NVMe SSD in a USB 3 enclosure is about as fast as you're going to get.
this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2026
30 points (96.9% liked)
Ask Lemmy
40046 readers
1649 users here now
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
7) No Hit-and-Run questions.
Please don't delete your post for no apparent reason. If you plan on deleting a question later, say so in the post, or if you feel that you have a good reason to remove it, message a mod beforehand. It's not fair to the ones who took their time to answer, and it's not in the spirit of the community.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
I have one of these! It’s great. I made it back when SSDs were cheap—256GB external NVMe was like 60USD counting the enclosure.
Even a SATA SSD with a USB enclosure has incredible and consistent speed compared to any flash drive one can reasonably get.
FBI open up! It sounds like trying you're to steal lots of data in a few seconds before either the computer kicks you out, or someone returns to their desk. If you're not staring in a "hacker" movie, 10GBs on a modern usb stick should only take a few minutes, go get a coffee or something while you wait.
For purely educational purposes, If a 3.0 usb drive isn't fast enough you'll need an external SSD which will have significantly faster write times. Be wary of vauge marketing like "fast", 30MB/s was "fast" 20 years ago. You want the actual to find the spec for write speed, simply put, a higher number is better. Find the highest number, but also be wary of absurd claims. Try to find independent tests/research that support a manufacture's claim.
That being said, you're also limited by the computer's usb capabilites and whatever drive that has. Make sure you're plugging into a usb 3.0 port or better. Additionally, if the data is on a slow drive, there's nothing you can do about that. If the data is comprised of a lot small files, it will be slower to copy as the system has to process each one.
I hope you enjoyed this educational exercise; and remeber kids, don't do crime and if you get caught, you don't know me!
LoL, thanks for the info! I'm not stealing anything, I swear! 👀. The files are on a very expensive inspection/measurement tool and this can't be sitting for 20/30 mins while everyone waits for the files to transfer. I think an external SSD is the way to go, thanks.
Does the machine have thunderbolt? You can put a fast NVME SSD into a thunderbolt/USB 4 40gbit enclosure and write basically as fast as the SSD can.
Even a normal USB 3 10/20gbit adapter will be infinitely faster than any USB stick. They put the worst flash imagineable into USB drives. Sure they read fast, but outside of their cache they’re painfully slow.
If you really insist on a USB “thumb stick” I’ve had good luck with the “SanDisk Extreme PRO USB 3.2 Solid State Flash Drive” they write infinitely faster than most junk you’ll find.
Thanks, that's a good question, I'm not sure if it has a thunderbolt connector, I think it's only USB 3. I will need to check that. I will look into the SanDisk solid state flash drive, didn't know this was a thing, thanks.
Flash drives are SLOW. Like others have said, use a USB-attached SSD.
I have a Samsung X5 SSD with a TB3 connection. It copies 10GB in about 5 seconds, but all devices involved would need a TB3 port.
If you are desperate for transferring files swiftly you can use your phone's internal memory. If it's UFS it will be pretty fast