In terms of durability, look for USB drives with shock-proof or waterproof designs and other features that limit the chances of your drive being damaged.

Gen 1 SSDs can hit 540MB/sec or more, but the fastest USB flash drives we’ve seen are stuck at under 400MB/sec, and most are significantly slower.

When the USB flash drive is not in use, you can retract both connectors to limit chances of damage and keep your data away from harm and readily accessible. As some businesses have learned to their cost, a USB drive isn’t always the safest place to hold sensitive data, particularly if it’s being carried around from work to home and back again or it slips out of a bag or pocket. These are not the fastest speeds out there so if you require something with more oomph, then check out some of the other USB drives in this roundup. Thanks to an aluminum finish, the Extreme Pro should be able to withstand shocks and other damage and keep working without causing you worry about your data.

There are also huge variations in build quality, with some drives feeling rather cheap and plasticky when compared to others that are reassuringly robust and have metal casings. However, the SanDisk's 128-bit AES encryption and included SanDisk SecureAccess Software make this one of the best flash drives for the money. USB-A explainer goes into more detail, USB-A is the older variety with a larger, rectangular connection plug that can only be inserted into a port one way. Note that the capacities are likely to be lower than stated when they are formatted and mounted on an operating system.But for all of that, you should be aware that this USB drive costs more than some competing devices. If you want one of the most secure flash drives around to protect your sensitive data from thieves and snoops, the Kingston IronKey Keypad 200 is certainly worth picking up. You’ll want to keep your apps on an internal HDD or SSD, but this is still a brilliant drive for storing music, video, photos and documents, and you won’t even know it’s there.

Considering how difficult it can be to transfer data from those devices without Apple's help, that feature alone could be a major selling point for the iXpand. SanDisk's Ultra Dual Drive USB-C is a slick-looking flash drive that offers plenty of storage and fast data transfers. A cap on the connector keeps the drive safe from damage when it's not in use, and thanks to a loop at the end, you can connect the DataTraveler to a keychain to reduce your chances of losing it when you're walking around town. The iXpand flash drive's most important feature is its Lightning connector, which lets you connect to an iPhone or iPad and transfer data to and from that device. The device, which is made from high-quality metal, has a ring that you can use to attach the drive to so you don't lose it.Performance is determined by three things: the interface, USB mass storage controller and NAND flash memory chip within the drive. Note that it is much bigger than a traditional flash drive and it does cost about five times a traditional hard drive of a similar capacity.