Technology

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.

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.

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.