USB Memory Stick - Any Suggestions for Quality/Reliability?

[Barryng]

I need to purchase a couple of 16 and 32 GB USB 3.0 memory sticks. Quality and reliability are important to me and I do not mind paying more for higher quality memory. Any suggestions for a vendor that is known to use high quality memory would be appreciated. Although high speed is certainly desirable I do not equate high speed with reliability and reliability is certainly more important. I also realize USB memory is generally not known to use the best memory available but I nevertheless want to buy the best that is reasonably available.

Over the past few years I mostly used Corsair USB memory sticks. I recently realized I have had a relatively large number of them fail. All three of the Corsair encoded sticks (even a new one) failed seemingly due to bad batteries. About four other sticks just failed. Since I mostly have had only Corsair USB memory sticks maybe this failure rate is typical of all of them. My USB memory sticks do not get a lot of use and mostly just reside in my pocket or desktop.

 

[EarthDog]

My Corsair Voyager has been a trooper for years.

I also have a Kingston Hyper X one that has been going for a while too...

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Unfortunately they're not made any more, but the Lexar Lightning 4GB is my oldest.

My "normal" flash drive now is a 16GB Sandisk Ultra. It's one of the fastest on the market without forking out tons of cash.
Well built case, has held up to my abuse so far.

 

[Janus67]

Sandisk makes some nice flash drives for sure.

I think it is important to note, flash drives should really only be used for transporting data from one location to another. Reliability is a hope, and not a guarantee as they won't provide any warning signs to when they will randomly stop working. One person's 5 years could be another person's 5 months, just depending on luck of the draw it seems. I haven't had any of my flash drives die on me yet (ocz, sandisk, microcenter branded, corsair, etc) *knock on wood* but I make sure to that they aren't the only place I keep important files as I know they will die eventually.

 

[Woomack]

So far all my Lexar drives are working fine. The same with Kingston and Patriot and I'm using them everyday at work and at home ( 6-7 nearly everyday ).
Generally most flash drives from well known brands are similar quality. However everything what is made of metal without moving parts is usually better.

Usually it looks like smaller the drive = slower the writes but in most cases read counts more.

Here you can find couple of my reviews:
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/...ck-s-flash-memory-storage-test-list?p=7705184

 

[sobe]

I've got some SanDisk, Corsair, and Lexar drives, but really I tend to snatch up SanDisk sticks simply out of habit, as when I think USB memory stick, I think of SanDisk. Just go for whatever offers decent transfer speeds at decent prices. ATM mentioned SanDisk Ultra, you can pick up a 32GB for $12.99 from Amazon.