Corsair’s Flash Voyager GT line used to be the bee’s knees of ultra performant flash drives. Their SLC based 8GB Voyager GT from 5 years ago sat at the top of the USB 2.0 food chain for a long time. Sullied only by releasing an MLC based successor in 16GB (much slower than the 8GB) Voyager GT owned the land speed record nearly maxing out USB 2.0′s 40MB/s bus speeds. Fast forward to present day with USB 3.0 well at hand and the latest Corsair Flash Voyager GT 3.0 arrives, not with a roar but with a whimper. Boasting almost only above average read and write speeds for placing it just above the middle of the road at 135MB/s and 83MB/s respectively.

While this is certainly faster than most of the junk flash drives you will find on most shelves, Corsair is an enthusiast drive maker and has to be held to higher standards. They are currently leading the pack with their Force SSD and Revo drives, they should show flash drives some more love. Mediocre USB 3.0 speeds aside, all the other time tested features of the Corsair Voyager line remain. The durable rubber coating still seems protective enough to survive multiple trips through the dryer without a glitch. It’s still too big to share close quarters with other USB devices but it’s not supposed to be compact and cheap, it’s supposed to be big, fast and spacious for very demanding users. To get a full report on where its speed compares to other market devices as well as form and function head to Everything USB.

[Corsair Flash Voyager GT 3.0 Flash Drive @ Everything USB]

By Ian Chiu

Mini Cooper makes one of the world’s most adored cars and is driven by some of the most fanatical drivers. The Mini Cooper flash drive from Zero Basic has immortalized some of the more classic models delivered. The long history of the little car that’s won the hearts of so many of its owners stretches back more than 50 years. The varied life and many uses of the Mini has been produced as almost a diorama of the most notable stages.

Each Mini Cooper flash drive sports 4GB of storage in a highly detailed rendition of 11 selected historic versions. With details down to tire treads and working headlights, the drives are made to cater to the hearts of Mini Cooper fans. The USB plug is also cleverly hidden away inside the trunk of the car and can be easily flipped out with a switch on the undercarriage. A sampling of the drives and a mini-history of each can be found at Everything USB.

[Mini Cooper Flash Drive Review - Everything USB]

By Paul McCollum

Super Talent has been picking up the slack in an otherwise quiet flash drive market. Once upon a time, we were handed almost weekly upgrades in both size and speed. Now it is almost exclusively Super Talent that thrills those of us who still seek the fastest and biggest flash drive. And they are lapping the competition yet again by releasing the Super Talent Express RC8 flash drive. Only slightly larger than a common flash drive, the RC8 comes in capacities up to 100 GB. The increased speed and storage gives your portable drive more abilities. You can use it to synchronize libraries of files like music, videos, ISOs and VMDKs. The software options to assist in moving your files from home, school and work are quite mature now and easy to use.

Their fastest drive to date, this slim portable packs the premium desktop class SandForce controller. This controller is the source of power for almost all of the fastest desktop SSD drives. Super Talent has a flotilla of flash drives that far outpace almost every drive on the market. Each of them manages to crank more speed out of mediocre MLC NAND using multi-channel controllers (mini RAID) and buffer memory. The RC8 is an upgraded version of their RAM Cache drive which allows the USB 3.0 bus to offload large chunks of small and large files quickly letting the drive shuttle the data to the MLC compressed or slightly after the fact. This results in greatly improved transfer rates over drives without a middle tier controller helping out. Real world and comparative results have been posted in a review at Everything USB.

[ Everything USB - Super Talent Express RC8 Flash Drive Review ]

By Paul McCollum

Anyone who has kept up with the megapixel boom in digital cameras knows the frustrating drawback of higher and higher resolution images: file size. Any recent DSLR camera is churning out images up to and over 10MB per picture and that’s ignoring video files. Filling up a 16GB memory card, which is almost the standard these days, wouldn’t take more than a few shooting sessions. Finally getting around to removing said pictures from their digital film canister could take hours. Flash memory has been bumped in speed a bit to be able to store high definition video and images but USB 2.0 card readers max out pretty quickly.

Lexar, a friend to digital photographers, has a new card reader that takes the leap to USB 3.0. Besides being fast, it has a compact and dust proof design that should make it easy to carry with your digital cameras. Newer, faster memory and this spry little reader gives you a fighting chance that you’ll be able to get all your one year old’s birthday pictures off your camera before he hits the terrible two’s. The jump from 40MB/s to 500MB/s sounds great but how does it actually fare when dealing with your average memory card. Performance, transfer rates and time are tested and graphed in a review posted at Everything USB.

