Corsair Flash Voyager USB Drive

Reviews: Storage

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Brian Kristensen
Kurtis
Corsair
Dec. 23, 2004

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Introduction

Long gone are the days of the floppy disk. While 3.5" diskettes do come in handy for RAID drivers or flashing a motherboard's BIOS, the slow access time, minute storage space and rather large size are the main contributors to the death of the floppy. Today, there are many more options for those seeking portable storage, with USB drives nearing the top of the list. Unlike many other portable storage solutions, USB drives are compact, durable and work in just about any computer that has an available USB port.

USB drives aren't anything new, but lately they have been gaining a lot of popularity. With so many manufacturers already in the USB drive market, it was only a matter of time before Corsair made their move. Already being one of the leaders in the memory market, the move to flash memory was an obvious one. Corsair now manufactures a couple of different flash-based products for MP3 players, PDAs, laptops and digital cameras. Today however, we will be taking a look at Corsair's first USB drive, the Flash Voyager.

First Looks

Corsair describes their Flash Voyager drives as "rugged, stylish, compact, reliable and exceptionally fast.' The Flash Voyager supports Hi-Speed USB 2.0, although it is backwards compatible with USB 1.1. Corsair claims the Flash Voyager can reach read speeds up to 19 MB/s and write speeds up to 13 MB/s. The Voyager comes in capacities ranging from 128 MB up to 1 GB. The drive is plug-n-play compatible in Windows ME/2000/XP and even Linux and Mac. The Voyager is of average size, much smaller than some of the first USB drives, but still can not compare to the incredibly small size of Crucial's Gizmo! But by far, one of the most interesting features of this drive is the fact that it is water resistant.

Slapping a "water-resistant' label on a product could potentially mean a number of things: from the ability to withstand a light misting to being able to be dropped into a ten foot deep swimming pool. We spoke to Corsair to get a little more information on the subject and were confidently told that the drive could withstand a spin in a washing machine. While this is the first drive I have ever seen that boasts such a feature, when you think about it, it is quite an obvious and useful feature for a USB drive. Most USB drives are placed on a keychain or carried around in a pocket. If you get caught in the rain or happen to forget the drive in your pocket and throw your jeans in the wash, you won't have to worry about breaking it or losing your data. We will actually test this later on, but first let's take a closer look at the product.

We received the 512 MB version of the Corsair Flash Voyager. The Voyager came in that "annoying, have to cut with scissors and still tear it open' plastic packaging we all know and love. Included in the package is the USB drive, a mini-CD containing drivers, utilities and instructions, a USB extension cable, neck strap and user's manual. Corsair also includes information regarding the ten year warranty on the inside flap of the product packaging.

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Page 1: Introduction & First Looks
Page 2: Features / Software
Page 3: Performance / Physical Testing
Page 4: Conclusion

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5 User Comments

1 - Posted by PsychoSnowMan on December 24, 2004 - 1:48 am

If you make one more post you'll have the same amount of posts as the year...

2 - Posted by MaNiAk21 on December 24, 2004 - 10:12 am

How random. :P

3 - Posted by Kurtis on December 24, 2004 - 11:49 am

YAAAY 2004! I won't post again until 2005. That will be awesome. I'm a rockstar!

4 - Posted by EmoMakesMeCry on December 30, 2004 - 3:21 pm

i've lost 2 flash drives so far from leaving them in my pockets when i did the laundry. i might need to pick up some of these.

5 - Posted by PsychoSnowMan on December 30, 2004 - 11:30 pm

I haven't had a flash drive yet but I think it'd be useful, maybe after I upgrade I'll buy one or wait till my birthday.

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