2009-10-11 - OCZ Diesel 16GB

OCZ has mainly focused on the enthusiast end of the market rather than the mainstream. They have a habit of producing relaible, good performing products at very sensible prices, their SSD Flash drives are a prime example.

This not-quite-mainstream image has left their USB flash drives often overlooked which is a shame as they produce some of the best memory related products avaiable. The diesel drive is an aluminum clad 16GB reasonably low profile device and is actually one of my favourite USB drives ever. It is understated from the outside but a solid performer on the inside.

Although OCZ have decided to use a removable (read easily lost) cap for their drive it is a nice tight fit and in the 3 months I have been using it it hasn't fallen off once.
The other end of the OCZ Diesel has a plastic loop for attaching a lanyard or keychain and also acts as a portal for the activity LED to shine through when in use.

In testing the Diesel actually turns out to be pretty middle of the road, no astonishingly fast speeds, but in the average to good end of results. When you look into the figures a bit further you find that the average results are actually made up of some very good read speeds, and some slower write speeds, 30MB/s and 15MB/s respectively. OCZs other USB drive offerings the Rally Turbo range offer pretty much the same read speeds but over 25MB/s write, so if you must have the best speeds look there, but for day to day use the diesel is just fine. I appreciate the fast read speeds when copying files from the drive, whihc being honest is mostly what I use this drive for, lugging installers and media files around to be used elsewhere.

Overall I wouldn't have any qualms recommending the OCZ Diesel 16GB to anyone, it is a good performer, is very well made, very good value and is a nice small size. It would be nice if they offered 32GB version as well, but that is pretty mcuh the only criticism I can throw at it.