Best USB-C Flash Drives with USB-A Now Reach SSD Speeds
September 2024 Ian Chiu
We tested six dual flash drives from Lexar, PNY, Sandisk, Silicon Power, SSK, and Transcend. These drives serve as a bridge between USB-C and legacy USB-A ports. With both connectors available, there’s no need for multiple drives or adapters, making it easier to transfer files across devices of different platforms.
In our September 2024 update, we’ve removed the Samsung Duo Plus and the Kingston DataTraveler from the round-up since they are no longer in production. In their place, we’ve added the Silicon Power DS72, SSK Dual Drive, and Transcend ESD310C.
Contents
Our Picks
Both Silicon Power DS72 and Transcend ESD310C are our top choices when it comes to dual-headed flash drives. Speed-wise, they are in a league of its own, breezing through our benchmarks. Overall performance is impressive, as these drives are essentially mid-range SSDs in a thumb drive form factor. Having said that, both Silicon Power and Transcend are made for heavy-duty purposes and aren’t optimized for size. (You can compare their relative sizes in the specs table below.)
What are Dual Flash Drives?
Dual flash drives – having USB Type-A and USB-C connectors on opposite ends – are becoming more relevant as more computers and smartphones ship with the reversible USB port exclusively. They make sure you have readily access to your data on your future-proof USB-C devices as well as giving you backward compatibility on PCs with good old USB Type-A. For this reason, it will never hurt to have at least one of these dual-headed flash drives in case you need a quick and easy file transfer solution.
Feature Comparison
 Lexar JumpDrive D400 $27.99 for 256GB |  PNY Duo Link $25.99 for 256GB |  Sandisk Ultra Dual Luxe $24.99 for 256GB |  Silicon Power DS72 Price not available for 250GB |  SSK Dual USB-C Drive $36.99 for 256GB |  Transcend ESD310C $29.99 for 256GB |
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| Storage: | 64 - 512GB | 128 - 256GB | 32GB - 1TB | 250GB - 1TB | 128GB - 2TB | 256GB - 2TB |
| Interface(s): | USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C | USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C | USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C | USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C | USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C | USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C |
| UASP? | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Dimensions: | 60.6 x 16.2 x 9.7mm | 42.7 x 7.62 x 1.27mm | 44.5 x 12.2 x 8.6mm | 81 x 21.3 x 10.4mm | 78 x 20.5 x 8.6mm | 71.3 x 20 x 7.8mm |
| Weight: | 17.4g | 9g | 17g | 15.6g | 37g | 11g |
| Build Material: | Metal | Metal | Metal | Metal body & rubberized caps | Metal | Metal body, plastic caps |
| USB Plug Protection? | Rotating cap | Rotating cap | Rotating cap | "Flip" caps | One removable cap and one rotating cap | Two removable caps on opposite ends |
| Activity Light? | No | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Color(s): | Gray | Silver | Silver | Black | Gray | Black, silver & pink |
| Android File Manager? | No | No | Sandisk Memory Zone | No | No | Transcend Elite data management |
| Release Date: | March 2023 | Feb 2023 | Oct 2023 | April 2024 | April 2023 | April 2023 |
| Warranty: | 5 years | 1 year | 5 years | 5 years | 5 years | 5 years |
Pricing is last updated by Amazon on 2024-12-19 at 06:15. When you buy through Amazon affiliate links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Benchmark Analysis
We carried out our drive benchmarks on two different platforms – Windows 10 Pro running on MacBook Pro (2019) and iPadOS 17.6.1 running on Apple iPad Pro (2021). For our PC benchmark, our testing with the USB-C interface involved transferring a 9GB MP4 file back and forth between our MacBook Pro and the drives. We then repeated the process with a 5GB folder containing 1000 JPEGs. Tests were carried out on Nodesoft’s DiskBench.
