PNY 256GB PRO Elite V2 USB 3.2 Gen 2 Flash Drive, up to 600MB/s read speed

Had an old WD 1TB external hard drive which i used to back up important files and folders to but it was slow........ I recently bought a new laptop and needed to swap a lot of data between the two so bought this to help with that process and to then keep important files backed up to as a copy. This has a nice design (the sliding out part is a little stiff when trying to push the USB part back into the cover), transfer speeds are more than enough for what I needed, was able to shift over 250GB of data in next to no time.

Every time I copy something to this drive I say out loud: “ridiculous” … because it’s so fast.

Superficially, I am very impressed with this drive. It's small, seems well made (shame the keyring hole is plastic though) and is usually very fast indeed. I say usually. For some reason, sometimes the device is capped at around 38MB/s for both reads and writes. And sometimes it's not, with it working at full speed. Don't know what's causing this. It doesn't appear to be a throttling issue as it will do it from cold. I've also tried it in a number of usb slots and it seems to do this in all of them. So maybe mine is defective? The jury is out for now, unless/until I can figure out what the problem is.

I bought this as it looked ideal to go on my bunch of keys keyring and it looked strong with a metal case and it is from a reputable manufacturer. Transfer speeds are excellent. Overall a great product but let down by metal protective sleeve falling off. Initially it was very stiff to open & close, I only used it twice to put backup data on, but after a week of it being on my key ring the sleeve just fell off when removing from my pocket and when fixing back on it would only stay on when I reversed the sleeve (front to back, see photos). Without the sleeve it's just an expensive plastic usb exposed with a hole each side. Now I temporarily fixed it - it's just good for leaving at home rather than on my key ring in my pocket. So I can't use it for what I intended - a strong portable usb on my keyring. A shame, very disappointed as otherwise it would be a fantastic product. This is the reason for 1 stars.

The Temperature Goes Above 80. Write Speed Drops Below 300Mb/s

Good quality service and product

Trash product, bricked after 3 months to write only protection so functionally useless. Can't get return or warranty without sending it back even though it still has private data on it. Customer service completely lacking as they have nothing that can wipe it remotely so unless you never use it for important data that needs protecting and you're happy with replacing it every couple months its awful.