We love USB drives here at technogog, we love to test them and we really love the unusual ones. Today for review I’ve got four USB drives that are very cool, these are from a company called Tyme Machines and they’re special because they’re Star Wars themed. I’ve got 4gig versions of Yoda, Darth Vader, Boba Fett and a Storm Trooper. They’re very nicely made, they look great, but looks aren’t everything, so I had to test them out and compare them to some ‘regular’ USB drives I’ve got on hand, so read on to see a whole bunch of pictures of these drives and the testing of course…

We’ll start off with the packaging, the fronts are a little bit different on each one, but the backs are the same.

We’ first take a look at our little friend Yoda. he’s very detailed, and well made. They’re all made of plastic, and they’re all rather large. You can’t put two of these in UBS ports if the ports are close to each other. I’ve included a comparison picture as well for each of them with a standard USB drive and my Jawbone2 headset so you can get an idea of the size.

Next up we have the dark lord himself, Darth Vader:

Next we’ve got the most famous bounty hunter in the galaxy, Boba Fett:

and finally we’ve got the ever present grunt, the Storm Trooper:<

And here’s a family photo:

Specifications:

Tyme Machines Star Wars Sculpted 4gb USB Drives

This 3” commemorative designer drive is perfect for any Star Wars fan to backup and share files in style.  Weather your looking for a place to store your work, photos, your favorite MP3s, this is the perfect addition to any collection.

Price: $29.99 (Each)

You can mix and match their heads, but they really don’t securely attach to the base, but it’s fun…

There is an LED inside of the drives, but it only really shows up on the lighter colored figures:

For testing and comparison I put the Star Wars drives up against three other 4gb USB drives I’ve got on hand, the Corsair Flash Voyager mini, the Verbatim Touch ‘n Tiny and the OCZ ATV Turbo:

Pulling some info from the drives I found that they are PNY drives inside of the characters. SiSoft Sandra and HDTach just says it’s a PNY Drive Model USB 2.0 FD and that’s it… Other than that I don’t know any specs or speeds of the drives as they aren’t really listed anywhere.

The first test was ATTO DiskBenchmark. I was curious so I ran it on all of the drives.

You can see the results are virtually the same, very slow write speeds.

here’s the tests with the other drives:

Even the slow Corsair drive outperforms the Star Wars drives…

I ran HDTach as well, not on all of the Star Wars drives though since they are the same:

as you can see, in terms of performance the Tyme Machine Star Wars drives are pretty bad really, but that’s not why we’re buying them is it?

Conclusion:

The Tyme Machines Star Wars Sculpted USB drives are very well made, the attention to detail is amazing, for any Star Wars fan these are a must have item. Add these to your holiday wish list definitely.<

You’re not buying them for their performance though are you?

it would be nice if we could get the best of both worlds though, good looks and speed, but alas you’re going to have to sacrifice some performance for the good looks of these drives.

These are the USB Drives you’re looking for…

Pros:
+Well made
+They’re Star Wars Themed USB Drives!
+They’re cool!

Cons:
-Slow write and read speeds compared to others

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance