Samsung MUF-64BA 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive Review

TweakTown's Rating: 87%

The Bottom Line

With its sleek design, the Samsung MUF-64BA USB 3.0 flash drive adds both reliability and ample performance to this budget-friendly flash solution.

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Samsung is one of the most well-known vendors in the flash market and with that they periodically release new solutions for the USB 3.0 market. Last month, we had the opportunity to take a look at their latest small form factor solution with the 64GB FIT. Today, we have the second solution Samsung sent along in the 64GB USB 3.0 flash drive or MUF-64BA.

This latest solution from Samsung is targeted towards notebook users with its sleek, compact design. Capacity options range from 16 to 64GB while marketing performance promises 130 MB/s transfer speed. Like other solutions from Samsung, this flash solution sports what Samsung calls 5-proof technology which includes Water, shock, temperature, magnetic and x-ray proof. Compatibility extends to Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X.

MSRP of the Samsung MUF-64BA is listed at $49.99 with a five-year warranty.

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Packaging for the Samsung USB 3.0 flash drive is set for retail. As you can see we have the drive at the bottom with capacity listed to the right while marketing information is listed below.

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The back of the packaging includes additional marketing information along with a small chart showing how much can be stored on this drive. These include 13,000 pictures, 348 minutes of HD video, and 436 MP3s.

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Removing the flash drive from its packaging, we have a rather slim solution that is both glossy with its metal exterior while carrying a unique design.

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While the front of the drive houses the Samsung logo, on the back of the drive, we find the capacity listed.

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The port end of the drive is slim allowing this drive to be used without any of the port blocking side effects of other solutions. The USB 3.0 port is colored appropriately.

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The Samsung USB 3.0 64GB flash drive is factory formatted in the FAT32 file system. While this allows excellent compatibility between Windows and OS X, it does limit the file size to 4GB. Usable capacity after formatting is 59.7 GB.

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Starting our testing off with Windows 10, we found the Samsung to reach 160 MB/s read and 119 MB/s write.

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Switching over to OS X 10.10, the Samsung produced similar results reaching 130 MB/s read but only 50 MB/s write.

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Lastly, we have our Price/Performance chart where the Samsung MUF-64BA came in at 82.2% just behind the VisionTek solution and just in front of the SanDisk.

While the Samsung MUF 64BA isn't the highest performing solution on the market, it does carry a good feature set including capacity, slim profile and a rather great design. The materials used in the build add to the durability with the entire drive being a single piece design. Of course, with this drive carrying a glossy appearance it does tend to attract fingerprints.

The performance of the drive was above marketing performance with our Windows 10 testing reaching 160 MB/s read and 119 MB/s write. After switching to OS X, performance did drop slightly only to reach 130 MB/s read and 50 MB/s write. With that said when adding in the drives price per GB, we found it to place at 82.2% in our Price/Performance chart, a very respectable position. I found this rather interesting as the top of our Price/Performance used to be solely grounds for higher capacity solutions but as of late, we have seen lower capacity solutions start to creep into the upper realms of the chart including this solution Samsung.

At the time of writing, the Samsung MUF-64BA carries an MSRP of $49.99 with a five-year warranty.

Tyler's Test System Specifications

• Motherboard: ASUS Z97-A - Buy from Amazon / Read our review
• CPU: Intel Core i7 4770K - Buy from Amazon / Read our review
• Cooler: Corsair H100i GTX - Buy from Amazon / Read our review
• Memory: Patriot Viper 3 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 1600 - Buy from Amazon
• Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 - Buy from Amazon / Read our review
• Storage: Intel 730 480GB - Buy from Amazon / Read our review
• Case: Corsair Obsidian 750D - Buy from Amazon / Read our review
• Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower 750W - Buy from Amazon / Read our review
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 - Buy from Amazon