Quick review: 32GB PNY Micro Metal Attaché USB Flash drive

Today, i was thinking to get a new small USB flash drive to keep in my pocket, my choice went for the PNY 32GB USB-2.0 Micro Metal Attaché: P-FDI32G/APPMT2-GE

Why choosing a 2.0 flash drive?
... When 3.0/3.1gen1 are available and 3.1gen2 will come soon...

• Price : 19€ for 32GB
• My laptop is from 2011, it doesn't feature any 3.0 host...
• I already have an EMTEC 16GB USB 3.0 flashdrive when i need high speed on compatible computers
• Will USB type-C flash drives come soon??

Form factor and characteristics

• Size: 18 x 12 x 7mm, 5g, this is quite small and light, perfect for my needs here; it is quite smaller than my little 16GB EMTEC of the above picture
  
• Reliability :
  • 2 years warranty, Data retention: 10 years.
  • Write/erase cycles: 10,000 minimum.
  • It doesn't look rock solid (the metal part is really thin), really looks cheaper than the LaCie 16GB Key.
  But something interesting is written on the back of the box:
  
• Speed (theoretical):
  • Write Speed: up to 8MB/s
  • Read Speed: up to 25MB/s
• Speed (real-life): With 10MB files (the benchmark default value), we get 18.2MB for Read speed, and 4.5MB/s for Write speed, far below the theoretical values... !
  
  
  
  With 100MB files, we get some better results R:21.9MB/s, W:9.7MB/s:
  
  
  
  With 1GB files (only 10 tests, not to spend the whole day waiting...)R:22.4MB/s, W:11.4MB/s:
  
  
  
  Let's see how it behaves with small files :
  With 1MB files R:17.8MB/s, W:566.3kB/s:
  
  
  
  With 4MB files (approximate size of a song or a 12MPx picture):
  
  
  
  
  
  
  So, we can see that small size file are pushing the flash drive to its limits, resulting in very low speed (566kB/s!!!); Storing larger files shows better results (as good as the theoretical speed announced by the brand)
  

Conclusion
Pros ... and Cons

• + Nice size and weight
• + doesn't protude much from the computer USB host
• + Average speed is OK for medium and large files
• - Extremely low speed for small files, cannot be really used as a liveUSB medium (my USB3.0 EMTEC 16GB gets R:35MB/s W:10MB/s with 10MB files on a 2.0 host!)
• - Not very tough construction, might not survive for years?