best usb3 flash drive?

[zCypher]

Are there any important differences between various USB3 flash drives?
Assuming at least 64GB capacity, are pretty much all the usual good brands a safe bet?

Edit, nevermind the 64GB it seems that two 32GB drives can be had for less.

 

[Coup27]

AT did a review of USB3 drives a little while back, although the market may have changed since then.

I have a Patriot Supersonic 32GB. My first one was unstable with random errors and I had to RMA and pay for shipping to The Netherlands despite buying it in the UK.

The second one I received has been fine. It's fast, sustained transfers over USB3 are around 130MB/70MB/sec (read/write). Random small transfers are nowhere near as bad as they are on my Corsair voyager USB2.

Patriot customer service did annoy me though. Not only did they refuse to cover the cost of posting the stick to a country outside where I bought it from, I never even heard anything back from them confirming it was faulty or anything.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I picked up a Microcenter house-brand USB3.0 32GB stick. I have yet to test it though, still putting my new rig (with USB3.0) together.

 

[GTRagnarok]

I think the new Lexar Triton is the "best" USB 3.0 flash drive right now. Extremely fast writes, small form factor, and capless.

I would get it myself, but it's too expensive right now.

 

[zCypher]

I ended up picking up two 32GB Corsair Flash Voyager GT USB 3.0 for $35AR each, can't wait to test them out. I was pleasantly surprised at how fast Windows installed from a USB 2.0 drive on my current USB 3.0 compatible system, so I'm eager to see what it's like with a USB 3.0 drive.

Also eager to try out a multi-boot USB since I will have the space. I'd like to put Win7, Win8 Developer Preview, and Ubuntu 11.10

Also, someone on the forum put an idea in my head about setting up Windows inside a virtual machine inside Linux, to have bootable portable Windows. Pretty neat idea.

 

[exdeath]

I was going to suggest Patriot Supersonic or Mushkin Ventura Pro for "thumb" drives.

Once a USB flash drive becomes the size of an egg and blocking neighboring ports and is difficult to pocket without a big heavy lump in your pockets, it's no longer a "thumb" drive and you might as well just get a standard SSD with a SATA3-USB3 cable which will be 20x faster than any thumb drive anyway.