Review: Sandisk Ultra Fit Flash Drive USB 3.1


Are you looking for a tiny USB flash drive that's fast and convenient to use? Have a look at the Ultra Fit USB 3.1 pen drive from the Sandisk stable.

Sandisk USB 3.1

Introduction

We've reviewed a few Sandisk flash drives on Techulator in the past. The Sandisk Dual Drive Flash Drives were suited for the computer and Android smartphones and the iXpand Mini Flash Drive was specifically designed and suited for Apple iPhones in addition to PC/Macs. In this article, I'm going to review a flash drive that's best suited for people looking for a convenient, tiny and fast USB flash drive.

Specifications

  • USB 3.1 speeds
  • Advertised transfer speeds of 130 MB/s
  • Small (Tiny) form factor
  • Plug and "stay" device
  • Extremely light weight

Initial Impressions

The Sandisk Ultra Fit USB 3.1 flash drive is an extremely lightweight, tiny pen drive that is smaller than a 1 Rupee coin. At first glance, it seems more like a USB dongle for wireless keyboards/mouse.
Sandisk USB vs 1 rupee coin

It weighs around 4 grams and can easily fit in your pocket or even your wallet. It comes in the following storage capacities:
  • 16GB
  • 32GB
  • 64GB
  • 128GB
  • 256GB
This flash drive is USB 3.1 (Generation 1) and has a certified read speed of up to 130 MB/s. This is indeed 15X faster than the typical transfer speeds we get from the conventional USB 2.0 flash drives.

Design

This flash drive has a Plug and Stay design which basically means you can plug it and let it stay in the USB port of your computer. It is so tiny, it won't even interfere or get stuck onto laptop sleeves, covers or bags. I would recommend using a lanyard with it so that it can easily be found among other stuff on the computer table.
Plug n stay
sleek design
The rear part of the flash drive has a lanyard cutout in place. You can attach it with a keychain or one of the many designer USB lanyards available in the market.

Its overall dimensions are: 19.1 x 15.9 x 8.8 mm; 0.75 x 0.63 x 0.35 in (LxWxH)

Performance

This flash drive is USB 3.1 (Generation 1) certified and is backward compatible with USB 3.0 and USB 2.0. I tested this drive by transferring large individual files as well as large folders with multiple files and the results visually were pretty good. Here are the results of the sequential transfer speeds when tested using the AmorphousDiskMark software for the Mac:

read write speeds

Sequential Read speeds: 144.6 MB/s
Sequential Write speeds: 20.43 MB/s

The sequential read speeds above were much more than the advertised read speeds of 130MB/s. This could be because I used it on a Mac which has Type C ports that are certified USB 3.1 (Generation 2). This could also be because the software I used to test this flash drive tests using 1MB block sizes instead of the 128KB blocks by other software. I tested and re-tested this multiple times, and the result I got was in the same range.

When I used the more strenuous 128KB read/write block sizes, the results were a bit lower.

read write speeds 2

Sequential Read speeds: 87.80 MB/s
Sequential Write speeds: 22.99 MB/s

Usage

I prefer to keep all my data either saved locally on my Mac or use cloud services for data that I needed access to from other places. Apart from the occasional file transfer from one computer to the other, I personally use this flash drive to store my music files as well as some movies so that I can play them on my TV.

This flash drive also works perfectly on my car audio system and is hardly noticeable. I've transferred most of my favourite music files on to this drive and keep it attached to my car's music system 24/7 nowadays.

If you are a student and need a fast flash drive that can keep your data safe, this would be a very good product to look into.

TIP: Connect this flash drive to the USB port of your Internet router and access the files on all the mobile phones, computers connected to the WiFi network. Comment down below, if you need help setting this up.

Storage capacity

The flash drive I got was 64GB in size and straight off the box it gave a usable capacity of 61.47GB. "SanDisk SecureAccess", a compatible software for Windows comes attached as an executable file inside the flash drive. For Mac users, you would need to download this file from their website.

Software

The SanDisk SecureAccess software allows you to secure your files and make it password protected on the flash drive. It uses the standard 128-bit AES encryption and is supported by Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 and Mac OS X® v10.7+

Pros

High capacity (upto 256GB), tiny size, USB 3.1 speeds and password protection are some of its top pros in my opinion. The lanyard holder at the back is very convenient to attach it to a keychain etc so that this tiny little device does not get lost.

Cons

The only con, that I've been able to notice on this flash drive so far is that it gets a bit warm after an extended period of usage. Since this drive is so small and can be kept attached to the computer's USB port all the time, its temperature gets a little on the warmer side.

Warranty

Sandisk provides a 5-year limited warranty on the device, technical details for which are available in detail on their website.

Pricing

The Sandisk Ultra Fit Flash Drive, at the time of writing this article is easily available online. Since prices keep fluctuating on an everyday basis, I've provided a link to the product from one of the most trusted e-commerce websites below:

Sandisk Ultra Fit Flash Drive

If you are looking to buy one of these for yourself, please consider buying from the link mentioned above. If you have any questions about this product, please leave a comment below and I will try my best to answer it as soon as possible.


Article by Amit
An avid Photographer, Traveller, Youtuber, loves flying and enjoys a good conversation on technology.

Follow Amit or read 53 articles authored by Amit

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