Home > Consumer Reviews > Corsair 4GB USB 2.0 Rugged, Water and Shock Resistant Flash Drive (CMFUSB2.0-1GB)

Having had a bad experience with a different, cheaper USB pen, it's a relief that this pen actually works - and well!

The casing is nice, a very robust rubber design, although it's not slimline enough to keep it unnoticed in your wallet (though it should fit).

However, the speed is what really matters. Here are the results from some tests I did with various sizes of file:

Writing:
1/16 MB files = 0.4 MB/s
1/4 MB files = 1.6 MB/s
1 MB files = 4.8 MB/s
4 MB files = 11 MB/s
10 MB files = 15 MB/s
50 MB files = 18 MB/s
200 MB files = 18 MB/s

Reading:
1/16 MB files = 12.5 MB/s
1/4 MB files = 25 MB/s
1 MB files = 25 MB/s
4 MB files = 29 MB/s
10 MB files = 24 MB/s
50 MB files = 30 MB/s
200 MB files = 30 MB/s

I can't say why there is a slight drop when reading 10MB files, but as you can see, with raw read/write speeds of 18/30 MB/s, this flash drive is pretty damned good.

The actually capacity of my drive is 3.86 GB, which I think is close enough.

The Corsair comes with a thick rubber skin and, while I haven't tested the "waterproof" claim, I can vouch for the fact that it's shock resistant. The main benefit is its speed - I thought all USB memory keys were pretty much the same, but when I bought one of these I noticed that it was MUCH faster than either of my old memory sticks. Geek that I am, I did a quick test by writing 500-ish music files (just under 3GB) onto the Corsair and then writing the same files to another "high-speed" 4GB USB2 stick. It took just over ten minutes to write 3GB onto the Corsair, and well over twenty minutes to write the same data to the other key. Recommended.

In comparison to the Sandisk Cruzer 2.0GB I'd been previously using, there are pros and cons to this drive.
On the minus side, the drive is way larger than the Snadisk. I'm not convinced by the need for all the rubber protection, these things are pretty much bomb-proof anyway (certainly the Sandisk was pocket-proof after the odd periodic removal of stray lint), so it's bigger and more awakward than it needs to be.
On the plus side - and the reason for buying it, after reading the other reviews here, and in preference to the 8,16 and 32GB drives - it is properly fast. Write speed is waay faster than the Sandisk, and writing hundreds of MBs of data to the drive is nowhere near the toil it used to be.

The only other downsides are the cost and shipping. It got such a good write-up, I bought 2 - one as a scratch disk and one to use as a fairly permanent store of important data. Price was great, but the shipping was rubbish in two respects. Firstly, the shipping cost entirely negated the cheap advertised price of the drive, but secondly- worst of all - this price was indicative of the source of the sender. Germany. Which meant I had to wait a week for the flipping things to arrive and, having rashly given my daughter the Sandisk for school and having allowed the boss to swipe my other one for a customer demo, I was without portable storage for an uncomfortable week.
Yes, my own fault, totally admit it, but it would be so much nicer if Amazon got a stock of the things in stock, so we could get reasonable delivery prices and times. Sadly, this is the same case for the vast majority of the drives advertised on Amazon.

WAfter all that, the burning question is "Would I buy another?" Definitely. It could be better, but the speed/price ratio is unbeatable and, if you must play rugby with the thing, it's suitably rugged.

I owned a Corsair Flash Voyager. One of the great things about any flash memory drive is that you can unplug it, transport it easily, and plug it in to a different computer taking your data with you. Incredible then that Corsair have designed a Voyager that is not fit for repeated use. Sure it looks tough and may be difficult to damage by squashing or smashing but this product can be damaged through normal use!! When you have another USB attachment plugged in next to or above the flash voyager it pushes against the Voyager putting strain on the internal components. A year after purchasing my Flash Voyager the USB connector became wobbly and I lost all my data very soon after. We cut off the rubber casing round the outside to investigate what had happened and found that the rubber is protecting a very flimsy design. The only thing connecting the USB connector to the internal parts with my data on was three very thin and tiny strips of metal. Every time I pulled the Voyager out of my computer or inserted it next to another USB, pressure was put on those three metal strips and in some cases the rubber casing on the outside made this situation worse. I will never again trust Corsair's claims of durability when so little thought was put towards the use a Flash drive is intended for - and the products durability in THAT context as opposed to whether or not the data will be lost if the product is exposed to water or run over by a car.

This USB stick does exactly what it says on the tin. It's fast, works straight from the box, and comes with a copy of some very good encryption software on the drive which you can optionally use if needed. So far, it's been fast, reliable, and problem free. After ordering this it arrived very quickly.