Corsair Flash Voyager GTX 256GB USB 3.1 Premium Flash Drive

I bought this disk on key after a SanDisk SDCZ880-256G-G46 Extreme PRO 256GB USB 3.1 Solid State Flash Drive died within a few months of light use. I looked for the disk on key with the largest storage, good performance, and pocketability, and got all three. It isn't as fast as an SSD, but it is at least 10x faster than similar products, e.g. Kingston Digital HyperX Savage, for both large and small files, and goes into my jean's small pocket.It is large and heavy for a disk on key, but I don't notice it in my small jeans pocket. Its just solid.Price per GB, the 1TB is about the same as the SanDisk (4x storage, 4x price), and it's smaller brothers. At the moment, it costs about twice as much as a 1TB Samsung T5 SSD, which is the price of size. Its a personal preference, and that's mine.____________ Later addition, December 2024 ____________I have two Corsair GTX flash drives for 4+ years. I use them as semi-backups, and had terabytes written to them. Both are working as usual, starting fast, then stabilize at 80MB/s. I love how reliable they are.____________ Later addition ____________There's a common complaint about flash drives being that the advertised drive size is larger than the size displayed by OS such as Windows. It is a bluff by all manufacturers, so I think its worth an explanation.Operating systems display drive size with GB = 1024^3 bytes. Manufacturers advertise drive size with GB = 1000^3 bytes. The smaller GB allows for a larger number next to it. For any flash drive by any manufacturers, if the flash drive size is advertised in GB, expect the drive size displayed by the operating system to be ~7% smaller than the advertised size.

TLDR: If memory drive casing width is not an issue, get the Corsair Voyager GTX. Otherwise, if speed requirements aren't a high priority, the convenience of retractable USB jack may make the Sandisk Extreme Pro your preference.FACTORS: These days there are so many choices in USB flash memory drives, it can be daunting to decide. The two key aspects are memory size and speed. While most people look at the memory capacity, often speed is overlooked. And it's not just read speed, but write speed as well. If you load the flash memory drive with a lot of data and mostly use it to read that data, the write speed isn't as important. For faster than average write speed times, usually you do pay a premium.Dollar for dollar, the Corsair Voyager GTX memory drive is a phenomenal value, compared to the closest competitor--the Sandisk Extreme Pro. While the Sandisk also features a rugged aluminum casing, it has a capless retractable USB jack--a movable part that can break. Also, its read and write speeds are behind that of the Corsair.VALUE: For my purposes, I wanted to get a very sturdy & durable USB flash memory drive that will last me well until 256Gb becomes anemic compared to the cost of a 1Tb drive (as cost of 8Gb drives 5 years ago is about even with 128Gb today). Originally I was planning to get another 128Gb drive (I have a Sandisk model of that), but then I noticed the pricing for 256Gb had come down quite a bit. At the time of this writing the "peak value" seems to be 256Gb, as the $1/Gb change from doubling size becomes nearly flat going from 256Gb to 512Gb. Consider $50 for a 128Gb drive, then just $20 more for 256Gb, and it's clear that it makes more sense to invest in the larger drive.CASING: The Corsair Voyager GTX drive is an extremely solid device. The casing is a heavy cast aluminum alloy with steel reinforcement. I was amazed to find that the Sandisk Extreme Pro has identical weight, based on product specs, as the Sandisk is more narrow. And that is one drawback to the Corsair Voyager GTX -- it is wide. Wide enough that when plugged into a USB A socket, it will very likely overlay part of the neighboring USB socket. That could be a problem for some people.USB JACK: The retractable USB jack is a novel and convenient concept offered by Sandisk, but it does not guard against dust & debris intrusion. There is also the risk of the mechanical mechanism breaking, as it utilizes plastic parts. The Corsair Voyager GTX is completely solid state. There is the matter of the cap... and some people have complained about ease of loss. But frankly, the cap is made of the same aluminum shell and is noticeably heavy. This isn't something easily lost. If you drop it on a hard floor, you will most definitely hear the thud of impact. When cap docking, the dense foam insert makes for a nice solid friction fit.PERFORMANCE: I haven't done any speed measuring tests, but general observation is that the Corsair is impressively fast with both read & write, compared to my older Sandisk USB 3.0 128Gb drive. The Corsair incorporates a real SSD controller inside it, instead of standard USB flash memory protocol management. It does not get appreciably hot during use.PRICE: For a while, the cheapest price I could find for the Corsair Voyager GTX 256Gb was $71.99. But as of this writing, the price dropped to $5 less, while the Extreme Pro is still at $70.99.FINAL VERDICT: I'm very happy I got the Corsair Voyager GTX memory drive. It's impressively solid & I actually enjoy the heft of this device and the secure friction fit of the protective cap, guarding against moisture & debris.

The media could not be loaded. As a self employed IT Engineer, I carry a ton of digital tools for my everyday use. Not only the usual tools most techs have, but tools specific to many companies I contract services to. Many of these files are huge, and transferred extremely slow with your standard thumb drive.... though this is technically a crossover to SSD, the only "thumb" part is the USB part. However, transferring this fast is such a relief. Hopefully the video uploads properly so you can see my full side by side speed comparison, then you will KNOW just how fast it is!Just to note, it is only this fast on USB 3.0. You wont get near this speed if plugged into a USB 2 or earlier. However, while around 600+ mbps transfer on 3.0, I generally get between 15-35 on 2.0 drives, a couple times close to 100. I sometimes have issues getting it to even work on 2.0 ports, yet switch to an exact same port next to it, and it works. Perhaps dirty ports, I don't know.Like others have said, it's solid. It's not going to break if you drop or step on it. I have broken other thumbs when it's sticking out the front of a pc and bumped it. This one... you will break the usb port on the computer before you break this flash drive.I did pull it out of one pc early on and the drive got write protected and unreadable, had to format & reload all files because none of the commands for repair did any good... but this happens with any flash drive from time to time. I do use Hasleo Bitlocker on it to password protect access to it. It's possible there was a conflict there which caused it. I haven't had any problems since that one time early on.As far as price, it's a bit high @ $50 for 128 gigs. You know this thing costs Corsair mere pennies a piece, but I can't really blame them for making the money before such devices become the norm and are everywhere. Again however, just be very aware that if you use an older computer that has USB 2.0 you intend to use this on, you wont get speeds like this out of it. Make sure you have 3.0 so you won't be disappointed. Of course, you could always add something like a USB 3.0 5Gbps PCI Express(PCIe) Expansion Card like this one https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072LS4JH7/ which should at least get you 100mbps transfer on a pre-3.0 pc as long as it has PCI-E on it's board.