Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony 256 MB USB 2.0 Micro Vault

This is a generic review of Windows XP's support of USB 2.0 mini-drives that are attached to USB 2.0 hardware ports. If this is not your environment, then please pass on this review. Otherwise, you would serve yourself well to share my experiences and testing. The rating of most of these devices will either be a 5-star or a 1-star depending on your environment, so I gave it a 3-star. (There was no problem with any of my 2.0 mini-drives when I tested them on WIN98 with USB 1.1 ports.) I'm not picking on any particular manufacturer.

I'll go right to the bottom line and tell you that I've found that these drives may perform VERY poorly in Windows XP SP1. They will appear to perform well, compared with similar USB 1.1 drives, but only if you are copying a very small number of very large files. They will perform incredibly slowly compared to their USB 1.1 brethren, if you reverse the scenario and copy a directory of say 500 or more very small files.

I'll provide the solution now and then tell you about some tests I've run. THE SOLUTION: Format your mini-drives as "NTFS". (THEY DO NOT COME FORMATTED THAT WAY!) If you do, they will perform very well on USB 2.0 ports under WinXP SP1. It does mean, however, that you won't have portability to a WIN95, WIN98, WINME system (if you want high performance in WinXP).

If I've still got your attention, read on please.

I own an Iomega 1.1 Mini Drive and have purchased and returned two Lexar JumpDrive Pro 2.0 devices, a SanDisk Cruzer Mini, and almost returned my newest, a PNY Attache 2.0. I've also had a dialogue with someone in a forum who issued a similar complaint about his Sony MicroVault 2.0 device. I kept the PNY to have something to test with as I probed this issue.

After considerable experimentation and a frustrating 20 or so hours on the internet, I made my discovery!

After reading an Amazon reviewer boast that he copied a single 135MB file in under a minute, I decided to try that myself ... and it copied quickly, considerably beating the performance of my Iomega 1.1 device. Astounded at this, I became curious about whether WinXP had an issue with FAT and FAT32 on these devices.

I created a benchmark of a directory containing 508 icons totalling only 1MB of data, occupying 2MB of disk. Formatted at the default FAT or FAT32, the copy took an incredible 2 min. 56 secs., and I could read each file name as Windows revealed them during the copy. I decided that, before returning the PNY, I would format it as NTFS "just to see what would happen". It copied in 2 or 3 seconds!!!!!

To prove to myself this wasn't a freak event, I went back to my earlier benchmark which was a client's web site having a root folder weighing 44MB and containing 1800+ files. It had previous copied to my Iomega 1.1 Mini Drive in 1 min. 34 secs., but on my Lexar JumpDrive Pro 2.0 and the SanDisk Cruser Mini 2.0 the times ranged between 5+ mins. to just under 10 mins. On the PNY 2.0 device formatted "NTFS", it took around 52 secs.

My final benchmark was a folder containing 3 files, weighing 44.5MB. They copied in 46 secs. to the Iomega 1.1, in 23 secs. to the PNY 2.0, and in 19 secs. to the Lexar JumpDrive Pro 2.0.

To lend a bit of credibility to these tests, I should tell you that I had taken the Lexar 2.0, the SanDisk Cruzer 2.0 and my Iomega 1.1 to a demo computer at Best Buy and the results were consistent. That machine was a Compaq Presario with 6 "Certified" 2.0 ports with WinXP SP1. So it's unlikely that my personal environment was unique.

I hope those of you who buy the MicroVault or any other 2.0 Mini-Drive benefit from these comments; at least until Microsoft fixes the problem one day.

It decides to mount as a security device. Not as a drive. Sony offer absolutely no help in fixing this problem. They are not accesible and could care less about this problem. Sony has shamed themselves with this product and disregard for those of us needing to resolve the issue.

I now have an $80 stick that doesnot function and no way to fix it.

I used this thumb drive, provided by work, after working with a smaller (64mb) fujifilm one I had purchased myself. I was amazed by the untility of the thumb drive concept and thought a larger one would only be better. Retiring the fujifilm I transferred all of my files to the Sony. It functioned perfectly for several months leading me into a false sense of security. Until...

One day at work the drive would not recognize as it should on a laptop. I tried it out on my workstation and it still seemed fine, big sigh of relief. I brought it home that night and plugged it into laptop and got an install screen for a security device. I tried installing it but with no success, and now it doesn't function on any computer. It seems that something internal to the drive had set the entire drive as a security device. I tried every thing I could find, eventually installing drivers from the original manufacturer(not sony as labeled, prolific technology makes it) Apparently there is a fix that involves reformatting the entire drive, but it's not a simple process. I just left it as trash and moved back to the fuji. All of the files are gone and not recoverable, including the latest draft of my grad school thesis.

Yes, it works with XP and true to its USB 2.0 heritage it is fast too, however...

It's big and bulky so its only reasonable to keep it like lose change in your pocket, but then, by 30 days it will have cracked it in two.

Oh yes, the design is really slick but the cover does not reattach once removed, so put that in the bin since you are going to lose it anyhow.

And on a cold winters night what better thing to keep you warm than a SONY micro vault, yes sir, this device is gona get hot and suck the life from your laptop battery.

Not designed for keyrings (not that any other flash drive is either).

We purchased five Sony 256 MB USB 2.0 Micro Vault flash drives and of the five, two have broken cases. Both broke in the same place lending us to believe that the case is weak. Both cracked right in the middle of the drive where the plastic neck piece is glued to the wider bottom.

We will try to see if we can get a replacement drive as these drives were only purchased on 3/30/04 but who knows if they will give a replacement as their warranty only states that they will replace it for the "normal life" of the drive.