2009-09-29 - Corsair Flash Voyager GT 8GB

For what is basically a run-of-the-mill functional item, Corsair have talked up the potential of its Flash Voyager range of USB drives. Corsair have a history of making high performance memory, which certainly helps their marketeers, and they have encased the Voyager range of drives in an ultra-durable plastic rubber casing, a nice feature for those who are clumsy with thier drives. Voyager USB drives have supposedly survived microwaving, boiling, cooking, freezing and various other nasties and the data has survived in tact.

The GT moniker denotes the performance edition of the range. The look and feel of the drive has not changed a mcuh since the original Voyager, although the GT has a black and red rubber casing as opposed to blue and black, small things but it will matter to some people.

While the Voyager range is certainly durable and of good quality, it is not the smallest or most convenient memory key about. However if you are in the market for a rugged drive then it is nothing to worry about, it is still small enough to carry with you in a pocket or on a lanyard and the extra durability is worth the sacrifice.

Corsair are nice enough to provide a lanyard in the package , and a short USB extension cable. It is all fairly standard stuff, but it is good to see it included and both items are of good quality. The drive also comes with TrueCrypt loaded for keeping your data private.

Perhaps the most important thing, and often overlooked, is the warranty. Every Cosair Flash Voyager GT comes with a 10 year warranty, so if performance of your flash drive begins to degrade or it fails completely you will have some come-back. It is definitely an important consideration, and demonstrates Corsairs trust in its hardware.

Testing: For many of us, the main concern is performance. During testing we compared the Corsair Flash Voyager GT with a Kingston 1GB DataTraveler and a generic 2GB memory key purchased from eBay.

To begin testing we assesed ReadyBoost performance using PC Mark 05s Tests on an Intel Core Duo T2500 laptop running Vista, with 2GB RAM and a 5400rpm 120GB hard drive. Tests were performed three times without ReadyBoost, and then again using 1GB of ReadyBoost with each USB key. The laptop was restarted before each test, and scores are an average from the three tests.

The baseline score, without ReadyBoost, was 2941. Using 1GB of the Kingston for ReadyBoostcame the average score was 4001, the highest of the three drives, but second was the eBay flash drive with 3928 while the Corsair Flash Voyager came in last with fairly disappointing 3345.

To check on the access times we ran HD Tach, a benchmarking tool for testing hard drives and flash memory. The tests showed that the Voyager GT has low access times, 1.1ms, while the Kingston trailed with 1.6ms and the generic drive a very slow 2.1ms. Whether this is the Cosair having issues with Vista, or Vista having issues with the Corsair remains to be seen, but for normal file transfers the Corsair drive is quick, even if ReadyBoost performance is lacking.

Read speed tests showed a clear advantage to the Corsair when using large files of 700MB, and a good solid second place with a folder full of smaller files. The Cosair averaging 29.9MB/s, the Kingston 19.1MB/s and the eBay drive 16.2MB/s on the large video file, and on the smaller files 13.1MB/s, 16.7MB/s and 9.8MB/s respectively.

The results were much the same when testing large file writes of 700MB, the Corsair came out on top by miles, achieving a sustained 21.2MB/s with the Kingston managing a still respectable 16Mb/s and the lowly eBay entrant a meagre 7MB/s. this advantage was slightly smaller when using a folder full of images to test multiple smaller file transfers, the results were 8.9MB/s 8.8MB/s and 4.3MB/s respectively.

In use: In use we found the Corsair Voyager GT to to be a very relaible little drive, not so tiny that you lose it, especially if you use the supplied lanyard, and the rubber coating actually makes it easier to plug and unplug the drive when space is tight. Talking of space, we found the Voyager to fit most USB ports comfortably even when other devices were plugged in, but if you have a large number or USB ports clustered together and other devices already plugged in it can foul in some cases, but certainly no worse than many other drives on the market.

Verdict: Although not always the quickest drive, the Corsair Voyager GT puts in respectable speeds, and its large file read and write speeds are impressive. If you absolutely must have the quickest drive the are aother alternatives, but with the Voyager GT you are getting the extra durability and that amazing warranty. It is certainly worth considering.