Earlier this month, Futurelooks reviewed the Corsair Voyager 32GB USB Flash drive, a drive that uses a special rubber casing to allow it to absorb impact and protect it from the elements. The Voyager has been around since 2005 and during our first review, we gave it a pretty good beating by dropping it and submerging it in water. Now that we’re in 2008, the trend is to throw massive storage into tiny casings. As a result of this, some people could be holding their whole lives in these little things. In order to give people the assurance that they need to continue toting around their stuff in flash drives, Corsair came out with their Survivor line of Ultra Rugged drives which takes durability to a whole new level.

The Corsair Survivor 32GB Ultra Rugged USB 2.0 Flash Drive takes off where the Voyager leaves us, and gives us an even higher level of durability. The new casing is now manufacturered from CNC-milled, anodized aircraft-grade aluminum casing that is water resistant to 200M through the use of a EPDM waterproof seal. It is also protected from vibration or impact damage through the use of a molded shock dampening collar. The Survivor is available in sizes from 4GB – 32GB (as tested) and also comes in a GT version up to 16GB’s that supports faster transfer speeds than the vanilla Survivor.

The Survivor also comes with Encryption Software (Windows Only) called True Crypt that supports 256-AES encryption. Mac users will have to look somewhere else for their Encryption Software. The drive is compatible with both USB 2.0 and 1.1 and is backed by a 10 year warranty.

What’s in the Box?

Inside the package, we are greeted by a USB extension cable and a set of dog tags. Yes, dog tags. In my humble opinion, this is a dog of an accessory. This makes me sort of miss that cheesy lanyard that they gave us with the Voyager series. Apparently, you hang the Survivor around your neck with these tags to look cool. I don’t think so. I would have rather seen Corsair figure out an ingenious way to attach the cap to the drive so we don’t loose it.

First Impressions

The Survivor is truly a precision machined device. I knew this right away when I uncrewed the two pieces, and then screwed them back together again. This is significant because no matter how many times I did this, the two end pieces with the hole lined up perfectly with eachother. Opening it up reviews the O-ring and the flash drive body itself. It is this full body armour that gives the Survivor its “survival instincts” so to speak. This is also where my criticism of the dog tags over a viable tethering system is justified: If the covering is ever misplaced, the Survivor immediately loses all of its ruggedness. Although we all try to be careful, this stuff just goes missing and I wish Corsair would address this.

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