Samsung MUF-256DA

Ganesh T S has never had such a fast thumb... drive!

- Ganesh T S

SPECS

Port: USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C

Type: Native flash, Samsung V-NAND

Storage: 256GB (32GB, 64GB, 128GB)

Bridge: None

Power: Bus

SMART: No

UASP: No

TRIM: No

Encryption: N/A

Size: 33.7x 15.9x82.mm, 3.4g

Portable SSDs have been in great demand over the past few years. Thanks to advancements in smartphones, the amount of user-generated content that needs to be backed up or transferred from one device to another has grown exponentially. While native flash controllers are now capable of delivering USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20Gbps) speeds with the latest 3D NAND, the ubiquitous thumb drive (aka UFD - USB Flash Drive) has also managed to evolve.

Samsung's MUF-256DA is a compact USB Type-C flash drive that's available in capacities ranging from 64GB to 256GB, utilising a USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5GBps) interface. The UFD presents itself to the host system as a storage device, but doesn't report temperature or NAND health reporting alongside UASP or TRIM.

Samsung claims read speeds of up to 400MBps, but makes no claims about writes except for noting that it's expected to be lower. With synthetic testing these appear to be true with sequential reads peaking at 372MBps and writes at 114MBps. Random results were 16MBps and 5MBps, respectively. Under real-world loads we copied 29GB of video and audio files from the RAM drive to the test drive over multiple runs, with a final read speed of 336MBps.