ADATA DashDrive UD320 OTG Hybrid Flash Drive Review

As of late, hybrid or OTG flash drives have been gaining popularity, mostly due to the ease of use and of course allowing you to swap files between your PC and Android phone.

Today, we have one such product from ADATA in the form of the DashDrive UD320. The UD320 carries a unique design in that the OTG, or micro USB, portion of the flash drive is more of an adapter than a dedicated drive. The UD320 comes in several capacities, including 16GB and 32GB. The model we have for review is the 32GB.

Compatibility of the UD320 extends to modern Windows operating systems, Mac OS 9+, and Android 4.1+. MSRP of the ADATA UD320 in the 32GB capacity is set at $14.99, and the drive comes with a lifetime warranty.

Looking over the UD320, we first noticed its extremely small size. The front of the drive houses branding for the drive.

Here you can see how the drive pulls apart, with one end being a cap for the micro USB port while the other is the actual flash drive.

Above, we have a look at the micro USB port.

Here we have the adapter portion of the UD320; it does appear to be a standard connection, so you may be able to use other flash drives with this adapter.

Above, we have the flash drive itself, which is 32GB in capacity and very tiny.

The ADATA UD320 is factory formatted with the FAT32 file system, ensuring compatibility between Windows and Macintosh computers. The usable capacity after formatting is 29.7GB.

Here we have the results from CDM. As you can see, the ADATA UD320 is capable of 25 MB/s read and 17 MB/s write. This gives plenty of storage throughput to watch videos from the device and, of course, move pictures and documents back and forth.

In the time I spent with the DashDrive UD320, I did find the drive to have excellent build quality; the plastic shells are held together well, and all connections are quite snug.

Performance of the UD320 was ample for its intended use, though I would like to have slightly faster write speeds so I don't have to wait for files to load to the device, especially in the case of movies, which tend to be in the 4GB range.

As far as interoperability goes, I had no issue moving files back and forth from my PC to the phone, though I would like it to support Windows Phone 8, though that's most likely something Microsoft would have to step up to the plate with.

MSRP of the ADATA UD320 is set at $14.99 with a lifetime warranty. Current market pricing can be found below.

PRICING: You can find the ADATA UD320 for sale below. The prices listed are valid at the time of writing, but can change at any time. Click the link to see the very latest pricing for the best deal.

United States: The ADATA UD320 retails for $25.99 at Amazon.

Canada: The ADATA UD320 retails for $55.64 at Amazon Canada.