Customer Reviews

Transcend 16 GB JetFlash 500 Retractable USB 2.0 Flash Drive - TS16GJF500 (Black)

5 star:		(85)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

Physically, this Transcend 16 GB JetFlash 500 Retractable USB 2.0 Flash Drive looks almost identical to the SanDisk Cruzer Micro 16GB drive. The retractable USB plug on the Transcend drive also works EXACTLY the same way as the Sandisk (I'm surprised that somebody hasn't got sued yet). But that's where the similarity ends, because the Transcend JetFlash is a whole lot faster!

A bit of background information: I own both the Sandisk Cruzer Micro 4GB and 16GB versions. What I noticed is that the 16GB version is much slower than the 4GB version, especially when witting data. I even contacted Sandisk customer support, trying to find out what is the speed of Cruzer Micro. The response I got was quite useless:
"There is no guaranteed speed for SanDisk Cruzer Micro flash drives, as the speed for these flash drives have not been tested. If you need a flash drive with fast data transfer speed, we recommend SanDisk Extreme Cruzer Contour for this."

Prior to ordering this JetFlash drive, I visited the Transcend USA web site to search for information. Surprise, surprise! The data transfer speed of JetFlash 500 (under the 'V' series) is actually specified as:
"Read 15 MByte/s, Write 7 MByte/s (16GB)"

Once I received this Transcend JetFlash drive, I put it through several benchmark programs, to compare against the Sandisk Cruzer Micro:

- For typical photo files, write speed of the Transcend varies from 6.8MB/s (for 1MB file) to 11.3MB/s (for 5MB file). In contrast, the Sandisk only ranges from 2.0MB/s to 3.5MB/s. That means the Transcend is about 3x faster than the Sandisk! (See my Customer Images for details)

- For very large video files, the Transcend writes at about 7.8MB/s, while the Sandisk only reaches 5.1MB/s. The difference in smaller but still significant.

In terms of storage space: The Transcend drive reports 15.1GB of total capacity, while the Sandisk drive reports 14.9GB. Note that it is normal for a '16GB' flash drive to show only 14.9GB of storage, because 14.9GB for computer people (where 1GB = 2 to the power 30) actually translates to about 16,000,000,000 bytes. So that can be called '16GB' according to marketing people (where 1GB = one billion bytes).

In summary, the Transcend JetFalsh 16GB drive looks and works just like the Sandisk Cruzer Micro, but its write speed is +50% to +200% faster than the latter. As of this writing, both drives are available at similar prices, so this makes the Transcend a much better value.

[Update on Nov 3, 2010]:
- The price of this Transcend USB drive dropped further during the past two months. So now it is an even better value.

- Several reviewers have reported bad experiences using this USB drive on the Xbox 360. Right now your only safe bet is to get the Xbox 360 - 16 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive by SanDisk, which costs twice as much.

- If you don't intend to use the software supplied by Transcend, simply rename the file "Autorun.inf" (located at the root directory of this drive) to something else, such as "Autorun._inf". Then you can use it as a simple USB storage device.

I've had several Transcend flash drives and find them to be quite good and fast. This flash has lots of room for storage and a free software download that gives you all sorts of extras, including a place to save passwords, a browser and a whole lot more --- plus easy syncing of data.

Not much you can say about storage other than it's fast and dependable with free software to help make your life and work easier. It's a nice looking little unit and I really like the way you simply slide the connection out.

UPDATE: I accidentally left my Transcend in my jeans and washed them. I'm pleased to report that the Transcend manned up and worked as well as before it took a bath. While I don't recommend this sort of treatment, it's good to know this little guy can take a bit of rough treatment.

Highly recommended.

-- Susanna K. Hutcheson

I purchased this as a Gold Box deal, so I won't include price as a factor in my review- in all fairness to later reviews. I purchased this for the sole purpose of transporting music and picture files.

