Crucial Gizmo! High Speed USB 2.0 Drive

Reviews: Storage

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Brian Kristensen
Kurtis
Crucial
Jan. 3, 2005

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Conclusion

When it comes to portable storage, it is hard to beat a good USB drive. When they were first introduced, thumb drives were bulkier, of lower capacity, and much more costly. However, as technology advanced and USB drives became more common, many of the kinks have been worked out. USB drives can now be bought for a fraction of the price and have much higher capacities in addition to sleeker styles, smaller sizes, and additional features.

On the subject of size, the Crucial Gizmo is by far the smallest USB thumb drive I have ever come across. While it may not be water or shock-resistant, like the Corsair Voyager, the size of the Gizmo is definitely a major plus. The drive is very small, certainly won't obstruct neighboring USB ports and is very well built. The cap snaps firmly into place and you won't have to worry about accidentally sitting on and breaking it.

On the down side, the Gizmo just wasn't that great of a performer. While it is a High Speed USB 2.0 device, it simply can not match the performance of the SanDisk Titanium or the Corsair Voyager. This is more than just a theoretical speed difference output by synthetic benchmarks; when transferring files over to the Gizmo and then to the Voyager, the Voyager is noticeably faster by a wide margin.

Crucial has been in the memory market for some time and has quite a reputation for high quality products. Having Crucial's reputation and resources, as well as two revisions of the Gizmo it is a little bit of a shock to me that the Gizmo couldn't match the performance of the Corsair Voyager or SanDisk Titanium. But speed isn't the only feature to consider. The Gizmo is very well built and incredibly small. The size of this drive alone is a major factor to consider when choosing a USB drive. The Gizmo Secure software does have its own pros and cons much like Corsair's security software. All in all I think the Gizmo is a good drive and would recommend it to anyone looking for compact portable storage.

Pros:

Extremely small size
Durable and well built
Gizmo! Secure software

Cons:

Performance

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

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4 User Comments

1 - Posted by handrail on January 4, 2005 - 8:58 am

wow, that thing seems a bit sucky. surprising from crucial.

maybe they mis-labeled a usb 1.1 drive on accident.

2 - Posted by Guest on January 4, 2005 - 3:06 pm

Congratulations on a good review there.
However, there is a very important mistake which I believe you should revise your review in order to correct.

The Win98/SE drivers on Crucial's website are for Gizmo1 usb drives only -- *not* the third revision which you have tested here. According to their own specifications on their website http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.asp?imodule...
the USB2 Gizmo is "NOT compatible with 95/98/SE" (verbatim). Those in need of a Win98-compatible usb drive might have serious problems with your review if they purchase a Gizmo, only to find out that it does not work with Win9x operating systems.

Other than this small mistake, I liked your article. May I suggest Iomega's Micro Mini USB drives for a future review?

kind regards,
Giannis, Greece

3 - Posted by deluver_15@hotmail.com on April 19, 2007 - 5:25 pm

i am sick of this. all my work has been lost because this thing has malfunction. now i've got to do everything all over.

4 - Posted by Kurtis on April 19, 2007 - 8:50 pm

hindsight is 20/20, but...

it's always a good idea to use a USB drive just as a means of transporting data, you should always have a copy somewhere else.

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