Ultra Fit USB 3.0: Excessive Heat

July 2019. I’ve just fitted a 128GB Dual Drive to a Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus using the USB Type-C power/data connector port.

Within 5-10 minutes, the Dual Drive became so hot that I had to protect my hands to remove it.

My thinking is that Samsung have not provided any power regulation to protect peripheral devices from receiving too much power from the 3500mAh battery fitted in this 2018 design smartphone.

A quick look at Sandisk’s Dual Drive “compatibility” list – at http://www.sandisk.com/dualdrive-c – only lists older smartphones, which had lower mAh batteries. And I doubt very much that Samsung considered ‘regression testing’ of the Type-C USB port for peripheral power compatibility when they released their newer, higher power battery, 2018-19 smartphones.

I’ve submitted an alert to Sandisk and, to their credit, they’ve escalated my report, and are currently investigating the issue.

Meanwhile, if anyone has the appropriate electronics skills, it’d be interesting to measure the Amps power being output by older smartphones versus 2018-19 phones with significantly higher capacity batteries.

I believe you will find that it isn’t poor design, but rather that the Ultra Fit are USB 3.0, whereas the Cruiser Fit is only 2.0.  USB 3.0 uses more power, but it still doesn’t seem as if they should get that hot.  I have the same problem, and perhaps it is a design flaw, but we can’t compare it with the Cruiser Fit, because one of almost 10-times faster in file transfer speed than the other.

I recently bought one SanDisk Ultra 128 GB dual OTG Flash drive, with a C type connector on one side & a standard USB connector on the other side. It’s capable of USB 3.0 speed.

When connected to my Samsung S8 mobile using its type C connector, the flash drive was getting very hot within a short time. I use it to play music (wav files) & it started to heat up even before the first song ends. By 10 minutes, it used to become so hot that I could not touch it without being burnt.

So, I returned it & got a new one but again the same problem.

This time, I connected to the mobile using the standard USB connector on the flash drive & a type C adapter that came with the Samsung S8. Lo & behold, there was absolutely no heating problem whatsoever even after playing for hours.

Does this mean that the problem is with the C connector?

Users of this flash drive, please give me your feedback.

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I have similar hot USB experience. I used a new SanDisk Ultra Flair 128GB to be connected permanently to a TP-Link Router (Archer A9 AC1900). The router is scheduled by a power socket timer to power off at night & on in the morning. Every morning, about 1 hour after the power on (without manually accessing any data on the usb), the 128GB usb become obviously hot (not just a little warm). And then if I unplug & re-plug it physically, the hot vanish quickly and it won’t become hot again even after several hours. (I tried safe-remove from the TP-Link software-wise, without unplug, but that won’t stop the flash hot). This experiment have repeated for 4+ days, and the result is the same. I tried another brand’s USB flash, it doesn’t become hot if it is plugged in before the router re-power-on. Thus, it seems there is a hardware design flaw in the SanDisk flash hardware controller.

Supplementary info: My 128GB USB is quite new (second half of 2019) and light-use, and I haven’t re-formatted it.

Additional info: the TP-link router port is a USB 2.0 port.

Bought three of these Sandisk Cruzer Fit 64GB USB3.0 drives recently and was horrified to see how hot they became when plugged into a USB3.0 socket - the metal parts of the stick were VERY hot after a few minutes operation. When I pulled one of these sticks out - my finger tip felt like it had touched the metal surface of a boiling kettle !!

http://raboninco.com/MU3D

Sandisk have a problem with their usb 3 implementation. They have had this problem for at least 5 years judging by this forum.

They offered me a swap for an Ultra Flair. But I am reading that they too get too hot to touch!

I am using the Ultra Fit 64GB on a short extension lead  It runs a bit slower but it won’t cook the laptop port.

I also have a 64GB Ultra Dual Drive usb 3 which is actually faster than the Ultra Fit and is tollerably hot. The much larger plastic body could be the reason?

Other brands of usb 3 flash drive dont have this heat problem. Why are Sandisk not addressing it?