I received this yesterday and plugged it into a USB 1.1 port on my case- Not a 2.0! I installed the Transcend Jetflash elite software. I haven't utilized anything in the software, but it includes features for:

1. Outlook Expres and Windows email
2. easy access to your favorites in Intenet Explorer and Firefox browsers
3. secret-zip setup- password feature
4. Data backup and Data sync
5. PC Lock
6. My Jetflash- shows what's on the drive

After installing their software, there was still 15.1 GB available, which I believe is what's the norm for a 16GB drive.

Performance is usually the most critical issue (besides price) with all drives. Needless to say, that is not a big issue with me, since I have it plugged into a 1.1 port! lol. But I did decide to do a couple of performance checks for the tech geeks! (Yes I fall into that category, too!) These specs are read from an external Maxtor One Touch 1TB hard drive and written to the Transcend 16GB jump drive- into a 1.1 port and out a 1.1 port! Sorry, I didn't feel like pulling the full tower case out to reach the 2.0 ports!

A 77.2 mb music folder took 13 seconds (nearly 6mb/sec and a 337 mb music folder took 52 seconds (6.5mb/sec). I imagine it would perform quite better using 2.0 ports.

The only con I can think of would be the somewhat cheap construction (plastic) of this drive. It rattles slightly when you shake it, so rough users might have issues with this. Hopefully, some of this may help you with your decision!

This is a review of the Transcend 16GB USB Flash Drive. It resembles the SanDisk Cruzer in size and attributes. The USB connector slides in and out of the black casing. The indicator light is lit when it is connected to the computer, and flashes when data is transferred to/from the unit. There is an area to attach a neck cord (which I do not use), but does not come with one anyway.

I transfer a lot of files from work to home, and between various computers at work. The folders can reach 8GB and higher. I am trying out various flash drives to see which ones I like. I decided to give this one a try, especially since I got it for 20 dollars.

I have a higher-end workstation PC the following specs: Dell Precision 490, Quad-core Intel Xeon 5300, 4GB DDR2 fully buffered DIMM 667MHz ECC memory, Dual ATI FireGL V7200, WD Raptor 160 GB, WinXP Pro SP3.

Using Flash Memory Tookit v2.0, I got fairly linear read/write speeds using various file sizes (1MB to 15MB). The average write speed was 9.5 MB/s, and read speeds of 20.3 MB/s (19.3 - 20.7 MB/s range). This is fast!!! I posted the screen captures of these benchmarks here.

Using real files with sizes from 3MB (JPEG), 150MB (avi), 400MB (psd), and 1024MB (VOB), the read and write speeds were slightly faster than benchmark speeds. Average values were Read 22 MB/s and Write 14 MB/s. That is impressively fast. The 1GB file took about 60 seconds to copy this file onto the drive, and about 40 seconds to copy it from the thumb drive onto my computer. This is 2x faster read BUT OVER 10x faster to write than the SanDisk Cruzer!!! I then copied various folders (about 1GB total size) containing various file sizes, and it took two minutes to copy a folder onto the thumb drive, and 1 minute to copy from the thumb drive. This translates to about a write speed of about 9 MB/s and read of about 18 MB/s. Very impressive, indeed! This unit blows away the SanDisk Cruzer in just about every way I can think of, even price!

Overall, the Transcend Jetflash (16GB) is a great USB flash drive, and the low cost makes it one of the best affordable flash drives in speed, quality and price IMHO. I gave my sister my SanDisk Cruzer. I am now considering the 32 GB version. I highly recommend this flash drive.

Bought this as a Gold Box special to create a multi-boot USB drive with. That project is being a bit of a pain, but can't blame the drive itself. Not wild about the strange neon pea-soup green color. ;-) The slider is nice once you realize it really does lock into place upon sliding all the way out, despite the feeling to the contrary. Had a little trouble plugging it in as I was keeping my thumb on the slider to "help", only to quickly realize I was creating the problem vs fixing it. 16GB of space for, if memory serves, under $25 was just fine with me.


According to USBDeview the speeds for this device are approximately 7MB/s for write and 15MB/s for read. A bit on the slow side, so if you're going to be moving tons of data on & off this device on a regular basis it might get on your nerves. Not a huge deal for me, but to each their own!

DON'T BUY IF YOU'RE PLANNING TO USE IT WITH XBOX 360.

It works fine at first, but the data corrupts after a couple of times using it with the Xbox 360.

Its happened twice in one day.

I purchased two of these and neither one of them will work for photos. They start transferring and then the message comes up that "the path is too deep". It doesn't seem to be "too deep" on the Patriot flash drive I have, or the Toshiba flash drive that I have. Unless I find that I'm doing something wrong, I certainly won't purchase any storage devices from Transcend again--they weren't free!

I have several of these Transcend Retractable flash drives in various sizes. In fact I have to label them! I often back up one with another, which is a good back-up practice.

I took another reviewer's advice (thanks to NLee the Engineer) and always rename the Autorun.inf file because I typically do not use the included software.

After receiving my first Transcend Retractable I was disconcerted that I had to hold in the button to keep the connector extended while plugging it into my USB port... so I felt a little stupid the first time I didn't hold in the button and realized it locked in place once the button was depressed and pushed up all the way - one of my `duh' moments : )

I highly recommend Transcend's Retractable Flash drives!

I bought three Transcend 16 GB JetFlash 500 Retractable USB 2.0 Flash Drives on sale here. The product descriptions on Amazon and at Transcend claimed they were supported by my Mac OS. If I attempted to transfer data in lots of more than about 20 MB the flash drives froze and the computer crashed. In lots of about 20 MB or less the data was accepted and could be read and re-transmitted. To fill 16 GB in 20 MB increments would require 800 actions on my part and of course some files are more than 20 MB. An IT professional reformatted them for me, but there was no change. As an afterthought I reexamined an information card shipped with the devices. In very fine print it said, "Jetflash Elite works only in Windows" underneath the statement "System requirements: ... ... Mac 9.0 or later ... ...". Is what Amazon sold different from what was described? If so, why no flood of complaints from other Mac users?

My low rating of the drive is because it was incompatible with my computer even though the product descriptions of Amazon and Transcend assured compatibility. Amazon's information comes from outside sources and because they accepted return of the drives I am not displeased with them. The misrepresentation comes from Transcend. Based on the positive evaluations I read before my purchase it seems likely that if I ran Windows on a PC I would have been satisfied with the flash drives and rated them accordingly. Under the circumstances I cannot do so.

In passing, the retractable nature of the Transcend drive has its downside. There is no cap to lose, but the uncovered USB connector is prone to collecting dust from the room or lint from a pocket.

I purchased a 8GB and a 16GB Transcend JetFlash. I researched MANY different brands, and the Transcend products ALWAYS boasted about their speeds. I'm not going to get technical on you, but I will say that I'm a total Geek. Compared to the other "stuff" available, this JetFlash Drive met and exceeded my research! Transcend should boast about their speeds-for a USB 2.0 drive it's very fast. Additionally, this thumb drive doesn't have a cap, which can get lost, or eaten by your dog. The USB port retracts nicely into its hard plastic casing.

This drive does not come with a key chain thingamajig. Whoopy doo da, so what! I may wear a pocket protector, but I surely DO NOT NEED a thumb drive on my key ring. If you have any rebuttal about this feature, I'd like to hear from you.

Hands down, this is the best Thumb Drive/Flash Drive you can get! I'm getting ready to purchase a 64GB drive, which will replace my 8GB iPod in my Volvo. If you have an iPod and/or a USB port in your vehicle, using a Transcend JetFlash Drive is a lot less expensive than using an iPod, iPhone, iTouch, or other toys you might have with memory below 16GB.

I highly recommend Transcend products and their JetFlash line. Now GO BUY IT & START FLASHING!!!