In the world of data storage, bigger is often better. As file sizes continue to grow with high-resolution photos, videos, and other media, having a flash drive with a large storage capacity is becoming increasingly important. But just how big do these portable storage devices get? Let’s take a look at some of the largest flash drives currently on the market.
Current Record Holders
The largest commercially available flash drive today has a whopping 8 terabytes (TB) of storage. This drive is made by Kingston, one of the leading manufacturers of flash memory products. The Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate Generation Terabyte (GT) comes with a hefty price tag of $1,319.00. With that much capacity, you could potentially store over 1,600 hours of HD video.
Here are some other contenders for the largest flash drives:
- SanDisk 8TB SSD Prototype – Announced at CES 2019, this SanDisk drive boasts a mind-blowing 8TB capacity. However, it hasn’t yet hit the consumer market.
- Kingston DataTraveler HyperX Predator 3.0 2TB – Kingston also makes a 2TB drive that retails for around $700.
- Corsair Flash Voyager GS 1TB – You can pick up this 1TB Corsair model for around $300.
- Patriot Supersonic Rage Elite 1TB – Patriot’s top-end 1TB drive sells for around $480.
While 1-2TB drives are available from a few different manufacturers, Kingston currently stands alone in the production of an 8TB flash drive for consumers.
How Flash Storage Works
Before we look at what limits the maximum size of a flash drive, let’s first understand how flash storage works. Flash memory is a type of electronically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM). It got the name “flash” because data can be erased and rewritten very quickly, much faster than old-school storage like magnetic tape or floppy disks.
Inside a flash memory chip, you’ll find floating gate transistors. These transistors have two gates instead of just one. The floating gate sits in between the normal gate and the transistor channel and is electrically isolated. To store data, a charge is forced into the floating gate, which changes the threshold voltage required for the transistor to conduct current. The presence or absence of charge in the floating gates corresponds to the 1s and 0s that make up digital data.
Factors Limiting Maximum Size
So why can’t we just keep making bigger and bigger flash drives? There are a few technical challenges that come with increasing storage density in flash memory chips:
- Cost – As density increases, manufacturing costs go up significantly. Extremely dense flash memory chips require very sophisticated fabrication equipment and processes.
- Power consumption – More storage in the same chip means more transistors to power up. At a certain point, the chip would consume too much electricity to be practical in a USB flash drive.
- Error rates – Closely packing all those floating gate transistors together increases electrical interference between them, leading to higher error rates.
- Write speed – Writing data becomes slower with higher densities, because electrical interference also makes the write process less accurate.
Manufacturers also have to test ever-increasing amounts of storage space on these large drives during production. All of these factors combine to make it extremely difficult to create a flash memory chip bigger than 1TB that can reliably fit inside a consumer flash drive enclosure.
Where Flash Density Is Headed
While technical challenges exist, flash memory fabrication continues to advance. Chipmakers are implementing sophisticated multi-level cell (MLC) and 3D stacking technologies to push density higher. With further innovations, we will eventually see 16TB and even 32TB flash drives hit the market. However, this level of density remains a few years away.
For now, products like Kingston’s 8TB prototype rely on filling the flash drive enclosure with multiple flash memory packages to reach such mammoth capacities. Cramming dozens of 1TB packages into one drive enclosure is an interim solution until chip-level densities can catch up.
Uses for Large Flash Drives
Why would anyone need an 8TB flash drive today? There are some practical use cases, including:
- Professional video editors – An 8TB flash drive could transport enormous video projects between the studio and home.
- 3D designers – Large CAD files, 3D renders, and intricately detailed datasets can quickly fill up space.
- Photographers – Professional photographers shooting RAW images at 50+ MB per photo will eat up storage.
- Research data – Transporting terabytes of research data from the lab to conferences is made easy.
For most everyday users though, flash drives in the 64GB to 256GB range are plenty large. Cloud storage services like Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive are also popular for accessing files across devices.
The Future of Portable Storage
Flash drives with 1TB+ capacities give us a glimpse into the future. As manufacturing costs come down, we can expect to eventually see 8TB and larger flash drives as mainstream consumer products. External hard disk drives currently offer more storage for less money, but flash technology outpaces old magnetic disks in speed, durability, and portability.
Beyond just flash drives, we may see larger integrated storage capacities available in consumer devices across the board. Picture a smartphone with a built-in 8TB of storage for all your photos, videos, and files. Or imagine a lightweight laptop with a 32TB solid state drive, removing any need for external storage. The capacities considered enormous today in flash drives will likely become commonplace in all our devices in the future.
Conclusion
If you need maximum portable storage today, the Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate Generation Terabyte flash drive delivers with a groundbreaking 8TB capacity. However, its $1,300+ price tag puts it out of reach for many consumers. More affordable 1-2TB options from Kingston, SanDisk, Corsair, and Patriot are available for power users. Looking ahead, we can expect even larger flash drives hitting the market in the coming years as manufacturing processes improve.