Centon 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive

About Centon

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Centon 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive
Price: $19.99
Shipping Options: $5 Standard OR $9 Two-Day OR $12 One-Day
Shipping Estimates: Ships in 1-2 business days (Monday, Jun 23 to Tuesday, Jun 24) + transit
Condition: New

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Looks like a solid deal. This is selling at microcenter.com and macmall.com for quite a bit more.

Is it backward compatible for USB 2.0 ports?

I’ve never seen one that isn’t. If they follow the standards you can use 2.0 drives in a 3.0 port (at 2.0 speed) and 3.0 drives in a 2.0 port (at a little faster than usual 2.0 speeds).

Interesting that it’s listed on the mother ship at $44.99 (Prime) yet listed here as being marked down from $34.99. The other Centon sticks don’t get great reviews, but this certainly is significantly less than the typical Prime price.

Both the 32GB Centon sticks I got here had problems. Low level format failed on each. I gave them to my nephew to take apart 'cause he likes to dissect electronics.

Here is a website for a program you can use to load and run portable apps off of your thumb drive

PortableApps

Not everybody’s favorite.

http://reviews.dell.com/2341n/A4938044/centon-electronics-centon-electronics-datastick-pro-64gb-usb-2-0-flash-drive-grey-reviews/reviews.htm

I use portableaps on one stick and http://www.roboform.com/ portable on another.

I’ve used and been exposed to Centon brand products for nearly a decade.

One thing is certain. They lack quality and they inevitably fail their user.

If you must buy this stick do not store vital information on it, do not trust it for back up purposes, expect much slower than advertised speeds, and try to understand that you paid so little because you were willing to receive a somewhat nonfunctional product.

–end rant

I’ve already used two of these exact drives purchased from Microcenter and can attest to the drives delivering the claimed speed. Don’t tar and feather these drives because Centon’s USB 2.0 drives may be slow, or the non-Pro drives are slow.

Yes, cheap USB 3.0 drives are going to be slow, and have such catchy monikers as “intro” or “basic” – they use cheap, slow memory. The Centon “Pro” designation indicates a top end drive from the company.

Yeah, USB sticks and memory cards do fail from time to time.
ChkFlsh is my go-to Windows tool for read/write testing and low-level formatting of memory cards and USB sticks.
Right-click and Run as Administrator if you’re in Win 7.
I am in no way associated with the author (not to mention it’s a free utility).
It’s a powerful too, so n00bs beware (though it does hide hard drives by default for protection).

Every Centon Product I’ve ever purchased has stopped working within 6 months.

I’ve had many USB drives, and recently my 8 gb Centon, just up and died. No warning signs, dead. I have others that go through the wash, chewed by a dog, or been in my pocket for well over a year, they all work. I’ll never trust another Centon again.
I just bought a Corsair, and it’s more likely a brand I can trust. Time will tell.

SanDisk IS the brand. They invented flash memory. The company holds more than 4000 patents and is an OEM for companies that trust their product.

WARNING
If you look at the amazon reviews for the 2.0 version, it fails 50% of the time. Unless you are going to place non critical data on this, it is not worth the risk. Maybe they fixed it, maybe they didn’t. There are not enough reviews to know.

Instead, there are options such as the “Silicon Power 64GB Blaze B30 USB 3.0” on amazon that have much better reviews. In fact, that one is only $26. Basically the same cost considering shipping.

For the same price (free shipping), Newegg has the 4-star ADATA DashDrive (Model AUV128-6G-RBE) for $24.99 with coupon EMCPDHP223. You can even buy one if you don’t mind letting Newegg’s 20+ scripts run on your computer…

By definition, the USB 3.0 protocol is backwards compatible, it just won’t read/write as fast as it would in a mating 3.0 machine.