[ Lexar Dual-slot USB 3.0 Card Reader @ Everything USB ]

If there’s one market that has to be terribly difficult for manufacturers to distinguish themselves in, I’d imagine it would be USB flash drives. But a stroll around the floor at CES this year led me to conclude that there are 3 ways you can distinguish your product. 1) Design, whether slick, durable or straight-up novelty. 2) Capacity and performance, including read and write speeds. 3) Bundled extras. And SanDisk, one of the few bona-fide brand-names when it comes to USB flash drives, has covered a couple of those criteria with their new Ultra USB Flash Drives. Originally introduced at CES, the 8GB, 16GB and 32GB drives are finally available, and we had a chance to take one for a spin. More after the jump.

Most consumers will claim that price is the most important thing they look for when shopping for a USB flash drive, if for some reason they’re unable to procure one as a free promotional item. But I think the other criteria I mentioned before also play a big part, even if they don’t realize it. So while SanDisk’s latest Ultra USB Flash Drives might not have the largest capacity, or the most unique design. I think they still offer enough to be worthy of consideration over the cheap, gray-market alternatives carried at many stores these days. Particularly if you feel more comfortable buying technology bearing a brand name.

While not necessarily a feature exclusive to SanDisk, for some reason I always associate a sliding USB connector with the brand. And since I’m always an advocate of protecting the USB connector on flash drives, without relying on a removable cap that’s easy to lose, it’s one of the best ways to do so. And I’m afraid I can’t say the drive features the most unique design as far as flash drives go. But it’s certainly sleek, simple and easy to carry on a keyring.

Sliding the red ‘button’ on top of the drive extends or retracts its USB connector, and the mechanism locks in place at either end so it’s not going to accidentally extend or retract when you don’t need it to. (Sliding it out or in actually requires you to press down on the red ‘button’ first, otherwise it isn’t going anywhere.) And on the end there’s an eyelet integrated into the drive’s body for attaching it to a keychain, which ensures it isn’t going to snap off from too much pressure when crammed in your pocket with a set of keys.

As for speed. SanDisk claims their Ultra USB Flash Drive is capable of read speeds up to 15 MB/s and write speeds up to 10 MB/s. Testing on a MacBook, using the Disk Activity meter in OS X’s ‘Activity Monitor’ we actually found the read speeds to be around 20 MB/s for certain files, but on average they hovered around 15-16 MB/sec when copying files from the drive to our computer. But when copying files to the drive, the write speeds never really jumped higher than 8 MB/s from our testing, though of course performance will vary from system to system. In other words, it’s not the fastest flash drive on the market, but we still feel it’s still more than adequate for most user’s needs.

And finally, though it’s not pictured, the red sliding ‘button’ on the drive actually glows from within when connected to your computer, flashing while files are being copied to and from it, and slowly pulsing in and out when it’s idle. Lots of drives forego an activity light these days to keep the price down, and you can certainly live without it. But I think it’s a handy feature since it serves as a quick way to confirm the drive is connected and working properly. It’s also a visual reminder not to absent-mindedly yank the drive out when you forget you’re in the middle of a large and long file copy.

But what might entice some people towards SanDisk’s new drives is the included SanDisk SecureAccess software which lets you create a secure ‘vault’ on the drive for storing sensitive or private files. After all, the bigger the drive you regularly use, the more files you’re going to lose to prying eyes should it disappear. Included on the drive is the Windows version of their SecureAccess software, but Mac users will have to hit up the SanDisk website to download the OS X compatible version. Thankfully there’s a link to it right on the drive’s product page.

Once installed, and once the drive’s connected to your PC, the software lets you setup a secure, password-protected area of the drive that can only be accessed by whoever knows the password. Unfortunately you’ll also need a copy of the SecureAccess software since it’s the only thing that can access protected files on the drive. It’s provided for free by SanDisk on their site, but it means you’ll have to download and install it on any computer where you might want access to the protected stuff on your drive.

Once installed, and once you’ve successfully given the password, you have access to your encrypted files through the SecureAccess software’s pretty basic GUI. You can add files using the ‘Add Files’ button in the upper right corner. Or simply drag and drop them into this window where they’ll be automatically added to the secure vault.

When logged in to the SecureAccess software you’ll also see a safe-like icon on your desktop which you can use as a shortcut for encrypting files by simply dragging them on to it. It’s basically just another way to do things, that doesn’t require you to always have the SecureAccess software open.

