Obviously the solution is to get two, one on each side of your laptop, and set them up as mirrors of each other. Then your laptop looks more balanced and you can survive a failure!
"Plug and stay" is a bad idea. A couple of laptops ago, when putting it into the laptop backpack, my hand slipped and the laptop dropped about eight inches into the pocket. It landed directly onto a mouse dongle still plugged into the USB slot. (I know, the dongle should have been "up", I was distracted!) The result was a broken slot, bummer.
I also wonder if the HDMI port in the stock photo is still easily accessible with this thing plugged in. I hate plug in devices that block other inputs/ports.
Frankly, this is more a visual gimmick rather than useful form factor. And probably that's why sandisk went with this design of pill/small candy - because how long you can do boring 4cm-7cm oblong thumb drives?
This thing is too small to be handled or placed with confidence you won't drop it or knock if off the table.
SSK and Transcend sell USB-C SSD thumb drives with speeds of 1000 MB/s. They're SSDs though, not flash memory, but they are thumb drives, not big boxes.
I've pretty much stopped using 'stick' type storage for anything >256MB, as regardless of brand and series, my experience is that these thingies overheat under anything but light write usage, and either slow to a crawl or drop off the USB bus entirely before my copy is finished.
'Credit card' sized SSDs are not that much more inconvenient to carry and store, and don't exhibit any of these issues for me.
And the thermals on these things must be horrible, plus the label makes it look like a knock-off: Sandirk?
Back when Macbook airs had tiny drives and sdcard slots, there were multiple vendors selling flush-mount sd cards. They work surprisingly well, they can sink heat well into the aluminum body.
This product isn't quite there yet, but it's clearly aiming for the same market.
When will they start offering flash drives which have a "rubbery" connection to itself (imagine a tenth of an inch of flex cable in silicon) so the port won't take a beating.
When I was studying at university, I had the highest-capacity USB drive of its time, which was 64mb. I was able to fit all my Word documents and some extras, and still felt huge. I can't find a reason for anyone to use a tiny flash drive and store 1tb info on it. It is too risky to store anything important without a backup. Versioning is also an issue and must be synced somewhere all the time. I thought we were over flash drives already. I only use flash drives for installing fresh distros on old computers. Can't find a reason to use them anymore.
I used SanDisk Cruzer Fit https://amzn.to/47OqNXT for a very long time (USB 2.0) for ESXi server installations too. Never had a problem. But this "new" design looks terrible.
One would hope the durability of this is keeping pace with the capacity. If not, what is the niche? The 1TB is an enticement to use this for more than shuffling files from place to place. But absent the durability I would not want to do that.
They could get rid of the overheating problems by slapping some Frore systems cooling chips on the dies and IO chips. No need to cook the mf out of the chips as we already have solutions to cool them.
Tiny form factor USB drives have been around for ages¹ but only for USB-A ports, so I assume the news here is the USB-C connector (and the availability of capacity over 256Gb). This would be nice, I've been looking for something small that will go in a C port without an adaptor that stops it being so tiny any more, but the shape of these looks like it would irritate me, sitting “high” above the port and likely above the device it is plugged into.
The closest I've found are minimal size dual-port things like https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B5S29JWY/ but they could be half the length (when inserted) without the A connector at all. I have no portable devices without at least as many C ports as A's, non-portable devices with only A ports I can stick a C-in-A adaptor or two semi-permanently into.
I want one that is shaped like the USB-C port. Like it was extruded from the port. About as long as a key, maybe a shorter key, like a mailbox key. Has a rounded end with a hole to make a very sturdy keyring hole. Capacity is limited to what would be reliable and not overheat. <1g.
Someone please copy the yubikey 5c form factor but make it a flash drive. I've been looking for years for a small, durable, usb type-c flashdrive for my keychain but nothing comes close to the yubikey 5c. The 5c has the metal ring so it won't ever rip off my keychain, the hole is large enough to fit a solid metal ring through it, and it is small enough that I can keep it on my keychain and use it without stressing my usb type c ports.
Having a stick with exposed contacts and no USB shell (like the yubikey has) is not possible in USB3 format. It requires springs on the stick itself, no chance of the easy, pretty much unbreakable yubikey format. That only works for USB2. USB3-A (and -C) reversed the part that is springy, what was previously in the receptacle is now in the plug. Of course USB3-A is a mixed standard so the USB2 part is still as it was for backwards compatibility.
The reason is that the springs wear the most. This ensures longevity of USB ports in laptops where they are hard to replace. A USB cable or device is usually much easier to replace, and also a PC is normally used with many devices so the wear is shared between them now. But it does mean the contacts on the plug side are more fragile now.
And without USB3, filling something at current capacity levels is going to be tedious.
Of course for a yubikey that just transfers a few bytes this is not an issue but for a USB key it is.
Since some time ago when "storage is cheap" was trendy, I have been thinking about the question of physical boundaries of data storage, i.e. how many Terabytes can be fit in a square (cubic?) centimetre? Do we know?
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 59.3 ms ] threadHopefully, this has been tested for durability and some MTBF specs are available to prove it.
Otherwise, buyer beware.
EDIT: I couldn't find any MBTF specs so I looked up the "limited warranty" for this product.
There is no warranty of uninterrupted or error-free operation.
This thing is too small to be handled or placed with confidence you won't drop it or knock if off the table.
I went looking for a USB-C version and was surprised not to find one.
I would love to see one with SSD speeds if such a thing is possible.
'Credit card' sized SSDs are not that much more inconvenient to carry and store, and don't exhibit any of these issues for me.
And the thermals on these things must be horrible, plus the label makes it look like a knock-off: Sandirk?
SanDisk flashdrives get extremely hot and die in months.
The warranty process is time consuming and tedious.
I stick to Samsung flashdrives now.
> Shaped unlike any other USB memory stick and has awkward ill-fitting shape
Genuis
This product isn't quite there yet, but it's clearly aiming for the same market.
This looks super flimsy and like it might break off easily and ruin your port.
I used SanDisk Cruzer Fit https://amzn.to/47OqNXT for a very long time (USB 2.0) for ESXi server installations too. Never had a problem. But this "new" design looks terrible.
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0822/8493/files/feature-1_...
I have adblock, how did this SanDisk commercial make it through?
That’s unfortunate, apparently the site requires some js, that is probably blocked by my firewall, to even load the page.
https://shop.sandisk.com/products/usb-flash-drives/sandisk-e...
The closest I've found are minimal size dual-port things like https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B5S29JWY/ but they could be half the length (when inserted) without the A connector at all. I have no portable devices without at least as many C ports as A's, non-portable devices with only A ports I can stick a C-in-A adaptor or two semi-permanently into.
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[1] Examples: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07HPX38XC/ https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07YYMX5LQ/ https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08772NT1L/
https://resources.yubico.com/53ZDUYE6/at/cm85k8947jm9g32znfs...
The reason is that the springs wear the most. This ensures longevity of USB ports in laptops where they are hard to replace. A USB cable or device is usually much easier to replace, and also a PC is normally used with many devices so the wear is shared between them now. But it does mean the contacts on the plug side are more fragile now.
And without USB3, filling something at current capacity levels is going to be tedious.
Of course for a yubikey that just transfers a few bytes this is not an issue but for a USB key it is.