Sandisk Cruzer Contour USB 2.0 4GB Flash Drive

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I had originally intended to do a comparison of several high-speed USB flash drives. I contacted Apacer, SanDisk and Lexar, but I only heard back from SanDisk. This obviously makes it difficult to do a comparison. SanDisk sent me a Cruzer® Contour™ 4GB USB Flash Drive. As for a review, these sorts of things either work or they don’t. This one does. Here is a brief description of the drive, along with a few pictures and test results.

The first thing you notice is that this is a very sharp looking drive. Everyone I showed it too thought it was very cool and wanted to keep it. It has an ingenious slider that pushes the USB connector out, and then tucks it away. You pull back on the black side with your thumb. This exposes the USB connector. You then push up and the connector comes up with it. When you are done using the drive, you push up to cover the USB connector, and then when you pull it back down, the USB connector gets tucked away again.

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The drive is a U3-enabled drive, which means that you can run programs on the drive that support this. The drive mounted without issue on several computers that I tried it on. I also connected it to a computer that only had a USB 1.1 port, and the drive still worked fine. The transfer were just slower.

I performed a benchmark test with HD Tune 2.54. The minimum transfer rate was 25.1 MB/sec; the maximum transfer rate was 27.9 MB/sec; the average transfer rate was 25.7 MB/sec. The burst rate was 19.4 MB/sec. These number are all in line with the speeds that SanDisk claims the drive achieves.

The drive is visually appealing. It doesn’t look or feel like a cheap piece of plastic. In fact the metal bottom of the drive gives it some weight that some may appreciate, or some may dislike. The drive comes with some simple instructions and a small cover/case for the drive. The drive is covered by a lifetime warranty.

As I said in the beginning, the drive works, and it is fast. I didn’t end up with other devices to compare it to, but I would definitely say you can’t go wrong with this drive. I also appreciate the fact that SanDisk did get back to me and was willing to send me the product to review. Others didn’t even respond, so the customer service at SanDisk should be worth something as well.

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