Thumb drive makers have managed to cram quite a bit into the pinky-sized drives, but there are limits to capacity and to some degree performance, since there is only so much room to work with. Fortunately, there is a nice middle ground between thumb drives and larger external SSDs that conform to the popular 2.5" form factor. EMTEC, for example, has a new line of external SSDs that use a 1.8" form factor, which offer respectable read speeds, although they won't win any performance contests versus more expensive drives.

The EMTEC Speedin' X600 is a USB 3.0-compatible drive available in 128GB, 256GB or 512GB capacities at affordable price points...