SanDisk Connect review: The road warrior’s USB stick

Data storage--it’s something of a primal need for the majority of us these days. From cloud-based accounts to the microSD card in a camera to a smartphone’s inbuilt storage, our data lives in many locations.

But the one device that many of us bank on both for its convenience and portability is the humble USB thumb drive. We chuck them into the back of our sling bags or loop them onto our keyrings, putting our important files within easy reach. And for the longest time, they’ve largely been unchanged, except of course for their transfer speeds and the thousands of shapes and form factors they’re available in these days. Enter the SanDisk Connect, which comes in and shakes things up.

Into its second generation, this USB drive adds two key abilities to the thumb drive which makes the portable data experience way more convenient: WiFi access and battery based power. Think about it--a thumb drive that can create its own wireless network, and a battery that powers it for up to 8 hours. You plug it into your computer and copy over files as usual--songs, movies and the like--then simply power it on and throw it into your bag. Next, using your laptop, Android or iOS device, you can access all of these files by simply connecting to the thumb drive’s wireless own wireless network. It can also be accessed by up to three users simultaneously.

Setting it up comprises two simple steps: installing the Connect Drive app from Google Play or the iOS App Store on your mobile device, and launching the app which finds the SanDisk Connect device and provides access.

The app primarily functions as a connection tool and a file browser. You can upload photos, videos and files to the SanDisk Connect from your mobile device, and access data stored on the USB drive. These files open using your mobile device’s default app: the music player, video player, document reader etc. The app also enables users to add a WiFi password to the device for controlling access, changing its WiFi name, setting the power off time, enabling anonymous data sharing, backing up/restoring contacts from the connected device and updating the drive’s firmware.

iOS devices and computers connect to the stick directly using the WiFi network settings. Laptop users access it by opening a browser and typing www.sandisk.com/myconnect to connect. We did discover that being simultaneously connected to another network (Ethernet, for example) caused issues connecting to the SanDisk Connect. Connecting solely to the drive was reliable enough though.

A pinpoint LED subtly integrated beneath the skin of the drive indicates its operational status: white rapid blinking during WiFi data transfer, solid Amber while charging, blinking red at low battery and color recycling during a firmware upgrade.

We had a near-seamless experience over the course of playing movies, music and access a range of files on the device. The drive clocked 13.2 seconds copying 19 MP3 files totaling 103MB (7.8MB/sec write speed) and 9.7 seconds to copy the same files back to the computer (10.7MB/sec read speed.) This is par for the course, given that the drive is based on the dated USB 2.0 and not the much quicker USB 3.0 standard.

We did encounter stray instances of buffering when playing 720p and 1080p video, though this may be dependant on the environment, nearby wireless networks and objects that could cause interference.

When it comes to quickly and conveniently accessing your data, nothing comes quite as close to the SanDisk Connect solution. MB for MB it is significantly more expensive than a regular USB thumb drive, but it does deliver a lot more capability. Whether you’re on a road trip or just chilling out with your posse at a coffee shop, it’s the kind of device that can change the way think about accessing your data.

Price: 16GB (Rs 2,790), 32GB (Rs 3,790), 64GB (Rs 5,490), 128GB (Rs 9,490)