Home > Consumer Reviews > SanDisk 4GB Micro Cruzer - Retail Pack

I just bought the "Cruzer Micro U3 4GB Readyboost" (it's important to be specific as the models keep changing!). It's just a regular USB flash drive with two special features;

1) It's U3-enabled which means that when you plug it in, before it appears as "removable disk" in your explorer, it boots up a mini-operating system which shows as "U3 system" in your explorer with a CD icon (I think the reason it has CD icon is that it's emulating a CD-rom auto-boot, bit of a fudge). For me the nice thing about this is you can password-protect the whole device ("removable disk" doesn't show until you enter the password). Hint: if your PC has auto-boot for other devices disabled you can double-click launchu3.exe from the U3 system drive to make the removable disk icon appear. U3 also apparently allows you to run applications from the device but I don't really have a need for this.

2) It's bundled with free CruzerSync software (complete licence). This apparently used to be bundled only with the "titanium" series but now seems to be thrown in with the "micro" ones too. This software runs from the device and allows you to sync Outlook, Web browser and - most importantly - regular files. This means it's an effective way to back up your PC (as long as you don't have > 3.7GB or so of data). So what? You can do that without special software? Well, this allows you to "sync" (only backup the changes since last backup) and, crucially, it automatically encrypts all files with 128 bit AES (effectively unbreakable without military hardware) and the whole thing is password protected at a cruzersync profile level (in addition to the U3 device password). This means if you lose your device no-one can read the data - something the Inland Revenue may want to look into :-) The CruzerSync software is a bit clunky and not particularly intuitive but it does the job.

Other than that, it's just a regular USB flash drive. Doesn't seem quite as robust as my Buffalo device and I'm not entirely convinced by the sliding mechanism (moving parts tend to break eventually in my experience) but for the price you can't really complain. Oh and I've no idea what "readyboost" is - something for vista I think (I use XP Pro).

Good drive regarding the memory and readyboost functionality. However, despite being advertised as 'Vista compatible', the U3 software is not 'Vista certified' and therefore some compatability issues arise when trying to use this software.

A decent 4gb flash drive which worked straight away with Vista.

Formatted the drive to NTFS format as it came as Fat 32.

Didn't use the U3 software so I couldn't give an opinion on how good it is.

Not sure about Readyboost yet as it didnt change my memory rating but transfer speeds are very good.

My main complaint is that delivery took 2 weeks. If I would have known how long it would take then I would have ordered from Play.com.

Overall its a very good product for the price.

I am using my cruzer with windows XP and have not yet experienced any problems with it.

The amount of storage for the price was what attracted me. The U3 software was just an added extra, it didnt appeal to me in anyway. Having used it though i find it very useful. I am often swapping between home and university computers and use U3 a lot.

The main programs i use are;

Personalised firefox browser with my bookmarks.
Remote login client.
Thunderbird e-mail client.
PDF viewer.

The only qualm i have with the device is that it feels slightly fragile when inserting/removing as you have to hold the sliding mechanism with your thumb to give it extra strength. Other than that, great little performer.

This is one of the best usb thumb drives that i own, it is so easy to use. a must buy, Micro Anvika are selling it for £50.00 so this is a great price. Amazon rules !!!!