Based on the criteria below, our recommendations are as follows:

 

Best Performance for the Price:

 

Large storage and low cost and small form factor:

 

Fast USB 3.0/3.1 Combo Model

 

Key Points

When choosing a USB flash memory stick, most people only look at the size, price and brand and make their decisions. However, it is performance that should be checked before making a purchase. This is hard to determine just by looking at the retail package. You need to research for the best performing drives.

 

Speed/Performance

If you plan to copy back and forth a lot with large files and need a high capacity drive above 32GBs, you should purchase one with a faster read/write transfer rate.

 

Media Storage & Playback

There is no need to purchase a fast drive though, when you want to store a lot of music or videos to store and just play off of it. Choose a high capacity drive with moderate performance.

 

Check USB Type

USB 3.0 support is a must, and more recently, in 2017, you should also consider purchasing a drive that supports both USB 3.0 and 3.1 (USB-C) for maximum compatibility as laptops and computers are in transition to USB-C.