Overall though, I have to say the SecureAccess software and functionality is pretty basic. Files can be easily retrieved though the software when you’re logged in. But that’s the only way. You can’t find or retrieve them by using a file explorer window unfortunately. I also found that while you could add a folder full of files to the vault, which preserved the folder and its inner structure, you can’t create new folders using the SecureAccess software, or move files around inside the vault. Nor can you sort the encrypted files by name, size or date. So if you end up throwing quite a few files in there, it could get really messy and hard to navigate after a while. But, thanks to 128-bit AES encryption, I’m fairly confident that you’re unorganized mess is most definitely secure.

At the moment the 8GB and 16GB versions of the SanDisk Ultra USB Flash Drive are available from the company’s online store for $47.99 and $82.99 respectively. While oddly enough the 32GB version is only currently available from online stores like Amazon who are only asking $59.55 for it. So you’ll probably want to shop around online first in order to find the best price on the drives.

[ SanDisk Ultra USB Flash Drive ]

At this point you know that carrying anything that looks like a concealed weapon isn’t the best of ideas, even if you’re not in an airport. But if you prefer to live dangerously while toting around 4GB of data, here’s another gun-shaped flash drive to add to your portable storage arsenal. It’s “S&W revolver shaped design” is a lawsuit-free way of saying it’s designed to look like a Smith & Wesson revolver, complete with a metal housing. And because the manufacturer doesn’t have to pay any licensing fees to S&W, they’re passing the savings on to you since this will set you back just $23 from USB Geek.

[ S&W Revolver USB Drive ] VIA [ 7Gadgets ]

We’ve written about plenty of unofficial LEGO flash drives over the years, but the company has finally come to their senses and realized that these days a few extra gigs of novelty storage on your keychain is far more useful than an LED flashlight. At the moment they’re a little disappointing with just 2GBs of storage for ~$27, and they’ve used the most generic minifig in their catalog, but hopefully future versions will see members of their Star Wars family get converted, plus a little more storage would be nice too.

[ LEGO Minifigure 2GB USB Flash Drive ] VIA [ Brickset ]

LaCie recently teamed up with French luxury brand Christofle and their new Galet USB flash drive is the result of that partnership. Hand-crafted in France from precious silver the Galet is supposed to be a luxury accessory like a fine pen or a designer watch, and as such it has a luxurious ~$150 (£94.99) price tag to match. It’s a little hard to fathom why anyone would drop that much money on just 4GB of storage that isn’t some obscenely fast SSD, but LaCie has always been known for their high-design storage solutions, and I’m sure they won’t have much trouble finding willing buyers for this one.

[ SlashGear - LaCie Galet by Christofle is just in time for a geeky Valentine’s ]

As a tech blogger I keep an open mind about new gadgets, but at the same time, I still have my favorites. And when it comes to USB flash drives, for the past few years I’ve only been using Victorinox’s (aka the people who made the original Swiss army knife) offerings for my important stuff. At CES this year the company introduced a handful of new models including these Slim & Slim Duo drives which are lacking the traditional knife blade so that they’re safe to bring on a plane when traveling. In fact I’ve yet to have agents even bat an eye at them when passing through airport security.

Available in 32GB size capacities, or 64GB with the Duo which simply doubles the number of flash drives, the Slims are not only some of the largest compact flash drives available, but also some of the fastest. What I like most though is that Victorinox doesn’t skimp on the components. Even the 32GB model is one of the fastest flash drives I’ve ever used when it comes to writing data. And the fact that they’re also waterproof and shock-resistant makes them a durable travel companion. But would you expect any less from the people behind the Swiss army knife? The Slims even come in a choice of 5 different colored housings including green, blue, orange, pink and silver. Pricing and availability TBA.

[ Victorinox Swiss Army ]

As they pointed out to me when I stopped by their booth at CES on the weekend, Mimoco’s MIMOBOT flash drives are a subtle way to express your real self at work, particularly if you happen to be a geek stuck in a world of suits and ties. To date the company’s biggest franchise has been their Star Wars themed USB flash drives, but at CES they announced their latest licensing agreement which now brings characters from the DC Comics world into their fold.

First up is a limited edition 5,000 piece run of a vintage 1939-era Batman to be followed by other characters come February including a more recent Batman, Robin, The Joker and Catwoman. And further down the line we’ll be seeing characters from other DC Comics’ franchises get the flash drive treatment like the Green Lantern, Superman and The Flash. And as with previous versions, the drives range in size from 2GB to 16GB and include pre-loaded character specific content like wallpapers and screensavers.

[ PR - CES 2011: Mimoco Joins Forces With Warner Bros. Consumer Products For DC Comics Inspired Designs Kicking Off With A BATMAN x MIMOBOT® USB Flash Drive Collection ]