Thursday, 20 January 2011

Thumb Drive - sandisk, cruzer


I originally bought this to transfer data from an old Xbox 360 to the new "slim" type. It worked without a problem, but transfers were incredibly slow. I compared the speed of this unit on three difference PCs with other USB drives that I have.



My 5+ year old 2 GB Patriot transfers data at about 16 MB/sec. My 3+ year old 4 GB Kingston transfers data at around 26 MB/sec. This SanDisk Cruzer, however, transfers at an appalling 3 MB/sec! That's 1/5 the speed of a 5+ year old USB drive! And this is on a brand new 6-core, 3.2 GHZ system with USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports!



"Slow" does not begin to describe this drive. When a five-year-old USB drive can run rings around a brand new USB drive when it comes to performance, something is desperately wrong. I'll just stick with Patriot or Kingston USB drives. I'll never by a SanDisk Cruzer again. SanDisk Cruzer 8 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive SDCZ36-008G-A11

I usually don't review stuff i got off here b/c that'd be too many.

BUT i believe this is an interesting thing right here.

I have no comments on how this USB works, because it works perfectly fine for me.

I like that this doesn't need a cap because it goes into itself like a turtle.

The thing i wanted to post was that it survived the washing machine.

No i didn't realize i had it in my pocket and until i took everything out of the washer, it was just right there.

I was like, crap, $15 down the wash and then i'd have to replace it.

Surprisingly it worked, every other electronic item just dies in there!

That is the total point to this review, so if you just happen to forget it in your pocket, it may work! *I don't advise you to actually purposefully put your USB in the wash now, but you forget its in your pocket.*

I bought one of these because it was on sale. I would've preferred a SanDisk Cruzer Micro 8 GB Flash Drive instead, but I didn't know how much I would've preferred it until I bought this.



This version doesn't seem to be a replacement of the Micro, so I imagine it's faster, but there probably isn't a noticeable difference. The differences I noticed were aesthetic. This drive is pretty small, but it's slightly bigger than the Micro. I don't get the weird contour thing either. It's like a skewed parallelogram. The "switch" is the same way and I really don't think it makes it look any better. A more functional difference is the switch itself. The Micro's switch needed a moderate amount of pressure to get the drive to extend and about the same amount to retract. The regular Cruzer opens much easier, which I can't say I appreciate, and it may be a little harder to close than the Micro. I'm sure you've been wondering as well, does this thing have a lanyard loop? Yes, it does. It's on the back so most pictures won't show it. I think it's tighter than the Micro's lanyard hole. About the only thing I could get to fit it was an actual lanyard (this drive doesn't come with a lanyard by the way). The Micro comes with a small key ring at least, which I doubt would fit the Cruzer.



The Cruzer series goes up to 32GB as of this review (the Micro goes up to 16GB). So if you need one that big I'd say this is a good drive. If you need a smaller one I'd go with the comparably cheaper Cruzer Micro series.

This is a review of the SanDisk Cruzer 8GB USB Flash Drive. I thought I was getting a bargain deal on this drive for $13 a piece. Now I wish I hadn't bought it. The price was right, but the performance was a let-down.



The USB connector slides in and out of the protective black casing, and this newer model is physically distinguishable from its predecessor by its red "tongue" (the older unit that contained the U3 Launchpad had a white tongue). The orange indicator light on the thumb-lock is lit when it is connected to the computer, and flashes when data is transferred to/from the unit. There is an area to attach a neck cord, but does not come with one anyway. The drive came preformatted FAT32 and empty, and no longer comes with the U3 software that previously came with the older versions of this same flash drive. It works as a portable flash drive to carry files, but is not spectacular in terms of data transfer speed.



Pros:

- At 8GB, it can hold a lot of files

- Highly portable.

- Price is very reasonable (CHEAP!)



Cons:

- Poor Read AND Write speeds. However, this may not matter if you do not transfer huge amounts of files. If you just put a few files on it, and then just carry it around, this is one of the best USB flash drives for the money. I transfer over 3 GB of files every day, so I need a speedy USB flash drive.



Warning: Geek alert below!



BENCHMARK:



Using Flash Memory Tookit v2.0, I got fairly linear read/write speeds using various file sizes (1MB to 15MB). The average write speed was 2.4 MB/s, and read speed was 21.1 MB/s. Though the benchmarked read speed was relatively fast, the write speed was poor. The slow write speed may suffice if you do not write many files often. If you transfer a large number and size of files onto this drive on a daily basis (or multiple times a day), it may be painfully slow (as it was for me). Using CrystalDiskMark, the average sequential read was slower (16.8MB/s) but almost twice faster to write (4.3MB/s). The drive suffered with random read/write speeds, going as low as 3.3 MB/s read and 0.5 MB/s write.



TRANSFER OF REAL FILES:



Next, I tested the speed of moving real files of varying sizes from 3MB (JPEG), 150MB (avi), 400MB (psd), and 1024MB (VOB). Average Read speed was 12 MB/s for large files and 7 MB/s for small files. Average write speed was 3.5 MB/s for large files, and 1.7 MB/s for small files. Compared to a Transcend 16GB USB Flash Drive, these numbers are unimpressive. For example, the 1GB file took almost 7 minutes to copy onto the Cruzer (vs two minutes onto a Transcend 16GB USB Flash drive), and about 1.25 minutes to copy from the Cruzer (vs one minute for the Transcend). An 800 MB folder containing many files took over 15 minutes to copy onto this drive... that's less than 1MB/s!!! In comparison, it took my Corsair Voyager (8GB version) a little over one minute to copy the same folder (9.4MB/s write speed)!



CONCLUSIONS:



Overall, the SanDisk Cruzer 8GB is a decent (if not below-average) USB flash drive, and certainly not the fastest. Depending on what you need it for: Reading from it is decent, but writing onto it is unacceptably slow. For transferring small batches of files, it will do it's job. It's low cost makes it an attractive portable USB flash drive, though there are certainly others that perform better and faster (if you transfer a lot of files) for just a few dollars more. For better speed/performance for the price (20 dollars or less), I can recommend the Transcend, the Patriot Xporter XT Boost, the Patriot Xporter XT Rage, and the Corsair Flash Voyager to start. For my purposes, I cannot use this drive because I need to transfer/carry several folders (each over 1GB) onto a portable flash drive every day. Though it is easy to use and may serve as an acceptable USB flash drive for others, I can only give it 1.5-star rating (rounded up to two-stars).



(Note: I gave away this SanDisk Cruzer.) - Cruzer - Sandisk - 8gb - Usb Flash Drive'


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