I never leave the house without this $40 gadget in my pocket

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I never leave the house without this $40 gadget in my pocket

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I’ve had dual USB-C/A flash drives for many years—they’re nothing new. However, when I got the PNY Duo Link V3, it changed how I used dual flash drives.

One of my favorite features of this flash drive has to be its build quality. I’m used to there being some metal in a flash drive, but plastic being the main component of the housing. PNY went the opposite route with an all-metal build here. The rotation mechanism is also very robust, and I don’t see it breaking anytime soon, as it uses magnets and positive stops to lock into place instead of plastic snaps.

This flash drive also comes in four storage sizes, starting at 256GB and going up to 2TB. I have the 1TB version of the flash drive and have found carrying that amount of storage around with me to be extremely valuable.

The PNY Duo Link V3 flash drive plugged into a MacBook Pro sitting on a wooden table with the USB-A side sticking out slightly.

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I can’t tell you how many times I’ve utilized the shear storage space of the drive when not at home. One instance was the other day when I was at the radio station my dad manages, and we needed to move the ~400GB music library. The PNY Duo Link V3 handled it with ease.

You’ll also find nearly 1,000MB/s transfer speeds on the Duo Link V3, which is also extremely nice. I’ve used the flash drive many times to move lots of data between my wife’s computer and my MacBook, and loved how fast it happened.

At this point, I don’t leave the house without the Duo Link V3 in my pocket. I’ve used it countless times at church, a friend’s house, our radio station, or anywhere else. It’s one of my most-used pieces of tech outside my computers and phones at this point, which is something I did not expect at all.

Given the starting price of the PNY Duo Link V3 is pretty affordable with the 256GB version going for $40 and the 1TB coming in at under $100, this is the perfect Christmas present to someone this holiday season. It’s compact, multipurpose with both USB-C and USB-A ports on it, and rugged enough to handle just about any situation.

9/10

Capacity: 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, 2TB
Speed: 1000MB/s read, 800MB/s write

The PNY Duo Link V3 flash drive offers both USB-C and USB-A plugs. With USB 3.2 Gen 2 speeds, you can expect up to 1,000MB/s read and 800MB/s write speeds from this flash drive. Coming in 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB storage sizes, this all-metal flash drive makes it easy to bring large amounts of fast storage with you anywhere.