“Instead of getting a cheap but very sluggish flash drive, consider buying a USB SSD that looks like a regular thumb drive but is way faster and only slightly more expensive.”
I haven’t bought a cheap flash drive for quite a while, so did not really realise these SSD thumb drives were available. But they look worthwhile considering especially if the data volumes are a bit more. They are certainly a lot more compact and mobile than carrying around whole external SSD drives.
See https://www.howtogeek.com/dont-buy-a-plain-old-usb-flash-drive-but-this-instead