Patriot Stellar-C USB Type-C / USB 3.1 32GB Flash Drive Review

With Patriot jumping on the USB-C wagon with the Stellar Pico flash drive, it gave us our first look at a flash drive using this standard.

We visited the Stellar flash drive before when we tested the OTG version for Android. This time around with the Stellar C, we get the same dual-sided design with one using the standard USB Type-A while the opposite end is using the new USB-C connection.

Capacity options for this latest flash drive solution include 32 and 64GB devices. Marketing for this solution from Patriot attests to 110 MB/s read and 20 MB/s write performance while being compatible with nearly every Windows operating system along with Linux 2.4+ and Mac OS 9+.

MSRP of the 32GB Patriot Stellar C comes in at $24.99 with a two-year warranty.

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Packaging for the drive is the standard bubble type used for many flash solutions. At the top right, we have capacity listed with a little marketing around it.

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The back goes into more detail on features of the drive while warranty and OS support are at the bottom.

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The Stellar C is a rather small drive but with that said does do quite well with the black metal wiper moving back and forth to deploy whichever connector you like.

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Here as you can see is the standard Type-A connection we are all used to seeing.

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And the opposite end is the USB-C connection.

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The Patriot Stellar C is factory formatted with the FAT32 file system, ensuring compatibility between Windows and Macintosh computers. The usable capacity after formatting is 28.8GB.

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The performance of the Stellar C came in at 109 MB/s read and 17 MB/s write in our sequential testing.

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Price/Performance for the Stellar C came in around the middle of the chart at 64.1%.

The Stellar C is a good start for Patriot in the USB-C market. While this drive is using Gen 1 connectivity over the latest Gen 2 standard, it does offer backward compatibility with its Type-A connection. The build quality of this drive is quite good, and it may be the quickest Pico drive in terms of read performance.

The performance of this drive was above average with read performance touching near 120 MB/s while write performance, if I'm honest, is just too slow for this day and age. Price/performance lined the Stellar C up near the middle of the pack, and the only real way for Patriot to move up on this chart is to increase performance.

Overall, the Stellar C is a solid option if you must have USB-C drive like a MacBook 2015 or similar, but if you just need a small high capacity solution with a little bit of performance, then there's a whole market waiting for you to explore.

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