Categories: ConsumerPortable Storage

Samsung USB 3.0 FIT Drive Review

The Samsung USB 3.0 FIT is the company’s most compact flash drive to date, and was designed for use cases in which where space is important (as with ultra-slim notebooks and vehicles equipped with media USB ports). Samsung put a lot of thought into the FIT’s design, giving it streamlined edges and an easy grip for removal. Performance-wise, the FIT uses Samsung’s next generation SuperSpeed USB 3.0 with quoted sequential read speeds of up to 130MB/s in both of its 32GB and 64GB capacities. It is also backwards compatible with USB 2.0.

Samsung has also made the FIT physically reliable; featuring Samsung’s 5-proof technology, the FIT is built to be water, shock, high temperature, magnetic, and X-ray proof. Samsung is known its pedigree in reliability, so this is unsurprising. Backed by a limited 5-year warranty, the Samsung USB 3.0 FIT is priced at roughly $18 (32GB) and $32 (64GB). We will be looking at the 64GB model.

Specifications

Interface: USB 3.0
Capacity: 64GB
Transfer Speeds: Up to 130MB/s
Environmental Specs
- Operating Temperature: 0℃~60℃
- Non-operating Temperature: -10℃~70℃
Shock
- Acceleration: 1,500g (gravity)
- Duration time: 0.5ms
- Direction: x,y,z 3 times
Dimensions (W x D x H): 0.61" x 0.77" x 0.34"
Weight: 0.005lbs
Warranty: 5 years limited

Design and Build

Samsung has really set the bar in the design category for its vast portfolio of storage products over the past few years, and their newest USB drive is no exception. The Samsung FIT is a very slick-looking device with a minimalistic design.

Measuring under 20mm long, the Samsung FIT weighs just 2.0 grams. It features a high-quality, metal-based design for surprising durability as well as an incredibly small compact body. Though small in stature, it stills feel very rugged when handled.

Performance

In this review, we have included the following comparables from our database of USB flash drive reviews:

Using our HP Z620 Workstation Testing Platform running Windows 8.1, we measured transfer speeds from the FIT with IOMeter. When looking at sequential speeds, the FIT posted 46.16MB/s read and 42.12MB/s write, which topped the performance of the other drives; the TransMemory U362 posted 31.7MB/s read and 8.3MB/s write, the TransMemory ID had 33.2MB/s read and 18.1MB/s write and the Samsung Bar posted speeds of 47.61MB/s read and 43.75MB/s write.

The Samsung FIT also performed well with random large-block transfers, posting 30.32MB/s read and 13.40MB/s write. The other drives were in line with the FIT in terms of read (31.6MB/s and 31.7MB/s for the TransMemory U362 and TransMemory ID, respectively), but trailed significantly in write functions, with 1.45MB/s and 1.31MB/s for the TransMemory U362 and TransMemory ID, respectively. The Samsung Bar however ran right up with its cousin drive with speeds of 32.94MB/s read and 15.93MB/s write.

Our last flash drive benchmark measures 4k random transfer performance in IOPS. The Samsung FIT posted 949.81 IOPS read and 42.00 IOPS write, which more or less in line with the other drives. The TransMemory U362 posted 1,410.9 IOPS read and 1.7 IOPS write, the TransMemory ID had 1,366.9 IOPS read and 4.14 IOPS write, and the Samsung Bar had 965.23 IOPS read and 22.07 IOPS write.

Conclusion

The FIT drive, Samsung's newest low-cost model, offers modern capacity options and performance in one of the smallest flash drives available. Samsung intends this drive to be used with ultra-slim notebooks and vehicles using USB ports, but it could be used anywhere. It carries Samsung's history of reliability, with protection from water, electricity, high temperatures, magnetism, and x-rays. Although we saw significantly lower transfer speeds than those reported by Samsung, the FIT still stood up well against other low-cost flash drives on the market. However, one significant shortcoming of the FIT is that it could be easily lost, so it might not be the best candidate for day-to-day use.

Pros