SanDisk - Ultra 256GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive - Black

I really like that the Sandisk USB 3.0 256gb flash drive has plenty of space for all of my music files, videos, and documents. Even though it is stated as 256gb drive, actual available storage space is 233gb. Build quality on the drive is poor. The all plastic enclosure is loose and wobbly and it gives the impression that it can break off if inserted or removed with force. You’ll need to handle this drive with care. I performed a non-scientific test of write speed. I transferred 27 gb of music files to the flash drive and it took 27 minutes, so 1gb/min. The drive does become warm during file transfer, but the amount of heat generated appears normal. The flash drive comes with two useful software to enable file security and access. The first is Sandisk’s Secure Access Vault which is a file encryption software. You simply create a password and encrypt your files by dropping them into the Sandisk Vault. They are then electronically locked or encrypted. Nobody will be able to access your files without the decryption password. The only way to access the files is to enter your password in the Vault. Another handy tool is Sandisk Flashback. Flashback automates the backup process by transferring the entire contents in the flash drive to Sandisk’s Cloud. You’ll be able to view and download the contents in the flash drive online without having the flash drive physically present. This becomes handy if you either left your flash drive at home or, worse, lost your flash drive entirely. You can recover all of your backed up content online. You can also share files with anyone by simply sending them a link to access the files in your Sandisk Cloud without having to attach large files onto an e-mail. In order for all of this to function, Flashback software needs to be installed locally on your desktop or laptop computer to upload files to Sandisk’s Cloud server. You’ll also need to create an account on the Sandisk Flashback website to access your files in Sandisk’s Cloud server. Flashback is free for the 1st year, after that you’ll need to pay an annual subscription fee to continue access to your backed up files in the Sandisk Cloud. I’ve attached a picture showing the subscription pricing at the time of my review. One limitation of the cloud backup feature is that backing up to the Sandisk cloud only works if you have the flash drive connected to a computer that has the Flashback software installed. In practice, there are numerous instances where you’ll be using the drive at a workstation, say at work computer or a friend’s computer, where the Flashback software isn’t installed. The flash drive becomes a regular, run of the mill storage drive. There’s nothing wrong with this, you just simply need to be aware that no Cloud back up is being performed until you plug the flash drive back into your computer that has the Flashback software installed. Another limitation is that if you have files encrypted in the Sandisk Vault, those encrypted files will naturally remain encrypted, as they should, when backed up to the Sandisk Cloud. However, there is no way for you to access the encrypted files online in the Sandisk Cloud website since you won’t be able to decrypt the files without the Sandisk Vault. The encrypted files can only be decrypted locally from within the flashdrive. All in all, this is a decent high capacity flash drive with some extra bonus features for securing your files and automatically backing up your flash drive to the cloud. I would recommend the flash drive.

I wanted to get a large flash drive to backup all my important files and photos “I’ve amassed a lot”, and saw the prices of flash drives has come way down. I started using flash/thumb drives for work back when the 1gb was considered a large drive, and when they announced a 4gb drive we all though “who’s going to put that much stuff on a thumb drive”. I’ve also used about every brand of flash drive available and still have a few of the old 1gb ones laying around and the only ones still working are the SanDisk branded ones, one in particular is the SanDisk Cruzer Titanium 1gb, the super heavy duty all metal bodied drive you won’t ever see again, and it still works perfectly. Physical Impressions: This 256gb drive is physically the size thumb drive have pretty much been for quite a while now, the USB plug is retractable keeping it safe and secure when retracted. There isn’t an activity light so you won’t know if it’s doing anything, “not important for me as it’s on the back of my desktop computer”. Speed: The flash drive is USB 3 and backwards compatible. Speed wise using Crystal Disk Mark I’m getting around 116MB/s Seq read, and 50MB/s Seq write, not bad at all and I’ve attached a screen shot of the test. Included Software: The really nice thing is the software that’s included with the flash drive. You get one year of Rescue Pro Deluxe, “the key is inside the packaging” and with it you can recover lost and accidentally erased files. It works for everything not just this thumb drive. I took a file folder with photos in it, about 1gb worth on the SanDisk drive, deleted it, emptied the recycle bin, and then had the software scan to recover it. Now it does take a while to scan this drive, “it’s big” so sit back or do something else while it goes about its business. After about an hour it was able to recover all the files in the test folder I created, now this will depend greatly on if you’ve written files to the drive after losing/accidentally deleting files. For the most accurate and thorough recovery you don’t want to be using the media you are doing the recovery on till after you’ve recovered your files. You’ll also have to rename your recovered files after it has finished running, but you can click on them to view in the recovery window so you know what you are renaming. Also under the flash drives main directory is the SanDisk Secure Access application. When you run it the first time it will ask that you set up an account and password for the secure folder. After entering your password you will be greeted with a simple file manager window. Just drag and drop files into the top secure area and it will encrypt all the files. If you view the drive with a standard file manager like the one in Windows 10 you will see the folder name but there’s nothing in them to view, you will have to use the Secure Access application to view and unencrypt these files and folders. The whole process is reasonably fast too. I copied all my important stuff, about 175gb, in a couple hours, not bad for that much data. There is an upgrade option for the standard software, you can get a lifetime license for $15, “I think that’s reasonable just haven’t done it yet”. It gets you 1024 bit encryption, automatic backup, syncing between devices, and sharing with others. I’ll probably be upgrading to this in the future as it adds a lot of for low cost. I’m keeping all my medical files on this as I do have some health issues and like to keep my entire medical easily portable if I happen to go see a new specialist. This way I can always have a backup of my records and there’s plenty of space on this drive for x-rays and, MRI’s, CT scans and Ultrasounds. Plus with everything being encrypted “I used a very secure password” I won’t worry much about someone getting my personal information if I do happen to lose the drive. Opinion: This is an excellent thumb drive, there’s plenty of space for a lot of files, and I mean a lot. The included software allows you to encrypt your sensitive data so you won’t have to worry about it falling into the wrong hands and the recovery software makes it pretty easy to recover any file you may have accidentally lost. The new flash drives from SanDisk are a real value.

