I've bought a Sandisk Ultra Luxe USB flash drive about 5 years ago but didn't bother to post my experience after the rather unpleasant experience, but now it's time to buy more flash drives I am now interested to know. What is it that is appealing or an advantage of these all-metal flash drives apart from their sleek elegant metal body and nice finish when compared to the cheaper plastic options? The user experience is not good as I have found as it gets hot to the touch very quickly when in use to the point of burning your fingers when you want to touch it or pull it out from the USB slot. Is there something I"m missing here?

Any IT experts would care to clarify?

Also, just found out that the prices of portable HDD from WD or Seagate 1 TB or 2TB are quite high now compared to several years ago. I bought few 2TBs previously for around RM265 each and now it's all above RM300. I thought prices of these computer accessories should be going down but it looks like it's going up. Inflation is sure real~!

A few sample photos showing the metal flash drives.

last time i use sandisk plastic usb, 2 broken/corrupt, 1 broken inside the port.

now use all metal only. yeah its hot but still usable.
some time i need to use cloth to take it out from usb port.

Thanks for the information. So far I don't experience any damage to my plastic flash drives but guess I"m lucky. Anyway I don't use flash drives too often and mostly use portable HDDs. I will take note of your experience of damaged/corrupt plastic flash drives and that your metal USB flash drive is still working fine.

last time all metal is "premium" priced. so opt for plastic for cheap2. now no more.
either the case break, the port break or the flash itself corrupt.
now i got 32GB, 128GB, 256GB and 512GB, all metal.

that metal case is act as heatsink for those nand chip and its controller.
actually its a good thing for it to warm up as your device will have longer longevity.

Sorry, don't quite understand. What do you mean when you say, "now no more"?

This post has been edited by ryder_78: Oct 6 2025, 01:35 PM

Yes, I just only googled on 'Advantage of All-Metal USB Flash Drive" and you are right, one link described on this. In this sense, I can see this is one advantage in prolonging the longevity of the device when compared to an all-plastic one.

most of the time, it just warm (on the high side), not going to burn your finger off.
calm down. the main purpose why this metal drive were introduced were because some user plug their flash drive 24/7, so like it or not the heat need to be manage so it could at least lasts longer than warranty period

if you want plastic case, i suggest SanDisk Ultra USB 3.0
https://shop.sandisk.com/en-ap/products/usb...SDCZ48-512G-Z35

with a plastic casing drive, dont expect anything ultra high speed (like 400MB/s read speed), it is not feasible.

This post has been edited by zerorating: Oct 6 2025, 01:46 PM

SanDisk 128GB metal user here. Same problem. Once too hot to touch, the drive will slow down or disconnected all together.

I"ve stopped using the all-metal Sandisk after I used it several times due to the heat issue which was about 4 years ago. Anyway I'll try it again to see if prolonged use (excessive heat) will cause the device to lag in speed or stop working.

I am planning to use these small USB flash drives to store music files and streamed through the streamer. Currently I'm using portable HDD but will try to test the flash drives to see if they will work equally well without any issue.

Just worried if the device stops working or malfunction and it wipes out all the files stored inside it. Has anyone experienced damaged flash drives wiping out all the files and any attempts to retrieve the files are unsuccessful? I may need to do a backup of the files if there is a risk of the files not being able to be retrieved if the device is damaged.

This post has been edited by ryder_78: Oct 6 2025, 01:52 PM

Use external hdd better, lots of space and less problematic

Yes, that is what I found out. So far all my portable HDDs some more than 10 years old are still working fine without any issue. Though I found that the prices of these external HDDS have risen so I am planning to do some 'file cleaning' ie. deleting useless files and transferring some to these flash drives and keeping more important files in these portable external HDDs. I will see how it goes.

That's the best way, i wonder how many usb flash drive ive got, most of them wont last long, feel like waste of money, now sticking to external hdd 🤑

sorry. i mean now im no longer keeping any plastic usb drive. all is full metal usbA+usbC.

happen a few times, it will unmount itself.

this happen to my metal usb connected to samsung TV. the partition/file system become corrupt.
did not bother to recover, connect to tablet, format, it work again.
somehow, that samsung TV does not play nice with exFAT format. when i plug NTFS format usb, it work without killing it.

Now I kept the USB for smaller MP3 files. No overheating problems.

Large files above 300MB will cause the USB drive to overheat.

I'm using larger than FLAC (WAV and AIFF). Overheat is already confirmed to happen, just need to test if it will cause any disruption, delay or the music completely stops playing when it overheats. If that happens I will go back to the external HDD.

I find that external ssd is more stable than USB thumb drive. For 256 or 512gb, the prices are about the same

TS have you consider using external ssd enclosure? Nowadays 1tb nvme ssd and below quite cheap. Kingston nv3, crucial p3, silicon power, wd green or msi spatium can get around rm200 for 1tb size. Pair it with any external m.2 enclosure and you can get a reliable external storage with better speed than hdd.

I open a thread last time in here about this: https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/5503404/+20