Engadget
Faster transfers are only part of the story when you're deciding whether a premium flash drive is worth it.
Flash drives aren't the first device you think about when considering the current sky-high cost of RAM and storage, but they've been affected. Thanks to AI and data center demand, NAND flash prices have risen. USB drives haven't absorbed those increases dollar for dollar, but cheap flash memory can no longer be taken for granted either.
While two drives of the same capacity may cost different amounts, usually the extra cost brings something you'll notice: faster transfers, stronger security or hardware better suited to life outside a desk drawer.
The trick is figuring out what you're paying for.
USB 3.0 was the first successor to USB 2.0. The two following standards were at first called USB 3.1 and USB 3.2, but everything was retroactively changed to use "Gen" names.
The group behind USB now recommends using the max transfer rate for clarity, instead of "USB 3.2" followed by the generation — these cap out at 5 Gbps, 10 Gbps or 20 Gbps. Thus, if you see "USB 3.2" on a box, it doesn't necessarily show how fast that drive will be.
For example, Kingston rates its DataTraveler Max at up to 1,000 MB/s reads and 900 MB/s writes. In a 10GB transfer test, Tom's Hardware measured Samsung's cheaper Fit Plus at 319.7 MB/s reads and just 58.4 MB/s writes.