From the graph above, both the Silicon Power DS72 and Transcend ESD310C have an overwhelming lead over their competitors in performance. Both are essentially USB 3.2 Gen 2 UFDs equipped with SSD controllers. Expect upwards of 700MB/s in read and 600MB/s in write during large file operations. For small files, transfer speed didn’t drop below 340MB/s. Being SSDs, they inherently have a speed advantage over “dumb” drives equipped with less sophisticated flash controllers. The ESD310C, for instance, uses the Silicon Motion SM2320 native USB flash controller – the same one found in Kingston’s DataTraveler Max and XS2000.
Incidentally, there is now an updated model of SanDisk’s Ultra Dual Luxe, which shows a significant speed boost, especially in read performance, compared to the previous version. It is approximately two to five times faster than the PNY Duo Link and Lexar JumpDrive D400, depending on the benchmark settings. However, the Ultra Dual Luxe still doesn’t match the performance of SSD-grade drives from Silicon Power and Transcend.
Since half of the selected drives are SSDs, we also checked out their respective pseudo-SLC cache sizes and post-cache write speeds. Transcend ESD310C has allocated 70GB as its pseudo-SLC cache, while SSK Dual Drive and Silicon Power DS72 both have approximately 25GB each. According to our endurance tests, once their cache are exhausted, the post-cache write speeds for ESD310C would drop to 70MB/s from 580MB/s and the DS72 would also drop to 360MB/s from 590MB/s. SSK Dual Drive suffered from the same performance hit, dropping to 60MB/s from 350MB/s as soon as running out of its 25GB cache.
Next, we looked into the kind of performance you can expect if you plan on using these dual flash drives for regular photo backups and large video imports on an Apple iPad Pro. The 2021-model iPad Pro is equipped with USB-C capable of delivering 10Gbps through USB 3.2 Gen 2 and 40Gbps through USB4. That said, Lexar JumpDrive D400, PNY Duo Link, and Sandisk Ultra Dual Luxe, and SSK Dual Drive are limited to 5Gbps (USB 3.2 Gen 2 Gen 1) whereas Silicon Power DS72 and Transcend ESD310C connect at 10Gbps (USB 3.2 Gen 2). For this set of benchmarks, we repeated the same copying process with the same files we used on the MacBook Pro earlier.
Again, both the Silicon Power DS72 and Transcend ESD310C consistently outperformed other drives on our iPad Pro. Read and write performance across the board was significantly faster with these two, making them the clear choice for photo and video backup on smartphones and tablets with USB-C.
Beginning with iPadOS 15, a progress bar was introduced in iPadOS’ Files app to indicate the amount of data being copied and the remaining time needed for the file transfer to complete. Apple also has made significant improvements to USB drive performance on iPadOS, bringing it up to par with that of Windows. Before the much-needed overhaul, there was definitely something wrong with how Apple handled write operations on UFDs. It’s good to hear the issue has now been resolved.
Lastly, content creators might be interested to know that the Transcend ESD310C and Silicon Power DS72 are fast enough for 4K Apple 10-bit ProRes recording on the iPhone 15 Pro Max. They also meet the iPhone’s maximum power draw requirement of 4.5W. At 4k, ProRes 422 HQ mode consumes about 12GB per minute at 60fps or 6GB per minute at 30fps. External storage is also necessary for 60fps recording, which requires drives with at least 220MB/s sequential write speed.
Drive Build & Design
Lexar JumpDrive D400, PNY Duo Link, and Sandisk Ultra Dual Luxe all feature the same swiveling cap design and a durable all-metal body. The build helps dissipate heat effectively, but we had to wait half a minute or so before unplugging the drive as it can become too hot to handle after several minutes of intense I/O operations.
The SSK Dual Drive features a flip cap for its USB-C connector and a removable cap on the opposite end for its USB-A connector. Silicon Power DS72 opts for a plastic flip cap design for both plugs, while Transcend ESD310C comes with two removable caps for plug protection as well as preventing the drive’s sharp edges from puncturing jean pockets.
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Pricing is last updated by Amazon on 2024-12-19 at 06:15. When you buy through Amazon affiliate links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
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