Home > Consumer Reviews > Corsair Flash Survivor 8 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive CMFUSBSRVR-8GB

Purchased this for use with a MacBook Pro. As formatted from the factory, it was fast for reading any kind of files, and for writing large (multi-megabyte) files, but painfully slow for writing many small files. Benchmarking tools (and most online reviews) don't appear to pick up this random small file problem.

Since I don't need to use it in a Windows environment, I reformatted the device as a Mac OS Journaled GUID partition, and the write speeds improved somewhat. I then created a 31 GB "sparse bundle" image on it, which is a OS X "Leopard" technology that makes a growable disk image of many 8 MB chunks. This seemed to accelerate writes significantly, but still nowhere near the maker's claimed write performance.

For Mac users who have no plans to plug it into a PC, I recommend reformatting it. As a bonus, if you create a sparse bundle disk image, you can set that disk image to be AES-128 or AES-256 encrypted, giving you peace of mind in case you lose or misplace the USB drive.

I'm very happy with the apparent durability, and very happy with the read speed. I'm less happy with the write speed, but since I'm using it for write-once/read-many type of backups, it's okay.

Note that flash memory technology for sizes 8 GB and up is different than the 4 GB and smaller drives, and all manufacturers making this size seem to share this "slow for small files" problem when doing "real world" file tests instead of benchmarks.

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R23J1GI621319T My video of the Corsair Survivor 8Gb flash drivr

No doubt, the case is as tough as available, and few alternatives offer the storage of 16GB - two features which may be enough for most. But, the first unit I had died on day two (Corsair replaced no questions asked), and the replacement unit I received has had intermittent connectivity issues with my USB ports. Sometimes you plug it in and the device is recognized, and sometimes you have to reset the computer or dive into Device Manager.
Transfer speed has varied between 1.5 - 2.0 MB per second.

This flash drive is very durable, plenty of storage space, and it is not that much more expensive than the voyager series. The main complaint I have is that since the case is a cylinder to provide strength it makes it hard to plug into my laptop. There is not really enough clearance to get it into the USB port when it is setting on a desk :( I end up using the USB extension that came with it most of the time.

This drive is by far one of the best designed USB flash drive that I have ever own or seen. I'm an architecture student and I constantly need to transfer drawing and image files rangeing from 100kbs to 1+Gbs between a series of computer; this drives size and acceptable speed deffinately enable me to do this. I need to have a flash drive with me constantly and I have found that the only way that I can remember to bring it with me in the morning after 3-4 nights with out sleep is to leave it on my keys.I also work construction and in the past, most drive that i have left on my keys have only been able to last ~1 month before they were just completely non-functional. Thus I found myself going through flash drives like M&M's.
It is larger than most drives however its about the same length as my trucks key. It is TOUGH. I've had it quite some time now and ever part of it is just as tough as ever. Be aware that "aircraft aluminum" will be very suceptible to cosmetic damage hower i find that i really just gives it a more convicing arugment for its design. It's water proof design allows me also to do my laundry with my keys in my poket witch is also quite a frequent occurance. All of this and it's backed up by a 10 YEAR warrenty. You really can't go wrong with this drive.