After losing my pretty cool 8GB OCZ Rally whilst at uni after just 6 weeks I decided that the next USB drive I got would have to be one that I couldn’t lose, to do this it had to be able to live on my keys so would need to be tough as well as reliable and have plenty of space.

After a bit of searching I came across the Corsair Flash Survivor, available in 4, 8, 16 and 32GB capacities and encased in an anodised aircraft grade aluminium case.

Looking at the sales blurb an pics it seemed perfect




Flash Survivor™ is an extremely durable, water resistant, drop-tested flash USB memory drive. By design it is perfect for transporting valuable data such as personal files, photos and applications without having to worry about damage or loss of data due to the elements.

Features:

• Encased in extremely strong CNC-milled, anodized aircraft-grade aluminum.
• Water resistant to 200M through the use of a EPDM waterproof seal.
• Protected from vibration or impact damage through the use of a molded shock dampening collar.
• Plug-&-Play with any USB 2.0 certified peripheral computer port (backward compatible with USB 1.1).
• Includes the True Crypt security application (Windows Vista/XP/2000 compatible only) allowing for a virtual encrypted drive using AES-256 encryption.
• USB extension cable and Dog Tags included.
• Protected by a Limited 10-year Warranty.

After a look round the usual online shops at the prices I decided that I’d go for a 16GB model as my last drive was able to cope with my needs but it didn’t give much in the way of future proofing and it was still reasonably priced.

At £55 it is definitely not a cheap drive but it shows in the build quality, when I first removed it from the packaging and felt the weight of the thing I knew it was designed to be tough. The aluminum casing is finished in its natural metallic colour, I’m sure the casing could be made into different colours like most of the anodized aluminum products that are available but I like it in its natural colour.

So what do we get for our money?

The drive itself with a useable capacity of 14.9GB

A dog tag with the corsair logo? A lanyard would probably have been a better idea

And a handy USB extension cable ~50cm long







Here's a better pic of the drive itself







Let’s have a closer look at this thing then, the drive is screwed into the casing which has an O-ring on it to create the waterproof seal, this can be seen in the photo at the top of the page. As tough as this drive is the rubber grips are not attached securely, on the first removal of the drive from its casing the rubber grip on the drive came loose and now rotates freely on the drive, not a great start to be honest. The Casing has 2 holes drilled in the casing to allow it to be attached to a lanyard or just about anything you want really, I have it on my keys so I can keep it safe and still have it handy.



the drive is quite large, at 85mm long and 20mm in diameter its larger that probably all of the drives on the market

When in use there is a nice blue LED status light to let you know when the device is in use.





Testing

I can imagine you’re all wondering what sort of testing I’m going to be doing to see how tough it is, well sorry to disappoint but I’m not going to be doing any sort of punishing tests on it. Its worth too much to me be throwing it around and running over etc if however corsair would like to send me one to test properly I would be more than happy to oblige lol

I can say though after having it on my keys for the last few weeks it has held up to the punishment of being thrown around and dropped a few times, it has a few dents and scratches but that’s to be expected after what it has been through. It still performs as well as it did when I first got it, now I suppose you’re wondering how good that is, aren’t you?

The piece of software I’m using is made by eXhibition software, its available to download free and use but it does have a nag screen asking for a donation. The program runs some read/write tests and logs the time for each test. I will be doing some of my own tests by transferring a 1GB file to and from the drive.

Here you can see the tests carried out by the software whilst the drive is empty



And again after the 1GB file has been copied over



Due to the program only testing for relatively small file sizes I decided I’d test to see how long it takes to copy a 1GB file to and from the drive, admittedly not the most accurate of tests but I wanted to get an idea of the drives perfromance.

Writing the file took an rather disappointingly long 120 seconds, that’s just 8.5MB/s, not great by today’s standards, at that rate to fill the drives 14.9GB’s would take nearly 30 minutes! it is however better than the speeds the software gave me.

Copying the file from the drive took 36 seconds, which works out to be just under 28.5MB/s which is pretty impressive for a drive of this capacity and compared to its relatively poor read speed

In the manufacturers specs it list the drive as having Truecrypt software, i've found this to be quite useful, if you'd like to find out more about this there is a nice Review of it HERE

Conclusion

Overall its a decent drive, i am a little dissapointed at its write speed, especially since i have a lot of photos and music backed up onto it. The drive does however withstand being thrown around which most drives wouldn't, in this area i am extremely pleased with it. i can see most people thinking that its just a gimick but i like to keep my data safe so having it in an aluminum case and beeing bulky doesnt bother me.

Thinking about it though the Survivour GT would have been nice but at ~£90 for the 8GB model it is far too expensive considering the capacity difference for the added speed

if anyone has any questions i'll be more than happy to answer them or add to the body of the review

Excellent review! I didn't even realise you could get 32GB pen drives

The 16GB version doesn't seem too expensive at £55 when you consider how long it should last My current pendrive is a bit flimsy, so even though it has a keyring holder I've never used it as such. Next time I go for one I think I might try a ruggedised on like this, as I'd get more use out of it

as tempting as it was i thougth the 32GB model was overkill but they are dammed impressive, you dont see them that much probably because they are getting on for £100

you're right, i do tend to use it more as i always have it with me, my OCZ one was usually left behind as i didnt have it on a lanyard and it didnt really have a way of attaching it to my keys

I enjoyed your very informative review too ME__2001, The drive sounds very tough and practical, (particularly for those on-the-move) and far better able to cope with knocks than some of the flimsy plastic jobbies.

Good review

Grate Review mate.

Aircraft still crash.


Good review, Me ...

Great review Me__2001

But why do they give you dog tags?

If you have to ask then you don't need to know .




Fab review ME__2001 .

Regarding losing your pen drive, don't know if you've thought about it, but i put a tiny little notepad file on all my pen drives with my contact details, so if i lose it someone (if they're honest) can get in touch with me. I came up with the idea all by myself!