I love USB thumb drives, I’ve got all sorts of them in varying shapes and sizes floating around my desk at all times. The ones I’ve got range in various sizes, shapes colors and capacities, I just think they’re one of the coolest and most useful gadgets out there today.

I’ve got a double review for you today, I’ve got both the 4gig and 8gig versions of the Corsair Flash Voyager Mini USB Drives. These drives are rubberized for ruggedness and extremely small in size to be able to take them, and your data of course, anywhere with you. The Flash Voyager Mini is a cap-less drive giving it bonus points in my book as I just hate it when I lose the caps, the Voyager Mini is a retractable style drive that’s easy to use and looks great.

The Corsair Flash Voyager Minis comes packaged in the sealed plastic clamshell style package, so you’re going to need scissors or something to open them up.

Nothing comes with the drives, except for a keychain that is already attached, and since it’s a retractable style drive there’s no cap to lose either.

As I mentioned in the intro the Corsair Flash Voyager Mini is rather small, it has a rubberized exterior as well to keep it protected from shocks and general everyday wear and tear making it a durable and portable little way to carry your data with you.

Specifications:

Corsair Flash Voyager Mini 4gb and 8gb

The Flash Voyager Mini utilizes a cap-less retractable connector plug which easily opens with the flick of the thumb, and its ergonomic rubberized housing makes it easy to connect and disconnect from any computer. This makes it the perfect flash drive for users with busy and active lifestyles. Utilizing the latest Chip-on-Board technology the Flash Voyager Mini is the perfect synergy of size, looks and function.

Features:
-Durable
-Shock Proof
-Retractable connector tip
-Plug-n-Play compatibility via USB 1.1 or 2.0 port
-10 Year Limited Warranty

Part Numbers:
CMFUSBMINI-4GB  4GB
CMFUSBMINI-8GB   8GB

What would a review of this type be without some comparison testing and for that I use SiSoft Sandra 2009 Removable Storage Benchmark test. I’ve compared both Corsair Flash Voyager Mini drives up against a few others I’ve got on hand to see how they perform. Of course this just gives us an idea of performance, these drives are not advertised as the fastest out there as some other drives are.

Well we see the 4gig performs a bit better than the 8gb, but from my other experience with USB drives this is normally the case overall.

Next up we’ll take a closer look at the Removable Storage Test, specifically the 256MB files test:

Here we se a different story, in term of read performance both of the Voyager Minis are equal to the other leading drives, but we also learn it’s the write performance where the Corsair drives take a hit.

As I mentioned these aren’t sold as fast drives, nowhere does it mention these are super fast drives or even the speeds actually, unless I missed it somewhere… but they’re pretty good overall. The actual ‘feel’ of using them compared to the other drives is about the same, though you can tell they are a bit slower on the writing, but it’s not much really. I’m not in that big of a hurry to need a super fast drive, and I don’t think anyone else is either.

Conclusion:
The Corsair Flash Voyager Mini USB Drives are small and durable making them great to protect your data while on the go even in the harshest of conditions, and even just going about your day to day business.

They’re nice drives really, they’re lightweight and well made, yes they’re not the fastest out there, but that’s not their selling point, ruggedness and durability is, and that the Voyager definitely is!

Pros:
Durable and well made
Small and portable
No cap to lose

Cons:
Not the fastest

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance