The Best USB Flash Drives

The once ubiquitous USB flash drive has declined in popularity with the rise of the cloud, but these portable storage devices still have a lot to offer. Also known as thumb drives or memory sticks, flash drives provide storage for backing up precious photos, playing movies on the big screen, or copying files from one phone or laptop to another. They can also keep sensitive data off the internet altogether, which greatly diminishes the possibility of that data being hacked. They are affordable, small enough to fit on a keychain, and boast ever-increasing capacities and data transfer speeds. After testing many, we’ve selected these as the best USB flash drives for various purposes and budgets.

If you need more than 1 terabyte of storage, check out our guides to the Best Portable Storage Drives or the Best Cloud Storage Services. And don't forget to back up your digital ...