It amazes me that each year memory companies keep putting out larger and larger memory capacity portable storage devices at lower prices than the previous year while trumping last year’s products and their competitors. Corsair, a world leader in producing high end computer and flash memory products sent us their largest capacity USB 2.0 flash drive to date sporting 32 GB of storage. Yes you read correct; a 32 GB USB 2.0 flash drive that you can carry around in your pocket. Crazy isn’t it?
In Febuary 2007 we reviewed the Corsair Flash Voyager 8GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive, and then 6 months later in July 2007, Corsair sent a 8GB version of their new GT Flash Voyager USB 2.0 memory drive. The difference between the GT Flash Voyager and the regular Flash Voyager was the color (red vs blue) and more importantly the speed. The GT series (red) was optimized for speed over the regular Flash Voyager (blue). Early units of the 8 GB blue Voyager were actually GT’s in disguise, which we were made aware of when we published our reviews and found similar performance. Now let’s see what 32 GB’s of storage is all about.
Compatibility and Features
Sometimes it is easier to conceptualize the vast size of this Flash Drive with real things that people would actually carry. Corsair claims that you can hold approximately 9900 JPG at 6MB per image, or 13 hours of MPEG 2 Video at 5Mbps-30fps, or 152hours of MPEG 4 video at 384 Kbps – 15fps or 8000 MP3’s at 128kbps. Any way you look at it, 32GB enables you to carry around a whole lot of stuff in your pocket. The Voyager is compatible with Windows Vista, XP, 2000, & ME, Mac 9.X and later, and Linux Kernel 2.4.2 or higher. There is also encryption software called TrueCrypt included with the Voyager which offers fully featured file encryption that claims to be far superior than creating a separate secure partition on the Flash Voyager.
Corsair tops this all off with a 10 year warranty. Usually electronics these days only come with at most a 1year warrantee unless you buy the rip off “Extended Warrantee”.
What’s in the Box
The packaging of the product has not changed any over the last couple years.
The 32 GB Flash Voyager comes with the exact same stuff as the ones we reviewed in 2007. The USB extension cable, and the cheesy looking lanyard are still standard issue.
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Performance
For the past few Corsair Flash Voyager reviews, we have used a benchmarking program called HD Tach. Here are the benchmarks for this Corsair Flash Voyager32GB Flash Voyager
Based on the benchmark, the software put down the following numbers as indicated by the graph above:
- Random Access: 2.5ms
- CPU Utilization: 8% (+/-2%)
- Average Read: 22.5 MB/s
- Burst Speed: 23.9 MB/s
Some of you may have noticed that the results from our original Corsair Voyager 8GB Drive Review posted in February 2007 was almost 50% faster than the current 32GB version. Why is that? As mentioned in our review of the GT version back in July 2007, Corsair did a run of the GT version disguised as the regular blue version. If you were lucky enough to get one of these before they officially launched the GT you got yourself a deal; a Flash Voyager GT at the price of a regular Flash Voyager!
Final Thoughts
The 32 GB version is still durable, and can handle some rough handling. Cosmetically, there is no difference between the new and the old. The obvious difference and the advantage from last year’s model is the 32GB memory capacity. If you need to really carry around 32GB worth of stuff in your pocket, then get one of these drives and call it a day. They will perform wonderfully for you day in and day out, and if it doesn’t then exercise the 10 year limited warrantee.
The designers and engineers at Corsair still haven’t acted on my criticisms from last year. I am still not too thrilled with the rubber cap with no dongle. You would be amazed how many times you will misplace this thing, and the cheesy cheap lanyard? Give us something better already! All in all another solid product from Corsair but the design is starting to fall behind efforts from other companies.
Pros
- 32 GB memory capacity!
- Durable, shock resistant, water resistant
- Price is fair for the memory capacity, portability and features
- Great for traveling or people that are hard on their gear
- 10 year limited warrantee
Cons
- Flash Voyager need performance information on the packaging
- The rubber cap needs a dongle or some way to attach it to the main body!
- Cheap, thin, flimsy, non matching color lanyard
Overall Rating: 8.5 / 10.0
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