We’ve been focussing on storage a lot as of late, and for a very good reason as files are getting larger, especially when you look at the size of a good quality image, HD video footage or just a multi-page document. Together these all add up and cause the need for expandable storage, but that comes at a cost, especially when you want speed in conjunction with it too. Taking a step back from the plethora of USB 3.0 SuperSpeed flash drives on the market, you can never go wrong for something small and discrete but with a large capacity, and of course having a price point that doesn’t hurt your bank balance.
The DashDrive UD310 is a rugged USB drive that is aimed at everyone, especially if you like a bit of bling in your life. It comes in a variety of sizes with the smallest 8GB model, mid-range 16GB and the one we have today; the 32GB. Branded under the DashDrive Durable branding, the device is catered to be ultra small and ultra convenient, and when we say it’s tiny, we really mean it. It comes as expected with a lifetime warranty and due to the advanced COB manufacturing process, it also has protection against impact resistance and water damage.
The overall design is a unique one to say the least with a “jewel like” design as ADATA brand it currently. It comes in two flavours; red or black and today we happen to have the black version with us.
It’s branded as “jewel like” due to the shape of the top part which has a jewel/crystal style. For the most part, it is made from plastic with the only metal part being the USB connector itself.
When plugged into a computer/laptop, the flash drive sits snug and doesn’t obscure in any way due to its low-profile design and sits discretely out of the way.
With most USB 3.0 products, a big part of the marketing is the rated speeds, but with this USB 2.0 device, ADATA don’t quote any speeds on the packaging or on any of their marketing material, including the website. There is a very good reason as to why, and it mainly comes down to the times that we’re in. USB 2.0 isn’t trying to be the fastest thing out there, and with this product, it’s trying to be affordable and to give the user exactly what they want. With that in mind, we still have to see how it fairs when looking at performance, and so we fired up CrystalDiskMark to start things up.
To see how performance lays across the board, we also booted into ATTO to see if the results were consistent.
With no rated speeds direct from ADATA, we have nothing to compare to, but was glad to see the results consistent across both CrystalDiskMark and ATTO at 21MB/s read and 8MB/s write.
We mentioned that a device of this nature is aiming itself at the value segment, by offering a large capacity for a small price and that’s exactly where it ends up. We had the 32GB model with us, and while availability isn’t fantastic in the UK, you’ll still find the UD310 priced at around £17 making it stand out at a whopping 53 pence per GB.
Other models in the range include the 16GB UD310 at £9.50 and the 8GB model at £5.60, all giving extremely good value for money.
If we look at this product from a performance point of view, you won’t be rivalling anyone as it doesn’t offer blistering speeds, but it wasn’t made to offer that in the first place. This is a value product, aimed at the value segment of the market, but value doesn’t mean cheap as this clearly isn’t a cheap, flimsy product. It offers a small footprint that will be hard to damage and is water-resistant too.
Looking at it head-on, it’s definitely worth the money, and we could see ADATA using something like this in the OEM sector, for branding and promotion for other businesses. As we know, ADATA have no problem working as an OEM partner, as they do with many DRAM modules currently on the market under different brands. With this in mind, I honestly feel that OEM may be a way to go with this product, where they could be sold in their hundreds, maybe with some eTeknix branding on in the future?
The simple fact is, it offers fantastic value for money and is pretty much unbeatable considering what it offers for that small outlay, and if you are after an all-year-round stocking filler, then the UD310 32GB will not disappoint, and you’ll still have some change left in your pocket at the end of the day. What more could you want? For us, we’re happy to award it with our bang for buck award, but a word of advice may be to go for the red one, as throughout writing this review; we lost the black one 3 or 4 times. Ooops!
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