Today we run some basic benchmarks with the Toshiba TransMemory U365 USB flash drive, an affordable flash storage solution for moving around your data.

Toshiba is offering the drive in capacities of 32GB/64GB/128GB/256GB, with the largest 256GB version to embed Toshiba 3D Flash memory BiCS FLASH. We have in our hands the smaller 32GB U365 USB flash drive, which retails online for less than $10.

The U365 is not the smallest USB flash drive we have seen, measuring 55.0mm (L) × 21.4mm (W) × 8.5mm (H) and an approximately 9g weight. It has a USB 3.0 interface (compatible with USB 2.0) and is rated to hit a read speed of up to 150MB/s.

The drive is compatible with Windows PCs (Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10) and OS X v10.6.6 - v10.11, macOS X v10.12.

Toshiba is covering the drives with a generous five year warranty from the date of purchase.

Specifications

• Capacity: 32GB, 64GB, 128GB, 256 GB
• Interface: USB 2.0 High Speed compatible / USB 3.0 Super Speed compatible
• Power Supply: USB bus-power
• Compatible PC Models: Models equipped with the following OS, and the Type-A USB interface as a standard feature: OS X v10.6.6 - v10.11, macOS X v10.12 – v10.13, Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10
• Max read speed (MB/s): Up to 150 MB/s
• Dimensions: 55.0mm (L) × 21.4mm (W) × 8.5mm (H) (excluding slide tab)
• Weight: Approx. 9g
• Operating Temperature: 0° to +50°C (Recommended)
• Service & Support: 5 Years

The drive has a simple shape without ornate decorations, featuring a classic matt black body. It also has a capless and sliding retractable design for convenient use when you want.

The plastic switch on the side can be used for ejecting the USB connector.

The useable storage is 28.86GB according to Windows, this is due to the way Windows counts space, and you will find all drives get their storage under-reported.

Let's plug it into the USB3.0 port of our Windows 10 PC and run some benchmarks.

CrystalDiskMark

ATTO DiskMark

The Toshiba TransMemory U365 USB flash drive is obviously designed to read fast, as it reached the 200MB/s speed in sequential reads -- more than the conservative 150 MB/s quoted by Toshiba. Reading of smaller files was also performed at adequate speeds. However, the drive's weakness is its write performance, with sequential speeds to reach just the 20MB/s, while writing of small files is very slow. Random small file transfer also drops dramatically, but this is standard for most of the low-end USB drives though.

We suspect that the 128/256GB version of the drive will be significantly faster in the write part.

In any case, the 32GB model we have in our hands will comfortably play even the largest of movie files smoothly due to its high read speed. It can also be used for transferring files, but with its write speeds you would have to wait approximately 3 minutes to transfer over a 4GB movie. Toshiba is aware of that, so the drive is properly priced at about $10 - about the price of other mainstream 32GB USB flash drives, which could also luck the high-speed reading performance.

The 128GB version is available for about $39 and he largest 256GB model costs about $72. These options could make sense for anyone need to increase the capacity of an ultra-portable laptop, which typically comes with low-capacity, un-removable hard drives or limited MMC memory.