Well, you wait two decades for a specialised DJ USB stick to come along, and then two come at once! First, we had the DJ TechTools Chroma USB, and now AlphaTheta has teamed up with Sandisk to launch an extremely similar-looking device with the same unique selling points: a claimed high transfer speed for exporting your collection, and both USB-A and USB-C plugs with a little hinge so you can choose which one to use at any given time.
Of course, the question is, how do these so-called DJ drives fit in with others on the market? Do you really need something special or different for DJ use, especially when they come with an inevitable cost premium?
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Well, the issue with DJ files is that there are lots of them and they are relatively small, which traditional USB drives struggle with (apparently). In the past, we’ve gone into great detail about the different technologies inside USB drives, but now our friends over at DJCU have gone one better.
Numbers don’t lie
Mix Master G of DJCU has been running tests recently on as many drives as he can get his hands on. He’s produced not only a useful table that shows the speeds you can expect to get from some of the biggest sellers, but is also sharing a fascinating (if totally geeky) discussion about it over on Reddit.
I’m sure he’ll be testing this new drive as soon as he can access one, but for now, I would argue it’s going to slip in somewhere very close to the DJ TechTools drive that you can see in this chart.
As I say, there’s more to know about all of this, and if you’re interested, you can catch up on the (ongoing) testing over on Reddit.
• Thanks to Mix Master G of DJCU for providing this info and the graph we’ve used in this article.
Phil Morse
