The 32GB SanDisk Dual USB Type-C flash drive ($49.99) is a two-headed solution to a very specific problem. USB-C, the up-and-coming replacement to the USB ports we've all been using for a decade, is smaller, allows slimmer device designs, and even eliminates the headache of trying to plug in a USB cable upside down. The only problem is that, as of now, you'll only find USB-C connections on the OnePlus 2 phone($299.00 at Plusnet Mobile) and the Apple Macbook (2015) and Google Chromebook Pixel (2015)( at Amazon) laptops. If you're an early adopter with one of those devices, or you just want to have a storage solution that won't be obsolete when USB-C is ubiquitous in a few years, then this drive is worth considering.
Design and Features
The Dual USB Type-C drive has a USB-C connector on one end, and a more traditional USB 3.0 port on the other. Measuring just 0.74 by 0.5 by 1.68 inches (HWD), there's not much more to the drive, but there is also a molded plastic section connecting the two plug ends, and a cover that swivels to cover either one end or the other.
The swiveling-cover design isn't perfect, mainly because it can't protect both connectors when the drive isn't in use—like when it's in a pocket or a backpack, and most likely to be exposed to dirt and lint. The cover locks into position when it's flipped to one end or the other, and the molded plastic body has a loop for tying on a lanyard or putting the drive on a keychain.
We've seen dual-connector drives in the past, like the Leef Bridge 3.0 (16GB)($29.99 at ThinkGeek) and the Kingston DataTraveler microDuo 3.0 (64GB)($25.78 at Amazon), but these devices pair USB and micro USB for sharing files between PCs and mobile devices. The USB-C connector, on the other-hand, is expected to be used on PCs and mobile devices alike, and serves more as a bridge to close the gap between present and future specifications than to close the laptop-to-mobile divide.
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USB-C has the capability to be used for all manner of connectivity options, from storage drives and peripherals to audio and video devices, like monitors. In this instance, however, it's purely storage. The connector may look different, but the Dual USB Drive essentially offers USB 3.0 speeds with two plug styles.
The drive comes preformatted to FAT32, making it compatible with all major operating systems (Windows, Mac, Google Chrome OS, and Linux) right out of the package. As a USB 3.0 drive, it is also USB 2.0-compatible, but the USB-C portion is presently only compatible with USB-C-equipped devices, of which there are very few. In theory, it should also work with the recently announced Thunderbolt 3 port, which uses the same USB-C reversible connector, but it will be some time before Thunderbolt 3-equipped products even come to market.
Price and Performance
The drive itself comes in just one capacity, 32 gigabytes. With a list price of $49.99, that's roughly $1.56 per gigabyte. That's less than SanDisk's own Extreme 3.0 (64GB), which has a list price of $111.99, or $1.75 per gigabyte, but it's still on the expensive side. The Kingston DataTraveler Mini 3.0 (16GB)( at Amazon) is less expensive, at $1.44 per gigabyte, but like the SanDisk Extreme 3.0, it's a single-connector device. The Leef Bridge 3.0 (16GB) is a little less expensive at $1.12 per gigabyte, and the Kingston DataTraveler microDuo 3.0 (64GB), our Editors' Choice for dual-connector drives, is the most affordable of them all at 78 cents per gigabyte. Granted, all of these price calculations are based on the initial list price, and flash drives frequently sell for less than half of that, but it's a fair illustration of how varied the price of storage can be.
Because the Dual USB Type-C offers essentially two flavors of connectivity at the same USB 3.0 speeds, the performance difference between the USB 3.0 and USB-C options in our tests was slim. Testing via the USB 3.0 connection, I saw read speeds that averaged 61MBps, and write speeds of 47MBps. Results were extremely similar, though measurably a bit faster, when tested on USB-C, with read speeds of 65MBps and write speeds of 48MBps. That small improvement may have simply been the difference between our Lenovo test PC and the Apple MacBook (2015) we tested the USB-C connection with, but either way, it's not a difference you're likely to notice in day-to-day use.
The Editors' Choice SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 still offers some of the best performance of the category, however, with 190MBps read and 170MBps write speeds, which is considerably faster than the new dual-connector drive. By comparison, the microDuo 3.0 averaged read speeds of 38MBps and write speeds of 12MBps, while the Leef Bridge 3.0 was slightly slower, with 35MBps (read) and 8MBps (write).
Conclusion
If you want storage that will handle USB 3.0 and USB-C connections without missing a beat, the SanDisk Dual USB Type-C (32GB) is one of the few alternatives to choose from, and an easy choice if you're, say, a user who needs to transfer files between a regular USB-equipped PC and the Apple MacBook (2015). That said, if you don't have a device that requires a USB-C connector, and were just hoping to get a lead on the new standard, you may want to pass on this one for now. We'll see plenty of other USB-C-equipped storage solutions in the next year or two, but for this price, you can find much better-performing and larger-capacity USB 3.0 drives that will still be usable for the next several years. Our current top pick is still the SanDisk Extreme 3.0 (64GB) due to its leading performance and higher capacity.
The SanDisk Dual USB Type-C flash drive offers storage with both USB 3.0 and USB-C connectivity. It's a must-have if you're an Apple MacBook user, but it's not the best value for anyone else.
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