Yes, it’s yet another USB drive, it’s from our friends at OCZ, but this one is a bit different than your usual USB drive. It’s called the CrossOver, and the reason for the name is that it crosses two storage mediums together basically. The CrossOver I got for review is the 8gb version, but what makes it so special is the integrated card reader for microSD cards, this allows you to take 8gigs of storage with you and be able to read the microSD cards from your phone, media player etc. It truly is a useful little USB drive, though from my tests I’ve found that it’s not quite that fast…

So read on to find out what I did about the CrossOver…

The OCZ CrossOver comes in every ones favorite packaging, the sealed plastic clamshell, we can see the CrossOVer through the front and the back has a product description.

Opening up the package we only find the Crossover itself and nothing else, normally you’d find a strap or lanyard, but not this time, though there is a hole in the end for one to be attached.

The back end is where you’ll find the card reader, just slip a microSD card in there and you’re in business.

Specifications:

OCZ 8gb CrossOver USB 2.0 Flash Drive

8GB – OCZUSBCVR8G

The CrossOver USB 2.0 Flash drive is the latest line of flash media that also doubles as a microSD™ and microSDHC™ card adapter. For the on-the-go student, gamer, or professional, the OCZ CrossOver flash drive eliminates the need for card readers and transfers your important multimedia files to and from your computer, phone, and camera.

The integrated card reader is compatible with the latest microSD and microSDHC media cards. This convenient feature enables you to expand the CrossOver’s 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB onboard storage capacity, as well as view and transfer your files from your microSD device. Combining a durable aluminum design and discrete card reader, the sleek and versatile CrossOver features excellent instant plug-and-play and ingenious capability to store and transfer via high-speed USB and microSD.

All OCZ CrossOver flash drives come backed with a 2 year warranty for unparalleled peace of mind, upholding the OCZ commitment to quality.

Specs:
-USB 2.0 Certified
-Mainstream Speeds
-Dark Gray Aluminum Chassis
-True Plug and Play (Compatible with MAC OS X)
-Available in 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB capacities
-microSD and microSDHC compatible
-2 Year Warranty

The microSD card slot isn’t anything special, it’s not spring loaded like others, you just slip your card in and you’re set. One other thing I noticed is that you can attached the cap to the back over the card slot, it clips on nicely, but the hole for a lanyard is there, so if you use a lanyard you can’t clip the cap on the back, not the best design there. Also there’s no cover for the microSD card, but then again I don’t think you’ll be leaving a card in there, just using it for reading really.

When you plug the CrossOver into your computer the CrossOver will appear and a Removable Disk as well, in my case the drive ‘K’ appeared:

I also got an OCZ 2gb microSD card for review as well, you’ll see that review tomorrow, but I figured why not used it with the CrossOver, so I ran SiSoft Sandra 2009 Sp2 Removable Storage Benchmark Test with the OCZ 2gb microSD card in my card reader and then in the CrossOver and compared the results, and they were surprising…

As you can see I get better speeds with the microSD card in the CrossOver than I do with my card reader.

Here’s a closer look at the Read and Write performance using the 256MB files test:

What would a USB drive review be without a comparison? So I’ve compared the CrossOver to other 8gb USB drives that I’ve got on hand.

As usual we’ll start with SiSoft Sandra 2009 Sp2 Removable Storage Benchmark:

As you can see the CrossOver just doesn’t perform that well according to Sandra here.

Here’s a look at the 256MB Files test:

Well here you can see the Write and the Read speeds are fairly low, the lowest of those I tested.

Let’s move on to Diskbench, in this test I took a 350MB .AVI Video file and ran three tests, Copy To or Write to the USB drives, Copy From and Read From.

This first graph shows us the time it takes to complete the tasks, obviously lower scores are better here. Graph is ordered best to worst using Write speed as the reference point of ordering.

As you can see we’ve got over one minute to transfer the video file to the CrossOver, almost double that of the closest drive. The Read speeds aren’t too bad though, a couple seconds slower than the other drives, but not bad.

Here are the Transfer Rates for the above tests, since this is transfer rates, higher is better, or faster. Same ordering as above.

We can see the Write speeds of the CrossOver are abysmal, they’re just horrible, but I have seen worse, though not on an 8gig name brand drive. The read speeds are low, but not as bad as the write speed.

The CrossOver is not a bad product in concept, but I think using faster chips might be a good idea here.

8gig USB drives range from about $12 up to $45 and even up to over $200 for specialty ones like the IronKey, the CrossOver sells at NewEgg for $18 as of the writing of this review, so that’s not too bad, considering you’re getting a card reader as well.

Conclusion:
The OCZ CrossOver is a very unique and useful dual purpose USB drive, not only card you take your data with you but you can use it to read your microSD card on the go without having to carry an additional card reader with you.

Overall the design of the CrossOver is nice, it’s seems well made. I can forgive the lack of lanyard and many do not come with them, and the missing cover for the microSD slot is not a big deal to me as I wouldn’t keep a card in there at all times.

The write performance is pretty bad for the CrossOver, but surprisingly the speeds of the integrated microSD card reader are actually better than the one I’ve got in my computer.

Pros:
Dual use -USB drive and microSD card reader
Inexpensive
Well made

Cons:
Slow speeds, both write and read
No cover for microSD slot
No strap

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance