UGR Tech Dual USB-C + USB-A 3.2 High Speed Flash Drive plugs into your new Mac or iPad but it can also be used with devices that still have an old full-size USB port.
It’s a low-cost flash drive so I was very suspicious. But the aluminum exterior is quite rugged, the design is clever and the accessory passed a fraud test.
UGR Tech Dual USB-C + USB-A 3.2 High Speed Flash Drive review
I’ll be happy when the transition from USB-A to USB-C is finally over. It’ll be a great day when the last device with a USB-A port leaves my house. In the mean time, I need adapters so my new drives can plug into old products.
But I don’t need one with this dual-connector drive. It is its own adapter. It can directly plug into whatever I need it to — with the exception of Lightning ports, of course.
Table of contents:
Airing everyone’s suspicions
Before I drive into the full review, let’s get something out of the way. This product is sold in the Cult of Mac Store and that’s surely going to make some of you skeptical of what I say. But the company does not pay me enough to lie to you. If this product had turned out to be crap, I’d have told my boss that and we’d stop selling it. That’s not what happened.
I understand your caution: Buying a flash drive off the internet is something of a gamble. There are a lot of bogus products out there. I was prepared for this to be one of them.
When I received the UGR Tech Dual USB-C + USB-A 3.2 High Speed Flash Drive, of course I checked its capacity. It’s supposed to be 1TB, and my computer says it is. But I didn’t trust that. I ran FakeFlashTest on the drive, and it passed. If it was scam, and made by crooks to report more storage capacity than it really has, then it would have failed the test. But it did not.
I became significantly less suspicious. I hope you are too.
Flash drive with two connectors for the price of one
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
Before I received it, I expected to be disappointed by the UGR Tech Dual USB-C + USB-A 3.2 High Speed Flash Drive. Surely it’ll be very cheaply made. Nope.
It really does have an all-aluminum exterior. And it’s solidly built. I’ve used cheap plastic flash drives and this feels completely different.
And the design is actually good. Rather than removable (and easily lost) covers, the USB-A and USB-C connectors have covers that swivel aside. The hinges for these don’t feel like they’ll wear out any time soon. Plus, the designers went to the extra hassle of building magnets into the covers so they stay closed unless deliberately flipped open. I certainly didn’t expect that.
The flash drive is quite pocketable: 2.5 inches by 0.75 inches by 0.3 inches. It weighs 1.4 ounces (0.09 pounds).
One of the few limitations of the hardware is that there’s no built-in loop and therefore no way to attach a lanyard. You’ll have to keep the drive in your pocket or a bag — you can’t easily attach it to your keys.
Performance lives up to expectations
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
One of the ways I tested the UGR Tech Dual USB-C + USB-A 3.2 High Speed Flash Drive was by plugging it into my TV and watching a movie off it. It handled this just fine. But this is a situation where speed doesn’t matter — the drive only needs to be able to be fast enough to keep up with a video player, and it’s definitely that.
But I also tested the performance while transferring files onto and off the drive. I wasn’t expecting quick file transfers and I didn’t get a surprise. Note that “High Speed” is part of the product name — that’s not my opinion.
UGR Tech promises 20 MB per second to 30 MB per second read and write speeds. And that’s roughly what I’m seeing in my real-world tests when it comes to moving files onto the drive. But pulling files onto my iPad actually went faster.
Transferring a 1 GB file onto the drive takes roughly 32 seconds — I did multiple runs and that’s typical. But pulling it off takes only about 7 secs. Just be aware, moving large files takes patience. Putting a 10GB file onto the dual-connector flash drive takes around 5 minutes.
One of the reasons the exterior is aluminum is it helps with heat dissipation. It’s typical for this type of drive to heat up, but this one doesn’t get too hot. I measured it at a steady 101 degrees in the middle of a massive file transfer.
UGR Tech Dual USB-C + USB-A 3.2 High Speed Flash Drive final thoughts
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
I showed up for a week at a beach house recently only to discover that the cable service was out. That’s why I travel with a collection of classic films on a flash drive. After a long day in the sun, I was ready to lie back and watch a film and needed that collection. UGR Tech’s drive would have been perfect for this. I could have plugged it into the TV’s USB-A port and started the movie.
On the other hand, if you’re planning to transfer massive files to and from your flash drive every day, this isn’t the product you’re looking for. It’s too slow for that.
★★★★☆
Pricing
The Cult of Mac Store offers a 29% discount off the regular price for this 1TB USB-C and USB-A 3.2 High-Speed Flash Drive, dropping the cost to $77.99.
Buy from: Cult of Mac Deals
Prices subject to change. All sales handled by StackSocial, our partner who runs Cult of Mac Deals. For customer support, please email StackSocial directly.
StackSocial provided Cult of Mac with a review unit for this article. See our reviews policy, and check out more in-depth reviews of Apple-related items.
