AI News Feed
Market watch
Poland's WB Group unveils Gladius 2 loitering munition with stealth-bomber shapeOmni Group Ships Day-One Updates for Apple's 2027 Platforms, Adding Siri AI to OmniFocusPoll Finds Broad Opposition to AI Data Centers, but No Clear Partisan EdgeGoogle launches Gemini 3.8 Live voice models with real-time reasoningAIUC raises $40M to begin auditing frontier AI modelsApple Car Key Reportedly Expands to Lincoln, Freelander and Lucid in Backend Code
Poland's WB Group unveils Gladius 2 loitering munition with stealth-bomber shapeOmni Group Ships Day-One Updates for Apple's 2027 Platforms, Adding Siri AI to OmniFocusPoll Finds Broad Opposition to AI Data Centers, but No Clear Partisan EdgeGoogle launches Gemini 3.8 Live voice models with real-time reasoningAIUC raises $40M to begin auditing frontier AI modelsApple Car Key Reportedly Expands to Lincoln, Freelander and Lucid in Backend Code
Products & Applications

USB-C Flash Drives Win on Convenience, but the Connector Alone Does Not Add Speed

USB-C flash drives are easier to use with modern laptops, tablets and phones, but the port does not determine transfer speed. Drive specs and host ports set the limits, and USB-A remains the more compatible option on older gear.

AI News Feed · 2026-09-16 08:21

The smaller, reversible USB-C port is used in most modern laptops, tablets and, perhaps most importantly for this discussion, smartphones. For large picture, video and document transfers on mobile devices, USB-C is hard to beat.

Speed, however, is a separate matter. Most people associate USB-C with speed more than USB-A because it is a newer standard, but USB-A and USB-C are merely descriptors identifying the type of connection. It is the specs associated with the drive that define its speed capabilities. A USB-C drive using USB 2.0 will be slower than a USB-A drive using USB 3.2.

The port on the PC or smartphone matters as well. A fast USB-C drive connected to a USB 2.0 USB-C port is limited to USB 2.0 speeds, while a slow USB 2.0 USB-A drive cannot take advantage of the faster speeds of a USB 3.2 Gen 1 port. Engadget advises buyers to examine read and write speeds before purchasing either type, since one cannot be assumed faster than the other based on connection technology alone.

The familiar rectangular Type-A port remains prevalent in desktop PCs, laptops, televisions, routers, cars and game consoles. While USB-C is the standard on smartphones and tablets, it has only slowly made its way to larger devices such as laptops, routers and desktops, and a budget laptop usually has fewer USB-C ports than a top-end model. A USB-A flash drive is generally the easiest way to move a file without hunting down an adapter, and it is useful for creating bootable operating system installation media or updating a device's firmware. USB-A drives are common for transferring photos and videos, especially on equipment with few or no USB-C ports, and a basic drive is inexpensive and easy to replace.

USB-C is capable of faster top speeds than USB-A, but both the drive and the connected device must support the faster standard for that to take effect. With flash drives, those theoretical ceilings are not practical to reach anyway. If a given flash drive is USB 3.0, the only real difference between USB-A and USB-C is the physical connection. USB-A can handle USB 3.2 Gen 1 and Gen 2 speeds of up to 10 Gbps; the underlying Gen 2 protocol was designed to support both connector types, with USB-A dropping out above 10 Gbps.

On a brand-new laptop or desktop PC, USB-C is almost always the better option, particularly for users who move data back and forth between an iPhone or Android device and a computer, where convenience rather than speed is the main benefit. USB-A is the better choice when compatibility is the top priority or when working with older devices, and is worth keeping for boot media, older PCs and shared office equipment. Adapters can bridge the two, but they are one more item to carry.

The most flexible option is a dual-ended USB-C/USB-A flash drive, which allows both connections without adapters. It is not automatically the fastest choice, because both ends usually connect to the same controller and USB protocol inside the drive, so Engadget recommends checking the manufacturer's speed specifications. Users handling massive files, such as video editors and 3D artists, tend to favor USB-C, though at 20 Gbps and above the products worth buying are generally portable SSDs rather than small thumb drives.