Background

I have had the same Kingston DataTraveller DTSE9 since around 2010, when I was still in school. I’ve carried it on my keychain for at least 12 years and it still works, its “the old reliable”.

That said, it’s slow. Very slow. I use it mostly as a boot USB for Linux / Windows, so I need several sticks with decent random read speed, and decent write speed for when I update them.

My criteria were:

• All-metal construction for durability, including the keychain loop
• Sits well on a keychain next to keys
• Reasonable speed, including random reads.

Testing method

I evaluated the sticks in two ways.

I ran CrystalDiskMark with 256 MiB (x5) configuration.

I also measured the angle at which the USB stick sits on a keyring. I found that several of them could not sit perpendicular to a keyring it because of their geometry, which makes it difficult to comfortably use them next to keys.

At the datum of 0 degrees, the key sits perpendicular to the keyring.

Results

The competitors

Here are the 6 main competitors in this space I bought.

All transfer units are in MB/s.

Product	Price (£)	Angle on keyring (0deg is best)	Sequential reads Q8T1	Sequential reads Q1T1	Random reads Q32T1	Random reads Q1T1	Sequential writes Q8T1	Sequential writes Q1T1	Random writes Q32T1	Random writes Q1T1
Corsair GTX 128GB	65 (256GB version)	0	470.214	429.330	157.436	19.390	436.990	414.201	166.829	38.937
Samsung Bar 64GB	10	55	305.424	305.268	14.517	13.428	36.434	36.247	20.537	21.619
Kingston DTSE9G3 64GB	11	0	246.705	244.496	13.756	13.028	100.236	110.054	0.484	0.474
Integral Arc 3	10	0	162.336	161.338	15.567	11.188	49.457	47.965	5.032	4.244
Kingston DataTraveller Micro 64GB	11	0	247.000	245.247	13.788	12.961	100.932	101.292	0.496	0.470
Sandisk Ultra Luxe 64GB	12	25	403.863	399.974	12.438	12.054	91.835	91.685	4.272	4.258

Some additional notes:

• The Samsung Bar had really sharp corners. You might need to file them down like I did.
• Corsair GTX: the 128GB version is no longer available and the lowest capacity is 256GB. It’s more of a portable SSD in the form of a USB stick, which makes it really fast, but it’s bulkier than a normal USB stick, though not by much. Often it takes up more than one USB port because it’s wide. It’s still very good and I recommend it.

Other devices

Some related products I own but don’t qualify for this comparison but are offered up here for context.

Here’s why they don’t qualify.

• Crucial P3 Plus: It’s an NVME SSD. Can be made portable with a good enclosure, but too bulky for what I’m looking for.

• Samsung 860 Evo: It’s a SATA SSD, definitely not the right form factor.

• Sandisk Ultra Curve: I bought this thinking it was made out of metal, but it was not. It’s fairly flimsy plastic.

• Kingston DTSE9 16GB: This is my old stick. The old reliable. No longer sold, but I’ve tested its successor.

• Samsung SD Card: It’s a 2016 MicroSD card connected to my PC via a MicroSD-SD adapter and a USB card reader. I included this as a meme.

Product	Sequential reads Q8T1	Sequential reads Q1T1	Random reads Q32T1	Random reads Q1T1	Sequential writes Q8T1	Sequential writes Q1T1	Random writes Q32T1	Random writes Q1T1
Crucial P3 Plus M.2 NVME 2TB	1598.227	1332.131	305.220	46.643	1560.989	1452.256	238.134	102.502
Samsung 860 Evo SATA 1TB	564.446	539.913	272.631	43.322	536.440	518.168	238.752	101.313
Sandisk Ultra Curve	160.091	158.859	9.271	9.043	58.680	60.377	2.902	3.209
Old Kingston DTSE9 16GB	18.452	18.220	8.473	8.096	13.626	13.629	0.115	0.026
Samsung Memory Pro Plus Micro SD Card	20.765	20.969	5.146	5.102	19.493	20.316	2.181	3.421

Conclusion

There are no clear winners in this fight.

• The Corsair GTX is the fastest in all categories by a country mile, but has a larger form-factor than other entries and higher price. Very good, but not for everyone.
• Samsung Bar has the fastest random writes, and decent performance in other metrics for its USB stick form factor, but sits awful on a keychain due to the angled hole.
• The Integral Arc 3 has solid random performance, but worst sequential performance than the rest.
• Sandisk Ultra Luxe gets the best overall balance of performance, but does not sit on the keychain super well.
• The two Kingston’s perform effectively the same, with the Micro being much more compact. That said, that can be a disadvantage on a keyring if there are adjacent items.
• All competitors (bar the GTX) had similar random reads.

For me, I’d say the right choice is either the Kingston DTSE9G3. It’s a nice upgrade over my old DTSE9 and sits nicely next to it’s grandfather. If I needed any random writes though, for copying lots of small documents like code files, I’d pick the Integral Arc 3.