A flash drive that is as fast as an external solid state drive without costing the Earth.
TC21231TBB01. Remember that name, it’s that of Teamgroup’s new 1TB USB flash drive, the C212. There’s two reasons why this storage device stands out of the usual plethora of USB thumb drives. It is fast, ridiculously fast for what it offers and it is affordable, surprisingly affordable actually for the capacity and performance it delivers. Teamgroup somehow delivered a product that has eluded the market for so long. A USB flash drive that is competitive with external SSDs and as cheap – if not cheaper. It was not so long ago (well, nearly nine years ago), that Kingston unveiled its 1TB flash drive with an eye-watering price tag. $3,300 – 22x the price of the C212 – got you the 1TB DataTraveler HyperX Predator 3.0. Keep an eye on its 2021 follow up, the similarly-priced Kingston DataTraveler Max 1TB – we hear that it is a scorcher. The 1TB version of the Teamgroup C212 retails for $155 at Newegg; the 256GB and 512GB versions sell for $50 and $88 respectively. Amazon.com sells it for a tad more but – on the other hand – offers international shipping as an option Nothing out of the ordinary and barely any fancy features. It looks like the gazilions of other USB drives out there with its black body and red accents. There’s a slider that pushes and pulls the USB 3.2 Type-A connector out of the drive; Teamgroup went further by patenting the mechanism as it claims it provides 10 percent extra strength. A plastic body means that the drive is particularly light which is important to reduce stress on the USB connector. At 9g and with reasonably compact dimensions (78 x 20 x 12.
