Summary
With some portable SSDs being the size of flash drives, actual flash drives aren’t the must-have purchase they used to be. But a lot of them are still nice, especially if they conform to newer standards. This new flash drive by PNY can do a whopping 1,000 MB/s, which is pretty good for a flash drive.
PNY has just unveiled its Duo Link V3 flash drive. It features a dual-connector design, housed in a metal swivel casing, with both USB-C and USB-A ports. This allows the drive to be used natively with newer USB-C ports found on recent laptops, tablets, and smartphones. And if you ever come across something with an older USB-A port, like older computers and peripherals, you’re able to plug it there too. You don’t need any adapters or multiple drives when moving data between all of your hardware, if you haven’t completely made the move to USB-C on all your stuff. The drive supports On-The-Go (OTG) functionality, enabling direct file transfers from compatible Android mobile devices.
Perhaps the coolest part of it, however, is the fact that it supports the USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface, which means it supports significantly faster data transfer rates than most other flash drives on the market. PNY claims the drive can achieve sequential read speeds of up to 1,000MB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 800MB/s. According to PNY, this drive can reach SSD speeds, though that particular claim could definitely be argued.
This drive is targeted at folks who frequently work with demanding applications, such as 4K video editing, large-scale graphic design projects, or running games directly from an external drive, as other flash drives might have insufficient bandwidth. Of course, achieving these maximum speeds is contingent on using a host device equipped with a USB 3.2 Gen 2 port, though the drive remains backward-compatible with USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports at their respective slower speeds.
As far as reliability goes, it seems to be a pretty trustworthy drive, and PNY has packed a few data integrity features as well. The drive incorporates Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.), which allows the host system to monitor the drive’s health and potentially foresee failures. And for data reliability, it uses a Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) error correction code algorithm, a technique commonly used in SSDs to detect and correct data errors during transfer.
This drive will be available in a range of high-capacity options: 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, and a huge 2TB model. We don’t have pricing or availability information, so you should keep an eye out at your retailer of choice if you want to get one of these.
