While HDDs are great for storing personal documents and offer us high capacity at a decent price, they do have their cons. When constantly on the run, consumers want fast and reliable external storage in a very portable form factor. Portable external HDDs are usually able to meet those needs, but not always. HDDs have two issues when used as portable media; one, they are slow compared to SSDs and two, they are not nearly as resistant to physical abuse as solid state storage option. For the most part, USB 3.0 thumb drives usually are able to deliver us decent speeds and portability, but unless you are going to pay an arm and a leg, you aren't going to get HDD like capacity. This is where Patriot steps in, with their Supersonic Phoenix USB 3.0 mobile flash drive.