Performance and Testing

Our testing of this drive consists of two parts. The first part is the speed and performance of the drive, which is quite obvious. However, because of Corsair's claims that the Flash Voyager is shock and water resistant, we get to test those out as well.

Flash Voyager USB Performance

In order to test the performance of the Voyager, we used a couple different benchmarking methods on a computer with USB 2.0. SiSoftware's Sandra 2005 was used for testing the theoretical performance of the flash drive as well as Simpli Software's HDTach 3. For a more real-world benchmark, we used NoDeSoft's DiskBench 2.4.2.2.

SiSoftware Sandra 2005

Sandra is designed to test the theoretical performance of a computer's components. The results may not be representative of real-world performance.

SiSoftware Sandra 2005

Drive Index

Corsair Flash Voyager

Crucial Gizmo!

SanDisk Titanium

19

6

16

0

MB/s (higher is better)

30

 

 

Sandra 2005 Details
Corsair Flash Voyager Buffered Read: 19 MB/s Sequential Read: 19 MB/s Random Read: 19 MB/s Buffered Write: 14 MB/s Sequential Write: 5 MB/s Random Write: 15 MB/s Average Access Time: 20 ms	Crucial Gizmo! Buffered Read: 6 MB/s Sequential Read: 6 MB/s Random Read: 6 MB/s Buffered Write: 1.2 MB/s Sequential Write: 6 MB/s Random Write: 3.8 MB/s Average Access Time: 2 ms	SanDisk Titanium Buffered Read: 16 MB/s Sequential Read: 16 MB/s Random Read: 16 MB/s Buffered Write: 3.6 MB/s Sequential Write: 13 MB/s Random Write: 10 MB/s Average Access Time: 1 ms

In this first test, the Corsair Flash Voyager is already kicking ass, besting the SanDisk Titanium and wasting the Crucial Gizmo!

Simpli Software HDTach 3

HDTach 3 has been completely rewritten for Windows 2000 and XP and will test the sequential read, random access and interface burst speeds of almost any attached storage device. While HDTach's results should be fairly close to real-world usage, it is still a benchmarking program and may not exactly represent actual performance.

Simpli Software HDTach 3

Random Access Speed

Corsair Flash Voyager

Crucial Gizmo!

SanDisk Titanium

19.9

0.6

0.8

0

milliseconds (lower is better)

35

 

 

Simpli Software HDTach 3

CPU Utilization

Corsair Flash Voyager

Crucial Gizmo!

SanDisk Titanium

23

4

11

0

% (lower is better)

100

 

 

HDTach shows results very similar to Sandra. Aside from the high random access speed and CPU utilization, the Voyager is smokin!

NoDeSoft DiskBench 2.4.2.2

DiskBench basically copies a file from point A to point B and records how long it took. For our tests, we had the program copy a 345 MB file from the hard drive to the USB drives and spit out the transfer speeds. Due to the nature of this program, these results should do an extremely good job of representing the actual performance of the drives.

The DiskBench shows performance extremely close to that which we would see in the 'real world.' This test simply copied a file and timed it and Corsair is still in the lead by a very good margin. Hurrah for Corsair on their first try!

Physical Testing

Now it is time for the fun part. Corsair claims "Anti-Shock' as one feature of the Flash Voyager. The durable rubber coating should keep it physically intact, but will it work after being thrown around? To do some basic testing of this feature, I decided to attempt a solo game of wall-ball with the Voyager. I basically threw the drive at a wall and tried to catch it when it bounced off. (Kurtis' Note: Next time let me know when you're going to play wall ball, I like wall ball...) For further testing, I threw the Voyager into a tiled floor. The results looked good so far with above average bouncing abilities! To make sure the drive survived the first round of testing, I plugged it back into the computer and ran some more benches and made sure the numbers matched. Sure enough, the drive survived.

Round two of the physical testing was to find out if Corsair's "water resistant' claims held true. Our contact at Corsair told us that the drive could be thrown in the washer for a spin with or without the cap. What a coincidence, it looks like someone thoughtlessly left the Flash Voyager in their pant pocket!


About half an hour after the drive was placed in the washer, the cycle was finally done. I pulled out the drive and noticed that it smelled exceptionally clean. When removing the cap, I noticed a little bit of water had gotten underneath. We were reassured by Corsair that this poses no threat and the water can not get past the external contacts. I left the Voyager on my desk and checked back a couple hours later to test the drive. The drive seemed completely dry, so back into the computer it goes! Once again a round of benchmarking resulted in a working drive with the same great performance.

For a bit of further testing, I also decided to throw the Flash Voyager in the dryer just to make sure it would hold up to these extreme, albeit common accidents. When the cycle was over, I plugged in the nice-n-toasty Voyager for a final spin. Not only was it a great hand-warmer in this 20 degree weather, it still worked and performed up to par!