Bought SanDisk flash drive to backup my computer.It is a great help for a senior citizen to know that everything is working ok.Thanks SanDisk!

SanDisk makes amazing flash drives & finally they're in high capacity like I always imagined great for video from phone and camcorder transfers.

Cloud continues to be all the rage in 2019, and SanDisk is riding the wave with the new SanDisk Ultra USB thumb drive. It offers a generous 256GB of storage for a reasonable price, but also includes a year of cloud backup for said drive. 256GB of cloud storage for a full year is included making this disk an excellent value if you are looking for a cost effective backup drive. The SanDisk Ultra 256GB is not overly different from other SanDisk drives. It's clad in a semi-gloss black with a slide mechanism to protect the type-A usb port when not in use. It's a tried and true design, and SanDisk rightfully doesn't mess with what works. Performance wise, the disk boasts performance up to 100MB/s. This claim is not exaggerated for sequential read speeds (in other words, large files). Crystal disk mark placed sequential read speeds around 135MB/s. The drive appears to use a fast write cache buffer. Sequential writes hover around 65MB/s for the first gigabyte or so but sharply and predictably drop off to 20-25MB/s. Writes in bursts benefit from this cache, but it can easily fill up during large writes. The cache recovers pretty quickly however, so writing performs well in small batches. This squarely puts the SanDisk Ultra in the budget category as far as performance goes. The real interesting proposition with this drive is the cloud storage that comes with it free for the first year. You can backup all the data found on your drive - meaning that if you have a 256GB drive, you can backup that amount of data to the online 'FlashBack' service. I tested this theory by copying our family photos of around 70GB to the drive. While this took quite a while to accomplish, the backup took place during the copy, so I left it overnight. The FlashBack service not only had a copy of all my files, but presented them with a friendly photo browser, and broke down my files based on metadata, type, and provided a handy search feature. The user interface is modern and worked well with my files. You can share links to files, which is a plus, and manage those links. Essentially you could share out a document with someone, and then revoke the access to that link by simply deleting the sharing link. It's clear there was a lot of time spent to ensure a positive user experience with this service, which is appreciated. The app used to do the backup is unobtrusive and seemed to work well. It does get angry if it’s in the process of backing up files and you unplug it. It does take time to get to resuming a backup. If you delete files, they’ll go in the ‘Trash’ bin in FlashBack, and can be restored for up to 30 days. The first year is on the house, but after that pricing looks reasonable. At $9.99 for the 256GB drive a year, it’s hard to argue that’s a bad deal. Having access to any of your files remotely and securely even with your pc off, and your thumb drive in the drawer is a nice selling feature. Do keep in mind that while SanDisk does look like they did a decent job with security, while still being able to provide sharing features, etc - it’s still hosting your data remotely. Be sure to secure your account with a good password. I’d like to see them implement two factor authentication to help bring further peace of mind to those backing up sensitive data and/or financials. The SanDisk Ultra 256GB is a decent performing everyday USB pen drive with a large capacity. The real selling feature of the Ultra series here is the FlashBack service, and it seems to really hit the nail on the head. If you’re looking for a good backup drive that can double as a carbonite or other backup service replacement - this might fit the bill if your needs are simple. In any case, it’s a decent alternative to using Google Drive and offers a ton more storage for the money (and gives you that storage free the first year). This new model of storage actually seems pretty compelling, I highly recommend trying it out.

SanDisk's headline for this device is: TRANSFER A FULL-LENGTH MOVIE IN LESS THAN 40 SECONDS (which is carefully footnoted: Based on 1.2GB MPEG-4 video transfer with USB 3.0 host device.). That's their way of representing a write speed for single large files - and it's impressive but I was able to get files close to 2 GB transferred over to the drive in under 40 seconds (replicated on two different computers - some tests took a little longer but I was able to repeat the under-40 second write multiple times). They also advertise potential read speeds of up to 100MB/s with a USB 3.0 port. And with the same large MPEG-4 video files I was using to test write speeds, I got consistent read speeds of 145-165 MB/s (with a USB 3.0 port). Naturally read/write speeds for transferring tons of little files are significantly slower but still pretty impressive. I attached two benchmark results below.

I bought this because I generally run multiple different programs on various computers; I felt like each year I had to double my USB size (32>64>128>256). I have the 128 version of this drive and while I have not ran tests, I can tell you that this one is a bit slower. However, at this price point of $60 I can not argue the extra 20 seconds on an iso file. There is one negative, the text on the usb (IE. Red "Sandisk" writing and the back where you can write your name will fade away after a couple of weeks in a pocket, every version of this thumb drive does this)

256 gb Flash drive for such a low price... Can't go wrong, Has like a vault, to secure files in also. Works great...