3.1 is nearly four times better than 2.0, not this is not new maths but the speed difference in writing files to an HP USB 3.1 drive vs writing to an HP USB 2.0 drive.
USB 2.0 drives are ubiquitous – we probably all have a draw full of them in various shapes and sizes but the USB 3.0 and 3.1 drives are not so common. Until recently they have also been rather expensive to the extent that we had not previously used one.
HP recently sent us four of their latest USB drives in an assortment of styles and colours, all were 64 GB (Pretty amazing in itself when I remember my first PC had a 10MB drive and I wondered how you would ever fill that up – but I digress!). Two were USB 2.0 and two were USB 3.1.
We put them to the test by copying a large (3GB+) video file to them and the results were pretty consistent between the two USB 3.1 drives and the USB 2.0 drives. The average copy time for the USB 3.1 drives was 2.5 minutes while for the USB 2.0 drives it was 9.2 minutes.
Price obviously depends on where you buy but at one large retailer the USB 2.0 models were $30-$35 each and the 3.1 models $45-$55 .
The four models tested were
760w USB 3.1 – very compact with a carabiner clip – our pick
796w USB 3.1 – standard push out style in silver
V150w USB 2.0 – Blue
V245o/v245L – Funky purple – the best looking