I currently own 4 Sandisk flash drives, all of them are Dual (3 x micro USB and 1 x USB C) with capacities of ‘32’, 64, 128, 128, respectively. All of them are bare, the plastic housing just stopped working because of the fragility of the connection between the plastic housing and the tiny piece of plastic on the metal frame, so I had to strip them down.  Because of this I am constantly burning my fingers when I remove them from either the USB hub or the PC.

I think it is high time Sandisk addressed this problem and need to go back to the drawing borad to engineer a usable, stronger device.

P.S. I am about 90% sure that the 32 GB is a Sandisk. If it isn’t then Sandisk isn’t the only company with this problem.
flasd-drives.jpg

Yes it appears that only Sandisk have an overheating problem with their USB 3 flash drives.

Their USB 2 flash drives are fine.

This issue has gone on for at least 5 years and they have done nothing about it.

I have a 3" USB extension lead which I always use with the Ultra Fit. It slows it down a bit, but it won’t destroy my laptops USB 3 port.

Yes, this problem has existed since 2014 perhaps.

I have a SanDisk Ultra Fit 32GB SDCZ43 BM150224846D I bought 2012ish, and it has worked well with with heavy use every since day since! It is above room temperature, never hot, and is of quality I’d expect from SanDisk. Bought at BestBuy… probably $50-60ish at the time.

I have a SanDisk Cruzer Fit 32GB SDCZ33 BM190226621J I bought 2018ish from aliexpress, maybe $15ish. Hot as hades, and failed within a year under similar usage, only mountable read-only and had data loss. I’m expecting there is a current limited short somewhere, the heat produced and energy consumed when idle is outrageous!

I love the small form factor and I’d hoped to find reputable information on what is and is not of quality from SanDisk. On reading these forum posts the only clear pattern appears to be pre-2014 USB 3.0 flash drives are of reliable quality.

I bought the latest Ultra Fit 3.1 and it looks like they addressed this problem. It doesn’t get has hot as the old 3.0 version.

The Ultra Fit gets so hot that the plastic cracks and bits fall off.
I sent my Ultra Fit to Sandisk in Poland and they replaced it with the all metal Ultra Luxe. The Ultra Luxe also gets extremely hot!
I have many drives and none get as hot as Sandisk USB 3 drives.
Clearly they have a design issue.

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I have recently purchased SanDisk 128GB Ultra Dual Drive Luxe USB Type-C. It gets extremely hot when I tried to backup my phone ( the backup was about 100GB) with their application (Memory Zone). I couldn’t even touch it. It burned my fingers. Also, the transfer speed got slowed down dramatically.

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I also have and SanDisk Ultra Fit 3.0, it does overheat, probably because it is small, does not disperse heat, and also because they tried to fit everything in, the wires have to be thin. And remember, as the thickness of the wire gets smaller, there is more resistance for the electrical current to move through the wire, which is why it is so hot. Also, with the physical aspect, it does not have much ventilation, and not much surface area to disperse heat to the air.
I hope this will help you all!

For those who are having the same problem. I found kind a solution to this issue. Because of the higher transfer speeds of usb3.0, disk is overheating. I connect it to a extender like bellow link (I am having this extender from my old logitech mouse) so the extender prevents the disk to use usb3.0 capabilities and the disk stops getting overheated. Ok I know this is kind of a bummer but at least with this method I can use my 64GB flash drive

Just thought I would sign up to mention that this is still an issue 2022. I usually do not spend this amount of money on a USB stick since cheaper ones have worked just fine in the past. Me, and I am guessing most other people here have used other USB sticks in the past. So to pretend we can’t make a decent judgment on whether something gets too hot is not fair. I think this is also more justified after several people mentioning it gets so hot that parts are melting off. Someone earlier on in the thread also did a pretty elaborate test to check.

I bought two and will have to throw both away. It’s not worth potentially damaging the computer parts over. Fortunately I do have two others not from Sandisk for a third of the price that work well.
Recommend Sandisk to own up and fix it since these days people will find out when word spreads online. Owning up to it after will gain respect. Trying to ignore and hide it will not.

i have the problem as well with a Ultra Dual Drive Luxe

i fitted a keyring to it so I can unplug it, because it is not possible to touch it.
With my Ultra Dual Drive Go I have no Thermal issues at all…