Transcend16GB JetFlash 700 USB 3.1 Gen 1 Flash Drive USB Stick Black -TS16GJF700

Superb value for money. Very fast little USB drives. I’ve come to trust Transcend as a brand after using several of their USB sticks for a recent art installation. They performed faster than any other USB stick I’ve used before and proved their reliability long term. Can’t fault them, especially at this price point.

Transcend is one of my favourite memory device manufacturers and I use their SD cards in my digital cameras and their USB memory sticks with my Macintosh computers.I have several memory sticks with a larger capacity (32GB and 64GB) but this 16GB model was purchased with a specific application in mind. I have stored on it a stripped down version of my Macintosh operating system (OS X) and equipped it with all the software tools and utilities to enable me to fix my computer should it go wrong. Disk corruption can cause minor problems but it can also prevent the computer from starting. By placing a copy of OS X on a memory stick I can optionally boot (startup) from the memory stick and use the tools and utilities upon it to get my computer working again. This often means fixing some minor disk corruption on the computer's internal hard drive. Of course, booting from a 'clone', an external hard disk drive (HDD) with an exact copy of the computers own HDD, will do the same job but the cost will be much higher. Memory stick prices have dropped faster than small HDDs.It is also possible to boot from a recovery CD, if one is provided, but this can take quite some time because there are mechanical components involved. By using a memory stick to boot the computer, startup time is cut to a fraction of that achievable from a disk (CD/DVD) and an optical disk drive, which may not be functioning due to the corruption.A USB memory stick is a perfectly acceptable 'emergency boot device' because it is truly solid-state and has no moving parts. But it is very important to choose a memory stick which has a fast 'read access' rate and the Transcend 16GB JetFlash 700 Super Speed USB 3.0 Drive meets this objective easily. The Transcend has a fast 'write access' rate too but this feature is less important in my particular application.I use Transcend memory sticks with Macintosh, Windows and Linux computers and I have never encountered a compatibility problem. They just work.

I've listed the speeds in both USB2 and USB3 ports below. The performance is decent for the price of the unit.The plastic housing does't feel as sturdy as most usb sticks I own, but it still should be tough enough to last with general use.A 4 star rating is fair in my opinion, would have got 5 if the write speed was closer to 20MB/s.-----------------------------------------------------------------------USB 3.0-----------------------------------------------------------------------* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]Sequential Read : 79.426 MB/sSequential Write : 12.101 MB/sRandom Read 512KB : 79.819 MB/sRandom Write 512KB : 0.890 MB/sRandom Read 4KB (QD=1) : 6.928 MB/s [ 1691.4 IOPS]Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.019 MB/s [ 4.6 IOPS]Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 5.735 MB/s [ 1400.1 IOPS]Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.022 MB/s [ 5.3 IOPS]-----------------------------------------------------------------------USB 2.0:-----------------------------------------------------------------------* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]Sequential Read : 34.562 MB/sSequential Write : 9.937 MB/sRandom Read 512KB : 33.267 MB/sRandom Write 512KB : 0.976 MB/sRandom Read 4KB (QD=1) : 5.071 MB/s [ 1238.1 IOPS]Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.042 MB/s [ 10.2 IOPS]Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 4.445 MB/s [ 1085.2 IOPS]Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.020 MB/s [ 5.0 IOPS]

Just what I needed to make a Recovery Drive for my new ASUS ZenBook Duo laptop.It works fine. Being a USB 3.1 device, file transfers are relatively quick.With a reasonable price and quick delivery, I have no complaints!

UPDATE: I've had this Transcend USB stick for 6 years now and it still works perfectly. A great purchase!I purchased this Flash Drive to watch videos on my PS3 and to transfer data from one Mac to another Mac.Write speed seemed excellent to me and was the quickest of any flash drive that I have ever used before. Read speed was fine, especially watching videos from the flash drive directly on the PS3.The flash drive arrived quickly and the packaging was impressive. For a change the packing was sensibly sized, environmentally friendly and easy to open. Why don't all electronics manufacturers package their products like this? Well done Transcend!All-in-all I'm very happy with this product and I will definitely buy Transcend again... quite soon possibly as I need another flash drive. It's not the cheapest drive out there, but I suspect that it is one of the better/best choices.

Does the trick