Corsair Flash Voyager 64GB

If there's one tech company that rarely makes a misstep, it's Corsair. From cooled memory to stalwart power supplies to big, fast USB drives, the well-regarded company's reputation is one of innovation and quality.

Capacities double in the flash world, and hence this latest Flash Voyager packs twice as much storage space as its 32GB predecessor. Having reviewed a 16MB Q drive from ei, one of the first USB flash drives, we're still somewhat impressed that we're talking about double-digit gigabytes in the same form factor. Eight years ago, 64MB cost $200. Today, you can get 1,000 times the capacity for just $50 more.

Corsair calls the bootable Flash Voyager shockproof, thanks in large part to its fully rubber sheath. Even the cap is rubber, although its ridged opening fits the drive's USB connector precisely enough to eliminate worries about it slipping off. Goodies include a tradeshow-caliber lanyard with a chromed thumb clip, a USB extension cable, and a branded drawstring bag. There's also a rubber cap retainer on a chain. The lanyard atachment point is rubber, too, but it seems tough enough.

The drive comes preformatted with FAT32, but that's easy enough to rectify. Our drive did't come with any of the bundled software the press release mentioned. Still, its 10-year warranty is attractive.

It took 3;13 (min:sec; 0.52MBps) to copy 100MB to the Flash Voyager with write caching enabled, but then Vista seems to make even a quad-core with VelociRaptop ridiculously slow at file transfers. The Corsair did read the test folder back in a mere 11 seconds, or at 9.1MBps.

If you're into carrying around your own bootable desktop and apps, but you're frustrated by the limitations of a smaller drive, a 64GB Flash Voyager can let you have your cake and eat it, too.

by Marty Sems
www.corsairmicro.com



Computer Power User January 2009