A, which is specifically in version 3.0, and USB-C 3.1. So I would not be afraid to say that you can stick the flask into almost anything these days, since USB-A and USB-C are by far the most common types of ports in the world. As for capacity, the editors received a version with 64GB of storage solved via a NAND chip. The manufacturer of this model states that we will see up to 150 MB/s of read speed and 55 MB/s of write speed. In both cases, these are good values, which will be more than enough for the vast majority of users. The flash drive is also produced in 16 GB, 32 GB and 128 GB variant. For our 64 GB variaYou will pay a standard pleasant 639 crowns.
Design
Design evaluation is largely a subjective matter, so please take the following lines as my personal opinion. I must say that I Ultra Dual Drive I really like USB-C because it is very well made. miniminimalistic, but at the same time smart. I like the combination of aluminum and plastic, both in terms of appearance and overall durability of the product, which could be very decent in the long term thanks to these materials. The hole on the bottom for threading a lanyard from a key also deserves praise. It is a detail, but definitely useful. The flash drive is really small enough that it will certainly find its place on many people's keys. The only minor complaint I have is about the black "slider" on the top of the product, which is used to slide out individual connectors from one or the other side of the drive. In my opinion, it would deserve to be recessed into the body of the product by perhaps a good millimeter, thanks to which it would be quite elegantly hidden and there would be no risk of something getting caught on it, for example. This is not a major risk even now, but you know it - coincidence is stupid and you really don't want to ruin your flash drive just because a string is sticking out of your pocket.
Testing
Before we get down to the actual testing, let's stop for a moment at the mechanism of ejecting individual connectors. Ejection is completely smooth and does not require any brute force, which overall increases the user comfort of the product. I find the "locking" of the connectors after they are fully extended really useful, thanks to which they do not move even an inch when inserted into the device. They can then only be unlocked via the upper slider, which I wrote about above. It is enough to press it lightly until you hear a soft click, and then just slide it towards the center of the disc, which will logically insert the ejected connector. Once the slider is in the middle, the connectors do not protrude from either side of the disc and are therefore 100% protected.
Testing must be divided into two levels – one is computer-based and the other is mobile. Let's start with the second one, i.e. mobile, specifically designed for smartphones with a USB-C port. There are a number of these on the market today, with more and more models being added. SanDisk has prepared a test for these phones in Google Play the Memory Zone application, which is used, in simple terms, for managing data that can be downloaded both from a flash drive to phones and the other way around – from phones to a flash drive. So, if you have, for example, a low internal storage capacity and do not want to rely on SD cards, this flash drive is an option to solve this problem. In addition to managing files in terms of transfer, the application also serves to view them. The flash drive can be used, for example, to watch movies that you simply record on it on a computer and play on the phone without any problems after inserting it. It should be noted that the playback of media files works really reliably, so you don't have to worry about any unpleasant jams or anything like that. In short – the flash drive is reliable in conjunction with the mobile application.
As for testing on a computer level, I tested the flash drive primarily in terms of transfer speeds. These have been the alpha and omega of everything for many users in recent years, as they determine how much time they will have to spend at the computer. So how did the flash drive perform? From my point of view, very well. I tested the transfer of two files of different capacities, of course on devices that offered full support for both the USB-C and USB-A ports. The first thing I did was transfer a 4 GB 30K movie that I recorded to the drive via MacBook Pro with Thunderbolt 3 ports. The start of writing the movie to the disc was great, as I reached about 75 MB/s (at times I even moved slightly above 80 MB/s, but not for a long time). After a few dozen seconds, however, the writing speed dropped to about a third, where it remained with slight fluctuations upwards until the end of writing the file. Bottom line, the transfer took me about 25 minutes, which is definitely not a bad number. When I then reversed the direction and transferred the same file from the flash drive back to the computer, the brutal transfer speed of 130 MB/s was confirmed. It started almost immediately after the transfer started and ended only when it was completed, thanks to which I transferred the file in about four minutes, which in my opinion is great.
The second file transferred was a folder containing a variety of files from .pdf, through screenshoty to various text documents from Wordat or Pages or voice recordings (it was simply a clipboard folder that almost every one of us has on our computer). Its size was 200 MB, thanks to which it was transferred to and from the flash drive very quickly - it got to it in about 6 seconds, and then from it almost instantly. I used USB-C for the transfer, as in the previous case. However, I then performed both tests with a connection via USB-A, which had no effect on the transfer speed in either case. So it doesn't matter which port you use, because you will get the same results in both cases - that is, of course, if your computer also offers full compatibility with the standards.
Summary
SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive In my opinion, USB-C is one of the most versatile flash drives on the market today. Its usability is truly wide, the read and write speeds are more than good (for ordinary users), the design is nice and the price is friendly. So if you are looking for the most versatile flash drive possible, which will not leave you stranded for quite a few years and at the same time you will be able to store a huge amount of data on it, this model is one of the best.
