Does the job just fine, my fault that I didn’t notice it was going to take a week to arrive so had to order another one, but kept this as a spare.

This is the 4th flash drive I’ve bought over the last week. Each time I’ve asked the question about Range Rover compatibility but this is the only one that’s worked! I’ve downloaded thousands of tracks from media player and can now listen to them in my car. At last.

For me and USB flash drives , I find SanDisk to be the most reliable of brands , especially if you’re sticking to the lower and mid range priced products.

Sure they’re usually not the fastest , but I have found after owning dozens of different USBs from different brands , that somehow Sandisk never fails me.

For over a decade I have bought least a few dozen different Sandisk USB flash drives (From USB 1 – USB 3) and none of them have failed me.
When I say failed , I mean none have them have stopped working or none of them have started to behave strangely. None of them have even had any short terms problems lost me any files either.

For that , Sandisk have my trust. They are reliable products. but not necessarily the fastest.

I have also flash disks from many other brands too. I have bought less from other brands and some of those brands , I have had a few of those drives fail or just have something wrong that makes them work strangely. Some of those flash drives have also gone bad temporarily at times and lose/corrupt data and files. Some of these brands are even regarded as trust worthy and well established.

It’s funny I bought way more Sandisk branded USB Flash drives and none of them caused problems or failed.
I bought way less from the other brands and some of those brands had failures.(One brand in particular had a pretty high failure/fault rate)

Enough about my thoughts on the brand , now onto the product itself.
The Sandisk Ultra seem to be their most widely availible and affordable USB 3 flash drives they’ve been making in the past few years.
It’s their among cheapest USB 3 and the Ultra actually comes in other variations that share similar prices. (The rubber-like Ultra Trek and the Metal Ultra Flair)

Today we’ll be looking at the plastic one.
Sandisk USB 3 Ultras , probably aren’t that fast for most people going by USB 3 standards , but if you came from USB 2 , the difference in speed feels like quite a lot.
The Ultra also tends to be quite a bit faster than a lot of other Flash drives within in the same price range from other brands too. But the Ultra tends to be a little bit more expensive than these slower flash drives.

The main difference I can tell when comparing it to these slightly slower USB 3 flash drives from other brands that are similarly priced , is that there seems to be alot less buffering when writing.

These other flash drives can sort of achieve faster write speeds than Ultra , but only in short bursts , and then they have to buffer down to USB 2 like speeds for a few seconds , then go back to fast burst , then slow buffer , fast burst , then slow buffer …. etc … (Buy a really cheap Kingston or Integral drive for example to see this happen)

I noticed that USB 3 Drives from Sandisk don’t seem to do this. They seem to maintain a steady write speed instead . There’s a lot less pausing (In most cases almost none) to buffer , so I think Sandisk uses much more efficient chips to process it all , even in their cheaper flash drives.

Maintaining an overall steady slower write speeds , seems to be overall much faster , than a cheaper flash drive that can’t maintain their fastest speeds for long , as those ones tend to pause for a few seconds to allow for buffering , which almost makes their short term speed advantage redundant.

A good analogy is almost like the Tortoise and the hare. The Sandisks are slow and steady , keep on marching at a steady pace and finish earlier. While the other brands cannot maintain their fast speeds for long and have to take frequent pit stops to catch their breath and buffer , so somehow finish later than the tortoise.

So overall the Sandisk Ultra is a fairly good speed for it’s price when it comes to USB 3.
It beats alot of similarly priced flash disks from other brands around the same price , due to a lot less buffering.

The main bad things about the plastic version , is well it’s plastic case.
I’ve owned dozens of Sandisk over the years and despite me having my full trust in terms of reliability , it pains me to say they created tons of stinkers when it comes to physical designs of their outer shell/casing.

Especially with their extensively Cruzer USB 2 range. They had tons of variations of the Cruzer line up in the USB 2 era , it’s like they didn’t know when to stop , trying to out do itself in making awkwardly shaped designs.

I wish they would stop creating flash drives in unconventional shapes and just back to producing the simple classic small rectangular / oblong slider , they were using for many of their USB 1 flash disks and the first few iterations of their USB 2 flash disks too. Those were the best.

The plastic Sandisk Ultra USB 3 , is one of it’s worst designs in their history my opinion. Which is a huge shame , because it seems to be their most widely available / produced and distributed model of USB 3 .

The main disapointment is the tail end of the platic portion of the body , that the drive resides in is made of a very thin plastic and looks like it would be very easy to break.
I remember reading a review that it was compared to the plastic that you would probably find on a cheap free toy prize, that you would find in a box of cereal. I unfortunatly tend to agree with that observation.
Sorry Sandisk you real cheaped out on this one.

In combination that the type sliding style method they chose is also slightly awkward to use , you shouldn’t be too surprised if the thin plastic will snap one day if you’re not careful.

Another thing I noticed , is that they skimped out in another area, with newer revisions of this model.
I have actually bought quite a few of these plastic Sandisk USB 3 Ultra flash drives over the years , and I noticed in earlier versions of this product : there was a blue LED light that blinked during data reading/transfer.
Later revisions of the same model , seemed to have removed/omitted this blue LED light , presumely to save on costs. Although I guess it was not essential , it’s still helpful in a way to still have the LED light.
I do hate it when products have features taken away , especially when it’s done coverly without drawing attention. So that’s another downer for me.

Overall despite the physical short comings , the Sandisk Ultra is still a reliable USB 3 Flash drive on the inside , that won’t cost you too much.

Although I do recommend actually you go for the rubber-like Sandisk Ultra Trek which I think has a better form factor if you don’t mind lids. The Trek feels more sturdy and seems to have the same speed performance as the plastic .
I have yet to try the metal Ultra Flair , but I’d assume it’s the same on the inside too , since it shares the same name : Ultra.

Ultra Plastic , Ultra Flair and Ultra Trek all share a similar price range , especially if you buy direct from Amazon. It’s all a matter of preference in the outer shell/case.

Although, if you can spare another extra few pounds , you might want to try Sandisk Extreme Go . Which is has a pretty significant speed boost over the Ultra and with less buffering , without breaking bank too much. without setting foot into premium territory.

but in the end the Sandisk Ultra is a good choice for an reliable, reasonable fast, lower end USB 3 Flash drive at an affordable price. I still recommend it .