We put four mini USB drives – including a USB-C variant – from PNY, Samsung, and Sandisk to the test. These compact drives are designed to stay plugged in as semi-permanent storage, helping to free up precious space on your laptop. While they aren’t as fast as SSD-grade thumb drives and portable SSDs , they are more than capable of stowing away backups and offloading bulk files.

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Our Picks

Who Would Need Such a Small Drive?

Feature Comparison

Benchmark Analysis

Design & Build

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Our Picks

For most users, the Samsung Fit Plus is the standout choice, offering the most consistent balance between large file transfers and small file write speeds.…